Burnt Snow : My Years Living and Working with the Dene of the Northwest Territories

In northern Canada, there is a way of life that has been vanishing before our very eyes—and is continuing to disappear at an alarming pace. Life in the North is undergoing incredible changes, and yet the people of the North, cling onto every vestige of that old life that they can. The author, an Irish Immigrant, who for five years was partially raised by a Metis family in Winnipeg, heads North in a soul searching mission to find himself and his place in life. The reflections of his encounters with some of the leading figures of the North are quite humorous and consequential in the later development of the North. He describes the Indigenous Elders who would influence him in countless ways, and how their teachings are later, the source of northern survival in otherwise seemingly impossible situations. This book reflects the people of that time, and their lifestyle of living off the land in total independence and their incredible life-skills of survival.