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Biography & Autobiography. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year A Quill & Quire Book of the Year A CBC Books Nonfiction Book of the Year A Maclean's 20 Books You Need to Read this Winter "An instant classic that demands to be read with your heart open and with a perspective widened to allow in a whole new understanding of family, identity and love." â??Cherie Dimaline In this bestselling memoir, a son who grew up away from his Indigenous culture takes his Cree father on a trip to the family trapline and finds that revisiting the past not only heals old wounds but creates a new future The son of a Cree father and a white mother, David A. Robertson grew up with virtually no awareness of his Indigenous roots. His father, Dulasâ??or Don, as he became knownâ??lived on the trapline in the bush in Manitoba, only to be transplanted permanently to a house on the reserve, where he couldn't speak his language, Swampy Cree, in school with his friends unless in secret. David's mother, Beverly, grew up in a small Manitoba town that had no Indigenous people until Don arrived as the new United Church minister. They married and had three sons, whom they raised unconnected to their Indigenous history. David grew up without his father's teachings or any knowledge of his early experiences. All he had was "blood memory": the pieces of his identity ingrained in the fabric of his DNA, pieces that he has spent a lifetime putting together. It has been the journey of a young man becoming closer to who he is, who his father is and who they are together, culminating in a trip back to the trapline to reclaim their connection to the land. Black Water is a memoir about intergenerational trauma and healing, about connection and about how Don's life informed David's own. Facing up to a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey together back to the trapline at Black Water and through the past to create a new fut… (more)
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User reviews
But.
As I've said
OK, I get it.
Finally, chapter 13 had them arrive at the family trapline, just barely in time for the end of the book.
I guess I was misled by the jacket blurb which called this 'a father-son journey to the northern trapline where Robertson and his father will reclaim their connection to the land". No, they didn't move up there and start trapping.
Misled by the reviewer who stated "rich in lore and insight and compassion". Well, there was plenty of insight, and he did describe his compassion for what his mother went thru, and respected family member's privacy by not sharing everything. But the only lore shared was the same snippet.
Misled by "mesmerizing...and tremendously gorgeous" said by Cherie Dimaline, the author of 'The Marrow Thieves' (which I was mesmerized by).
Another person might connect with this book, but not me.