Paying the Land

Joe Sacco travels through Canada’s Northwest Territories, interviewing Dene residents about land, work, political autonomy and the effects of extraction. Their accounts reach back through family history and colonial policy.

The book’s importance lies in its patient reporting and willingness to give conflicting experiences room on the page. It treats the cost of development as something lived by particular people.

This is comics journalism and Indigenous history, not a single-hero adventure. Sacco’s own presence frames the inquiry without displacing the people he interviews.

Dense backgrounds and carefully rendered faces situate testimony in actual places. Large landscapes contrast with close, crowded conversations.