Customer Reviews

The Long Journey of a Forgotten People: Métis Identities and Family Histories (Indigenous Studies)

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Long Journey of a Forgotten People, The: Métis Identities and Family Histories (Aboriginal Studies)

As a Métis individual myself, I was both impressed and a little depressed by this collection of individual stories relating the discovery of the personal values involved in the development of Métis identity. Having been through a parallel but quite different journey, the stories held few surprises for me, if only because I have heard hundreds of similar stories over the 30+ years I spent working in urban Métis organizations.

I was impressed by the fact that most of the stories in the book were told from a perspective of deeply felt personal experience and, for the most part,successfully avoided the only too common rhetorical political ranting of many books coming out of Métis communities across Canada. I was somewhat depressed by the fact that several of the storytellers measured their success by how well they were able to function in, and how much they had achieved in terms of the "white" or non-Aborginal world. I guess I was hoping for more insight into how their respective experiences heightened or broadened their awareness of what it meant to be Métis from an indigenous and more "spiritual" point of view. Answers to the question "What does being Métis mean to the future of Canada?" might have been interesting.

To the extent that this book can serve to encourage Métis individuals to seek out their heritage on a personal level, I rate it among the top ten of the hundreds of Métis oriented books and articles I have read. It is on that basis that I highly recommend it, not only to Métis individuals, but to both Indian and non-Aboriginal readers who are interested in a fuller undestanding of what being Métis is all about. -- Martin F. Dunn