Content Warning This section includes depictions of anti-Indigenous racism and substance misuse.

The impact of grief and loss on individuals and families is one of this novel’s most overt themes. Johns initially introduces Mackenzie, the narrator and protagonist, through the framework of grief and loss. Very early in the narrative, the author reveals that Mackenzie has lost both her beloved grandmother and her sister Sabrina. Mackenzie’s unwillingness to confront her melancholy has caused a rift in her family, and she is isolating herself in Vancouver, far from the small hamlet in which she was raised. Mackenzie’s self-imposed separation from her family renders her, in her eyes, a “bad Cree,” and her self-reflective, healing journey will ultimately come due to a focus on reconnection with family and community.

Mackenzie’s family is large, and many of the novel’s characters are her family members. Although plot-driven and not particularly invested in in-depth character development, characterization is nonetheless important in Bad Cree for the way that it speaks to Indigenous family structure in Mackenzie’s community: Her Cree settlement is close-knit. Many of her family’s neighbors are also their relatives, and everyone looks out for one another.