Bringhurst has been defended by Margaret Atwood, who says that "territorial squabbling cannot obscure the fact that Bringhurst's achievement is gigantic as well as heroic", and that far from appropriating native voices, "Masterworks of the Classical Haida Mythtellers" "restores to life two exceptional poets we ought to know". The CBC documentary was attacked in print for relying "entirely on the fallacy, convenient to the producers, that Bringhurst had not consulted with any Haida". Bringhurst with the help of Bill Reid had spent the better part of the previous decade working with members of the Haida community. People from other indigenous Canadian communities, such as late Cree elder Wilna Hodgson, CM, SOM, have also defended Bringhurst. In a letter to the editor of "Books In Canada", she called "A Story as Sharp as a Knife" "a gift to First Nation people across ", and a true "masterpiece in the growing genre of spoken texts". In her opinion, Bringhurst's "efforts are clearly informed with the kind of integrity that all translators might strive to emulate".