Powwow SummerPart Ojibwe and part white, River lives with her white mother and stepfather on a farm in Ontario. Teased about her Indigenous heritage as a young girl, she feels like she doesn't belong and struggles with her identity. Now eighteen and just finished high school, River travels to Winnipeg to spend the summer with her Indigenous father and grandmother, where she sees firsthand what it means to be an "urban Indian." On her family's nearby reserve, she learns more than she expects about the lives of Indigenous people, including the presence of Indigenous gangs and the multi-generational effects of the residential school system. But River also discovers a deep respect for and connection with the land and her cultural traditions. The highlight of her summer is attending the annual powwow with her new friends. At the powwow after party, however, River drinks too much and posts photos online that anger people and she has her right to identify as an Indigenous person called into question. Can River ever begin to resolve the complexities of her identity — Indigenous and not? |
Contents
Prologue I Remember | 5 |
Chapter 1 On the Beach | 8 |
Chapter 2 Love is Good | 13 |
Chapter 3 The Women Set the Table | 17 |
Chapter 4 I Fight Myself | 21 |
June 22 | 28 |
Chapter 5 We Quarrel with Each Other | 29 |
Chapter 6 Courage | 33 |
Chapter 16 Sun Appearing From the Sky | 87 |
Chapter 17 I am Relating | 92 |
July 11 | 98 |
Chapter 18 I am Sewing One Object to the Other | 100 |
July 31 | 104 |
Chapter 19 At Noon | 107 |
Chapter 20 The Song Sounds Good | 113 |
Chapter 21 I Cover My Head with a Handkerchief | 118 |
June 23 Bus Station | 36 |
Chapter 7 I am Misunderstood | 37 |
June 24 I Think | 41 |
Chapter 8 Drag Something Out of the Water | 42 |
June 25 In The Car | 46 |
Chapter 9 Ill Make Tea and Bannock | 47 |
June 25 Later | 52 |
Chapter 10 He is My Father | 54 |
Chapter 11 I am a Half Breed | 60 |
July 2 | 66 |
Chapter 12 It is a Nice Evening | 68 |
Chapter 13 The Lady Got Drunk | 72 |
Chapter 14 I am Afraid | 76 |
Chapter 15 I Look at Him Behind Me | 82 |
July 10 | 86 |
August 8 | 124 |
Chapter 22 The Girls Hurt the Child | 126 |
August 9 | 131 |
Chapter 23 I Hurt His Feelings | 132 |
Chapter 24 It Causes o rBrings Shame | 136 |
Chapter 25 Pass the Eagle Feather | 142 |
Chapter 26 The Cedar Lodge | 147 |
August 13 | 151 |
Chapter 27 Grandmother is Kind | 153 |
Chapter 28 They Gather Birch Bark | 158 |
August 24 | 164 |
Chapter 29 Drive Home | 166 |
Chapter 30 We Left in a Good Way | 170 |
Epilogue See You Later | 175 |