From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5–An interesting account of the Canadian fur trade in the early years of the 19th century as seen through the eyes of a Métis boy. The youngster lives with his family just outside Fort William, which was the major trading post linking the fur trade of northern and central Canada to the North West Company's main headquarters in Montreal. Voyageurs, easily identified by the red sash they wore, were the men who worked in the fur trade, traveling along the trade routes by canoe. The boy, who longs to be a voyageur like his father, describes his family's life and the role that Fort William played in the opening of the Canadian interior. Historically accurate, this story is full of interesting details that add to its authenticity. Sharp-eyed readers may also catch the native name for Lake Superior,
Gitchee Gumee. A brief history of Fort William and the North West Company is appended. The map on the inside cover provides geographic context and the beautiful gouache and mixed-media illustrations work well to support the text. A fine addition to historical picture-book collections, particularly in Canada.
–Robyn Walker, Elgin Court Public School, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 1-3. Through the upbeat, first-person narrative of a Metis ("mixed-blood") boy, this picture book tells the early-nineteenth-century history of the busy Fort William trading post at the head of the Great Lakes, where Native peoples traded furs with the representatives from the North West Company, which brought supplies from Montreal. As in Pendziwol's
Dawn Watch (2004), the fiction is purposive: the boy helps rescue a white gentleman trader whose canoe is destroyed in a storm on the lake. But the clear, mixed-media illustrations capture the people and the place, contrasting the harsh storm in the wilderness with the final "rendezvous" at the fort, where the brave voyageurs (including the boy's father), the traders, and the local community dance and celebrate together.
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
