![]() It's also a tale of love, loss and struggles to build new lives, for both Will and Annie.So it's certainly got all the elements of a great read. There are also bitter blood feuds between the Native American Cree families involved, as well as beautiful descriptions of the hard and unforgiving wilderness country and small towns around the Moose River and James Bay and the fading tribal culture of hunting and fishing. ![]() ![]() Whew! Long setup sentence that, huh? The story alludes to the effects of the forced attendance of Native American children at a local residential school run by brutal Jesuits - a practice which tore families apart and attempted to destroy a language and way of life. ![]() It starts out well, a tale of two alternating voices: one of them Will Bird, former daredevil bush pilot from Moosonee in far northern Ontario, now badly broken from a savage beating and barely clinging to life in a deep coma the other voice that of his niece, Annie Bird, sitting vigil at his hospital bedside, telling him of her recent travels and travails in the big cities of Toronto, Montreal and New York, searching for her missing sister, Suzanne, a beautiful and successful model who got mixed up with drugs and pushers. Joseph Boyden's THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE won the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize a few years back and I had read good things about it, so when I found it at a local library sale last month I snatched it up. ![]()
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