Gabriella Mackenzie comes from eastern Canada knowing little about southern Saskatchewan's ecology, history, and sociology. She's about to learn a lot. Gabriella becomes involved in a government-sponsored Centenarian Project. Her assignment: interview two or three residents who are a hundred years old or older, and record their memories. These individuals have been previously chosen based on the condition that they and their families are willing and able to participate.
Eric Tollerud is the first centenarian Gabriella interviews. He's Norwegian, like the author's own ancestors. As she introduces him, Soggie hints at two major themes in the novel. First: People change the land, and the land changes people. Second: People should interact responsibly with the land, treating it with respect. She writes of Tollerud, "The land had certainly left its mark on him, on those still-calloused hands and arthritic joints and etched wrinkles. Just as he, and others like him, had marked the land with their fields and fences and roads."
Tollerud's parents homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the early 1900s, and he grew up as a farm boy. I myself spent my early years on a Saskatchewan farm and wrote a novel based on those experiences (CONSIDER THE SUNFLOWERS), so I particularly enjoyed reading Tollerud's memories. They're presented at intervals throughout the novel, beginning in 1917. Told from his viewpoint, they give readers insights into the historical periods he lived through, and the lives and concerns of Saskatchewan farm families of those times.
Soggie interweaves the homesteaders' experiences with those of Indigenous peoples (mainly Cree) and the Metis, or "middle people" (people with both an Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage). As with Tollerud, she presents Metis experiences and viewpoints through specific fictional individuals and their families. One is Jean-Jacques LaPrairie, who lived in the 1800s and into the 1900s. The other is Madeline Hirondelle, a contemporary of Gabriella's in the 2000s.
A major representative of Indigenous peoples in the book is Maskepetoon (1807-1869). He was a real-life Cree leader who became well known and respected for making peace between Cree and other Indigenous groups. Maskepetoon's interesting life and accomplishments are featured in the book in several different connections.
PRAIRIE GRASS sports an attractive cover portraying the prairie grasslands the author loves so much. In a number of passages, she stresses the importance of protecting this endangered ecosystem, which she describes in moving and beautiful ways. For example: "Every square foot of native prairie is home to dozens, maybe hundreds, of life forms…. It includes all the plant life that has adapted over thousands of years to the many varied microclimates created by sun and wind, heat and cold, drought and flood…. Prairie grass is made up of grasses like blue grama and needle-and-thread. It also consists of forbs like pussy-foot and pasture sage. It includes flowering plants like golden bean and scarlet mallow. Its survival is inter-reliant upon the many varieties of lichens and fungi and mysterious multitudinous bacteria in tiny organisms that inhabit the soil, transforming death into life."
Most chapters in Soggie's book begin with a drawing of one plant among the many that make up prairie grass. Each drawing is accompanied by a short description attributed to "Gabriella's Prairie Notes." I'm glad the fictional Gabriella went to Saskatchewan and undertook her sensitive and extensive research. I'll think about her next time I revisit my homeland on the Saskatchewan prairie.
PRAIRIE GRASS is published by BWL Publishing Inc. http://bookswelove.net/soggie-joan/ . It's available from Amazon, Kobo, Indigo and all participating bookstores. https://books2read.com/Prairie-Grass .
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