Students of Aboriginal culture, history, and literature will find that this is no ordinary book of stories compiled from a remote, disconnected voice, but rather a project in which the teller, deeply engaged in preserving his people's history, language, and values, is committed to bringing his listeners and readers as far along the road to understanding as he possibly can.
Louis Bird is a widely known storyteller and historian of his Omushkego (Swampy Cree) people. A member of Winisk First Nation, he resides in Peawanuck near the shore of Hudson Bay. He has devoted the last three decades to preserving Omushkego stories, language, and history on audiotape. More than 80 of the stories he has gathered, along with overviews of his life story and the Winisk region, are presented on the website www.ourvoices.ca, produced by the Omushkego Oral History Project at the University of Winnipeg.
Jennifer S.H. Brown is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg, Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Peoples in an Urban and Regional Context, and Director of the Centre for Rupert's Land Studies at the University of Winnipeg. She is the author of Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).