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“I like to say that it’s one long, run-on sentence, from cover to cover,” Stewart laughs. And so what? “There’s nothing in the (UBC dissertation) rules about formats or punctuation,” he insists.

A 61-year-old architect from the Nisga’a First Nation, Stewart explains that he “wanted to make a point” about aboriginal culture, colonialism, and “the blind acceptance of English language conventions in academia.”

In the introduction to his thesis, he writes that,

“in my defense my style of writing is not laziness or lack of knowledge of proper usage of the english language it is a form of grammatical resistance as a deconstructionist in the manner of many writers especially american poet ee cummings he graduated with a master degree in english from harvard university and they called him experimental and innovative not words likely to be used to describe an indigenous writer who breaks all the rules of writing (the behavioural ethics board at the university of british columbia suggested that i hire an editor as it appeared that i did not know the english language) times though they are changing”

Some people “thought this was great,” says Stewart. Others most certainly did not. “I was cautioned,” he recalls. “I was warned. I was told that some people just wouldn’t get it, that there would be roadblocks thrown up.”

I was warned. I was told that some people just wouldn’t get it, that there would be roadblocks

He wrote his first draft in the Nisga’a language. That failed to impress at least one senior UBC professor, a powerful figure who would eventually have to sign off on the work, or all would be lost. Stewart was called on the professor’s carpet and told his work was not acceptable. He was asked to translate “every word” of his dissertation into English. “So I did that,” he recalls. “There was still no guarantee it would be approved.”