Description
Blue Bear Woman by Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau, Cree and mixed heritage, translated from French by Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli, is a story about Victoria, a Cree woman’s search for her roots and identity. This story is told through interspaced chapters describing her younger life and her later life as she searches for her family’s roots at the time of the development of the Eastman dam in northern Quebec on Cree traditional territory. On the journey north to James Bay with Daniel, her partner, they meet uncles, aunties and cousins who tell stories of their family tinged with joy, sadness and loss. Victoria is affected by the colours, smells and majestic landscapes, which enter her dreams at night. She is guided by her totem Blue Bear and sets off to find the remains of Great Uncle George, a hunter and trapper, who went missing twenty years previously, and to release his soul. Blue Bear Woman is about identity, friendship, kinship, spirituality, love and deceit.