Description
Book Synopsis“Jean-Yves Soucy’s story and encounter with my Dad provides a charming glimpse into a changing world, for us all.”- Romeo Saganash.
It’s 1963, Jean-Yves Soucy is 18 and dreams of being a fire warden scanning the boreal forest from a fire tower. But he ends up at an equipment depot between Val-d’Or and Chibougamau. To his delight, he is located near the Cree community of Wawanipi. With two Cree guides, including a man named William Saganash, he will be canoeing through the lakes and rivers of the region.
On each encounter with the Crees, Jean-Yves expects to see a new world. Instead, he meets a different civilization, as different from his own as Chinese civilization. Yet he knows nothing about it.
He wrote Waswanipi because Romeo Saganash, son of William, insisted: “You have to write that, Jean-Yves. About your relationship with my father and the others, how you saw the village. You got to see the end of an era.”
Provides a Cree-English glossary.
Trade Review“A book that feels like a movie.”- Mathieu Lavigne, Radio Ville-Marie;
“an appeal to generosity and openness… This beautifully written- and witty- story becomes particularly significant through the encounter of two cultures, the overcoming of ignorance or distrust that separates them…”- Nuit Blanche;
“like a summer gift, to be savoured, slowly.”- Yvon Paré Litterature du Québec
