Ted Trindell: Metis Witness to the North

This book is Ted Trindell’s memoir. Working from tapes and correspondance, editors Jean Morisset and Rose-Marie Pelletier have compiled what is essentially an extended monologue: a compelling portrait of the man known as “the Shakespeare of the Slavey.” Their text preserves the language of a place and a man intact. It is truly a multicultural, trans-cultural accomplishment. Ted Trindall was, in his own words, a “full-swing bush man” : a northern trapper who spent most of his life working in the bush in the Liard River country of the Northwest Territories. In the course of a long life, he became widely known as a storyteller and Native philosopher – and eventually as one who still had a full command of the Indian culture and lore which sustained life in the Mackenzie Valley prior to and during the encroachment of southern industrial values. As a Metis he was uniquely situated to comment on the interracial, inter-ethenic and intercultural struggles that have marked the history of the north in this century.