In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco turns his comics journalist’s eye on the Canadian north, visiting a number of Dene settlements via a winter road (meaning they’re fly-in towns during the summer), collecting interviews and experiences. In fewer than 300 pages he manages to introduce the local history, the situation with oil & gas (and the recent bust of that industry), the mining and fur trades, the trauma of the residential school system, the Truth and Reconcilliation Comission, the northern suicide epidemic, and the politics surrounding land claims. The art is, as with all of Sacco’s work, fantastically detailed and is what allows him to say so much in so few pages.

Having read about the various topics in narrower forms from Canadian sources, it was fascinating to see a broader overview from an outsider’s perspective, written for a foreign audience, especially one that manages to so perfectly mix the historical, personal, and political. Brilliant work.