Lake of the Prairies

A Story of Belonging

POWERFUL, FUNNY, MOVING AND PERSONAL, LAKE OF THE PRAIRIES IS A RICHLY LAYERED EXPLORATION OF THE UNIVERSAL CHILDHOOD QUESTION: WHERE DO I COME FROM?

Shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, 2004

Chosen as a Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year, 2002

Winner of the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, 2003

by Warren Cariou

Just over the Montana border is Eastend, Saskatchewan, home of Wallace Stegner. Warren Cariou's story begins 400 miles north of there, in a town located in a part of Saskatchewan that does not exist in popular imagination: a treed province of rocks, water, and muskeg. Removed from prairie traditions, Meadow Lake is enclosed in the ethos of the north, where there is magic in a story and fiction is worth much more than fact.

Grounded in the fertile soil of Meadow Lake are two historical traditions — Native and settler. Cariou's maternal grandparents were European immigrants. Their stories lived alongside Native legends in Cariou's boyhood imagination and as he dug for arrowheads, spear points, and stone hammers, he stumbled upon evidence of centuries of Cree setlement in the area. But the tragic history of how these traditions came to share the same home would remain hidden from Cariou until much later. In the schoolyard and on the street corners he witnessed the discrimination, distrust, anger, and fear directed at the town's Cree and Metis populations — prejudices he absorbed as his own.

As an adult Cariou has been forced to confront the politics of race in Meadow Lake on a number of occasions — some horrific, others surprising. He learned that Clayton Matchee, a rambunctious Native boy with whom he had gone to school, had been taught to hate so profoundly that he could be involved in a torture and murder that would shock the world. And then Cariou discovered secrets that his family had kept hidden for generations, secrets that would alter forever his sense of identity and belonging in Meadow Lake.

(Photo: Robert Tinker)

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320 pages hardcover
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Canada: Doubleday

ABOUT WARREN CARIOU

Warren Cariou is the proud son of a gifted Métis storyteller, Ray Cariou, whose brilliant and hilarious tellings continue to inspire him long after his passing. As a scholar, Warren has devoted much of his career to studying and celebrating the oral stories of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island, especially the Métis and Cree traditions. He was the founding director of the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba, which he led for twelve years, and he remains active in the Centre’s work. He has collaborated with several Indigenous storytellers on film projects, children’s books, scholarly studies and community activism. He has also published works of fiction and memoir, and has edited a number of books by prominent Indigenous writers. He recently completed a ten-year term as Canada Research Chair in Narrative, Community and Indigenous Cultures at the University of Manitoba, and remains a professor there in the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media. He is a Red River Métis citizen and also has roots in Saskatchewan’s Métis community through the Beaulieu dit Sinclair and Hamelin families.