Scratching River

Scratching River

by Michelle Porter
Scratching River

Scratching River

by Michelle Porter

Paperback

$19.99 
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Overview

Scratching River weaves multiple stories and voices across time to explore the strengths and challenges of the ways in which Métis have created, and continue to create, home through a storied and mobile social geography that is always on the move.

The book foregrounds the story of a search for a home for Michelle Porter’s older brother, who holds dual diagnoses of schizophrenia and autism, and the abuse he endured at the rural Alberta group home that was supposed to care for him. Interspersed throughout are news clippings about the investigation into “The Ranch,” the home in question. Métis history is woven between the contemporary stories of the author, her brother, and her mother. As the pieces come together, the book uses the river as a metaphor to suggest that rather than a weakness, the ability to move and move again and to move on has enabled survival, healing, and ongoing reconciliation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781771125444
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication date: 04/15/2022
Series: Life Writing Series
Pages: 184
Product dimensions: 5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michelle Porter's first book of poetry, Inquiries, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award in 2019. Her first book of nonfiction is Approaching Fire, in which she embarks on a quest to find her great-grandfather, the Métis fiddler and performer Léon Robert Goulet. She is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She currently lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Table of Contents

1 Scratching River 1

2 The West Bank of Red River 11

3 The Buffalo Hunt at Wood Mountain 21

4 When the Buffalo are Scarce: Moving Down the Missouri River 33

5 At the Speed of an Ox: The Hunt in Cypress Hills 43

6 The Birds of the Plains 55

7 Wintering Over 71

8 Having a Dance at Judith Basin 85

9 It's Spring Again and We're Heading to St. Albert 95

10 Traveling to See the Cousins in St. Norbert 107

11 Fire on the Prairies 119

12 Buffalo Treaty 129

Afterword 139

A Bibliography Can Be Dangerous Terrain 147

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