Jean Blackwood's Reviews > Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water

This is one of those books I wanted to like. But it turned out to be another of those books written by someone who imagines his private tribulations and his thoughts about them are noteworthy enough to tell the whole world about. Then he tries to tie his personal life to the truly difficult tribulations endured by the native people of northern Manitoba who had to endure the unintended consequences of a huge hydro dam that changed the ecology of their native land and left them with only broken promises about the benefits.
The story of those people deserves attention, even if it isn't different from a hundred other tales of broken treaties and damaged societies. And it's worthwhile noting the extreme kindness they showed to the author during his week-long visit. But a true journalist or sociologist who visited or lived among the native people for a long time could likely have told us much more.
Ultimately Ali fails to convince us that his personal sadness about the loss of his childhood home compares in any way with harm done to the native Cree people who were his neighbors, people he was barely aware of as a happy, well-off child.