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A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape
When Candace Savage and her partner buy a house in the romantic little town of Eastend, she has no idea what awaits her. At first she enjoys exploring the area around their new home, including the boyhood haunts of the celebrated American writer Wallace Stegner, the back roads of the Cypress Hills, the dinosaur skeletons at the T.Rex Discovery Centre, the fossils to be found in the dust-dry hills. She also revels in her encounters with the wild inhabitants of this mysterious land-three coyotes in a ditch at night, their eyes glinting in the dark; a deer at the window; a cougar pussy-footing it through a gully a few minutes' walk from town.
But as Savage explores further, she uncovers a darker reality-a story of cruelty and survival set in the still-recent past--and finds that she must reassess the story she grew up with as the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of prairie homesteaders.
Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and imbued with Savage's passion for this place, A Geography of Blood offers both a shocking new version of plains history and an unforgettable portrait of the windswept, shining country of the Cypress Hills.
But as Savage explores further, she uncovers a darker reality-a story of cruelty and survival set in the still-recent past--and finds that she must reassess the story she grew up with as the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of prairie homesteaders.
Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and imbued with Savage's passion for this place, A Geography of Blood offers both a shocking new version of plains history and an unforgettable portrait of the windswept, shining country of the Cypress Hills.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published August 4, 2012
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631 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
December 24, 2017
Sometimes an author lets too much of their own personality seep into their work, and if it happens that the author's personality is one that doesn't match with yours you might end up resenting or disliking their book. I think a little of that has happened here...I was developing an intense dislike for Candace Savage.
Ms Savage and her husband moved to a small town near the Cypress Hills in western Canada. Once established they commenced exploring their environs and getting all giddy over the fact that this part of the planet is really, really old and people have lived here for a long time and we really have to write a book about it all. They do their exploring accompanied by a number of unleashed dogs and insist on travelling in an unreliable vehicle which, annoyingly, has to be recovered a number of times. Savage seems to delight in the fact that the tow truck driver was discomfited by the fact that his cab was filled with dogs on the way back to town. I'm sure she thinks she is endearing herself to the reader but by this time I'm thinking what an annoying t**t she really is!
The book starts off as a hometown sketch, morphs into a geological history, and ends with Savage gushing liberal white guilt over the plight of the indigenous peoples, starved, land stolen, yadda yadda. I think she mentions crying a lot about it. Don't get me wrong...I'm not blind to the fact that technological and numerical inferiority left the aboriginal people of North America open to a royal screwing, and that they were displaced by (mostly) European settlers. I know. I get it. But here's the thing: it's done...and it won't be undone. You can write six books about it, and cry a bucket of tears, and it won't change a thing. All the people who screwed the aboriginal people are dead, and all the aboriginal people who were screwed are dead. All that are left from any of the participants are people born here, and no one has any place left to go back to. I'm not saying Savage should forget it, but let's move forward and work the thing out. Anyway, she's really, really sorry for being a white person and she's welcome to feel that way. I reserve the right to feel otherwise because, you see, I've never harmed anyone.
This might have been a decent read, Savage is a decent writer, but she put too much of herself in it for my liking. I'm really glad that she and her annoying dogs didn't move in next to me.
Ms Savage and her husband moved to a small town near the Cypress Hills in western Canada. Once established they commenced exploring their environs and getting all giddy over the fact that this part of the planet is really, really old and people have lived here for a long time and we really have to write a book about it all. They do their exploring accompanied by a number of unleashed dogs and insist on travelling in an unreliable vehicle which, annoyingly, has to be recovered a number of times. Savage seems to delight in the fact that the tow truck driver was discomfited by the fact that his cab was filled with dogs on the way back to town. I'm sure she thinks she is endearing herself to the reader but by this time I'm thinking what an annoying t**t she really is!
The book starts off as a hometown sketch, morphs into a geological history, and ends with Savage gushing liberal white guilt over the plight of the indigenous peoples, starved, land stolen, yadda yadda. I think she mentions crying a lot about it. Don't get me wrong...I'm not blind to the fact that technological and numerical inferiority left the aboriginal people of North America open to a royal screwing, and that they were displaced by (mostly) European settlers. I know. I get it. But here's the thing: it's done...and it won't be undone. You can write six books about it, and cry a bucket of tears, and it won't change a thing. All the people who screwed the aboriginal people are dead, and all the aboriginal people who were screwed are dead. All that are left from any of the participants are people born here, and no one has any place left to go back to. I'm not saying Savage should forget it, but let's move forward and work the thing out. Anyway, she's really, really sorry for being a white person and she's welcome to feel that way. I reserve the right to feel otherwise because, you see, I've never harmed anyone.
This might have been a decent read, Savage is a decent writer, but she put too much of herself in it for my liking. I'm really glad that she and her annoying dogs didn't move in next to me.
March 25, 2013
I really loved this book, for one I got married in the Cypress Hills so clearly it is already a special place for me. Second, it's a part of Alberta/Saskatchewan I had always wanted to visit, like the author I too felt drawn there somehow. And third, I like this woman's perspective on history and on writing. There's one bit where she minimizes human history in the area under the massive weight of geological time (we are but blips in the passage of time, etc), and I didn't like it because she is talking about the colonial period and the pain it wrought, and then she minimizes it by basically saying how short a time this was compared to the stretch of time that the world has existed. I know, I know, we are supposed to feel hopeful that things will be better BUT I wouldn't have said it that way. I think the atrocities wrought against First Nations people by the Canadian government in the Cypress Hills and everywhere should not be minimized at all, ever, no matter the time-scale. Nevertheless, I still loved the book, the beautiful prairie, the somehow sadness of rural life, the force of the landscape to evoke meaning, how difficult it is to resist easily forgetting history. I want to read it again.
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July 25, 2013Prairie writer Savage stops with her partner Keith in Eastend, Saskatchewan for what is supposed to be a two week stay- feels something calling her to remain- and does so. She begins to investigate the history of the nearby Cypress Hills and tells the story of the eradication of the buffalo and the rotten Treaty system foisted on Indians by the Macdonald government and his minion Edgar Dewdney. She hasn't unearthed anything new here but it's told effectively. She does come within an ace of sounding like a guilt-stricken white Canadian making up for sins of another lifetime.
November 19, 2012
This magnificent work has just won the 2012 Writer's Trust Prize for Canada's best non-fiction book. At first glance, the geography it probes seems constricted -- the unusual forested Cypress Hills formation that rises so uniquely in southwestern Saskatchewan, set off distinctly from the endless miles of open prairie stretching so many miles in all directions around it. Candace Savage and her companion Keith approach their first visit there as a sort of brief novelty, a place to relax. And then, somehow, the mysterious aura of the Hills seeps into their lives, changes their way of living, deepens their insights and their knowledge, and opens them to understanding of the blood and the buried bones that make the Hills a searing symbol of a much wider world.
"A Geography of Blood" is not just a work of geology, though it does trace the ways that ice age forces shaped the land. It is not just a work of archaeology, though it does recount the 6000 years of shifting aboriginal settlements that have left their vivid evidence in the soil. It is not just a work of biology, though it describes the many dinosaur bones that have been left over millions of years. And it is not just a work of history, though it presents grim documents showing how aboriginal communities had their land stolen by the government in Ottawa. Rather, this book becomes a personal testimonial encompassing all these strands that conveys with passion and force the way ten years of first-hand experience reshapes the thinking and emotions of Candace Savage.
The result is a remarkable book. It has the depth and coherence of good research, combined with the poetic strength of a first-rate novel.
"A Geography of Blood" is not just a work of geology, though it does trace the ways that ice age forces shaped the land. It is not just a work of archaeology, though it does recount the 6000 years of shifting aboriginal settlements that have left their vivid evidence in the soil. It is not just a work of biology, though it describes the many dinosaur bones that have been left over millions of years. And it is not just a work of history, though it presents grim documents showing how aboriginal communities had their land stolen by the government in Ottawa. Rather, this book becomes a personal testimonial encompassing all these strands that conveys with passion and force the way ten years of first-hand experience reshapes the thinking and emotions of Candace Savage.
The result is a remarkable book. It has the depth and coherence of good research, combined with the poetic strength of a first-rate novel.
December 15, 2012
I have often either driven or flown over the Cypress Hills region of Saskatchewan and have wondered about the vast region. Savage's strong descriptions has me now seriously planning a trip to the area.
Page 68:
It is a characteristic of the prairies that things hide in plain view. Think of pronghorns, for example. For all their gracile runner's build, they are substantial animals, comparable in height and wieght to Great Danes or female mountain goats. Yet seen at any distance, a heard of pronghorns looks strangely insubstantial, as if they were caramel-coloured grass. (It's amazing what several million years of evolutionary coexistence can accomplish!) I've been known to laugh out loud where a blotchy, whitish boulder resting in a field suddenly raises its head and fixes me with its dark eyes. That ain't no rock ma'am. That there's an antelope. It's enough to make you wonder what you've been smoking. The prairie's hallucinatory powers seem to be strongest when clouds settle low over the curve of the land, and the light is caught, shimmering between earth and heaven. In the gloaming, a jackrabbit standing against the sky looms as big as a deer and the ground-nesting birds that leap up at your feet almost immediately vanish into dazzle.
Page 68:
It is a characteristic of the prairies that things hide in plain view. Think of pronghorns, for example. For all their gracile runner's build, they are substantial animals, comparable in height and wieght to Great Danes or female mountain goats. Yet seen at any distance, a heard of pronghorns looks strangely insubstantial, as if they were caramel-coloured grass. (It's amazing what several million years of evolutionary coexistence can accomplish!) I've been known to laugh out loud where a blotchy, whitish boulder resting in a field suddenly raises its head and fixes me with its dark eyes. That ain't no rock ma'am. That there's an antelope. It's enough to make you wonder what you've been smoking. The prairie's hallucinatory powers seem to be strongest when clouds settle low over the curve of the land, and the light is caught, shimmering between earth and heaven. In the gloaming, a jackrabbit standing against the sky looms as big as a deer and the ground-nesting birds that leap up at your feet almost immediately vanish into dazzle.
July 31, 2024
Enjoyed the book because I love the Cypress Hills area, read Wolf Willow, and visited Stegner's house in East End. It wasn't quite as inspiring as I had hoped, but nevertheless a good read.
I just finished reading this book again, eleven years later. I spent the month of June at the Stegner House in Eastend, the very house Savage inhabited when she fell in love with the place. I share her passion for this part of the world. At the same time, I did not feel the oppression of the past in the same way as she did. She had a visceral reaction to learning about how the Indigenous people were treated. Any thinking, feeling white person shares her sadness, if not her guilt. But I did not find that this area carries the weight of history any more than the rest of the Canadian West. However, I admire her greatly for writing about this tragic chapter in our past, one that still reverberates.
I just finished reading this book again, eleven years later. I spent the month of June at the Stegner House in Eastend, the very house Savage inhabited when she fell in love with the place. I share her passion for this part of the world. At the same time, I did not feel the oppression of the past in the same way as she did. She had a visceral reaction to learning about how the Indigenous people were treated. Any thinking, feeling white person shares her sadness, if not her guilt. But I did not find that this area carries the weight of history any more than the rest of the Canadian West. However, I admire her greatly for writing about this tragic chapter in our past, one that still reverberates.
August 6, 2019
This starts off as a memoir. The author and her husband come across the town of Eastend, Saskatchewan, near Cypress Hills on their travels back home to Saskatoon from the U.S. They initially stayed for 2 weeks on vacation, but were drawn to the town enough to buy a house and live there part-time. While there, the author wrote about the landscape, the dinosaur history and the T-Rex Centre that is there, then started looking into the more recent history of the First Nations people who were there, but were driven off the land in the late 19th century once the white settlers started arriving. The last half of the book looks at the First Nations history of the area.
I probably would have given this 3.5 stars (good), except that I grew up only a couple of hours from Eastend, and have been there a few times. I can picture Eastend, the T-Rex Centre, Cypress Hills, the surrounding land, the ghost towns nearby that were mentioned... I’m sure I also once (though I didn’t remember it) learned the history of Chimney Coulee and the Cypress Hills Massacre. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Chimney Coulee and can also picture that in my head. Good book, sad stuff about the First Nations people and everything that happened, but important to learn about.
I probably would have given this 3.5 stars (good), except that I grew up only a couple of hours from Eastend, and have been there a few times. I can picture Eastend, the T-Rex Centre, Cypress Hills, the surrounding land, the ghost towns nearby that were mentioned... I’m sure I also once (though I didn’t remember it) learned the history of Chimney Coulee and the Cypress Hills Massacre. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Chimney Coulee and can also picture that in my head. Good book, sad stuff about the First Nations people and everything that happened, but important to learn about.
May 18, 2021
This was an interesting book to read simultaneously with Rewilding (Large herbivores serve key ecosystem functions that make grasslands more permanent and not part of succession) and A Fair Country (First Nations people are foundational pillar of Canadian culture). This book is about a woman moving to a small prairie town near Cypress Hills (from an urban center, though her childhood had been on the Alberta prairie), exploring it, and learning about its' past - particularly related to the First Nations at the time of the bison slaughters. She's a good writer and good at environmental writing - I have only visited the Prairie once, and nowhere near where she is, and I could still picture the landscapes she was describing.
This book really brought some personal context to the two other books which are really policy/science/philosophy focused. Absolutely worth reading for new Canadians (and non-new Canadians that never learned this part of history). My only criticism is that I wanted it to be a few chapters longer, I felt like she was really growing as a person and taking her learnings from history to influence her present choices and actions and relationship with the land . . . and then the book seems to stop kind of abruptly. Her evolution is still a bit of a question mark and the last two chapters feel rushed .
This book really brought some personal context to the two other books which are really policy/science/philosophy focused. Absolutely worth reading for new Canadians (and non-new Canadians that never learned this part of history). My only criticism is that I wanted it to be a few chapters longer, I felt like she was really growing as a person and taking her learnings from history to influence her present choices and actions and relationship with the land . . . and then the book seems to stop kind of abruptly. Her evolution is still a bit of a question mark and the last two chapters feel rushed .
September 23, 2025
A very poignant book about the destruction of the Great Plains, in more specifically Canada. This book demands that the annilation of the bison be grieved and not merely “shrugged off” and forgotten.
The author draws correlations from people of the past having little choice, in a capitalistic society, to make a living or get left behind. Just as those ancestors in the past had little choice in providing for their families by participating in the bison trade, those of us in the present are caught in the dilemma of climate change. Accept the reality our world is changing or face extinction.
The eradication of the Bison has left the land and its inhabitants in a famine. A keystone species removed from its habitat has wreaked havoc on Indigenous Communities and ecological communities.
The author draws correlations from people of the past having little choice, in a capitalistic society, to make a living or get left behind. Just as those ancestors in the past had little choice in providing for their families by participating in the bison trade, those of us in the present are caught in the dilemma of climate change. Accept the reality our world is changing or face extinction.
The eradication of the Bison has left the land and its inhabitants in a famine. A keystone species removed from its habitat has wreaked havoc on Indigenous Communities and ecological communities.
March 25, 2024
the history was interesting and meaningful, but there was far too little of it and felt more about the authors personal life then the actual suffering Indigenous people went through because of colonization 🤷♀️
April 5, 2020
A beautiful book that says more about the colonization of the Canadian West than anything I've read.
February 16, 2020
3.5/5 Although I’d read of some of the wars, fights, horrors as the governments of USA and Canada “tamed”( horrible word) took over the Cypress Hills, it was unique to read the stories with history, geography, biology, and anthropology all combined.
Last week I read Thirteen Moons, which shares themes, but is set in the Appalachians. Good contrast between the two books.
Last week I read Thirteen Moons, which shares themes, but is set in the Appalachians. Good contrast between the two books.
December 28, 2013
This book is not one I would normally have chosen to read, but we had a family Christmas book exchange and I was on the receiving end. After coming down with a nasty flu the following day (today), I laid in bed, popping zinc lozenges between each chapter fighting to keep my eyes open, wondering where Candace Savage was going to take us next.
She paints a beautiful picture of the prairies you can almost smell and feel as she describes all the little wonders that most of us take for granted on a daily basis. Growing up in these parts (Swift Current/Medicine Hat), and having visited most of the places mentioned in the book (Cypress Hills, Maple Creek, Milk River, etc) its like she is explaining a parallel universe in which I have not seen my whole life, but is right in front me.
The book starts off sweet and compelling, bringing to life the boring, flat prairies and looming hills with a child's enthusiasm of a newly explored territory, combined with the stunning language of her writing. And just as you start to get comfortable and nostalgic of this compelling world, she hits you with the atrocities of what happened here just a short while ago. It is here the Author takes you through a range of emotions from anger to a ruffled peace.
I would recommend this book, especially to anyone who grew up in this area as I did. It will give you a new perspective and appreciation for the land around us. What it gives and what we took away.
She paints a beautiful picture of the prairies you can almost smell and feel as she describes all the little wonders that most of us take for granted on a daily basis. Growing up in these parts (Swift Current/Medicine Hat), and having visited most of the places mentioned in the book (Cypress Hills, Maple Creek, Milk River, etc) its like she is explaining a parallel universe in which I have not seen my whole life, but is right in front me.
The book starts off sweet and compelling, bringing to life the boring, flat prairies and looming hills with a child's enthusiasm of a newly explored territory, combined with the stunning language of her writing. And just as you start to get comfortable and nostalgic of this compelling world, she hits you with the atrocities of what happened here just a short while ago. It is here the Author takes you through a range of emotions from anger to a ruffled peace.
I would recommend this book, especially to anyone who grew up in this area as I did. It will give you a new perspective and appreciation for the land around us. What it gives and what we took away.
December 31, 2012
Truly an amazing book. It tells the story principally of the First Nations people in the Cypress Hills--a story that was very difficult to read because of the betrayal and connivance of the government of Canada and its various representatives. Reading this story and Obasan by Joy Kogowa have permanently shattered any smugness I have in being Canadian and our reputation for treating people fairly and justly. Having grown up in the area of Cypress, I am appalled at how little of the history I knew. The story is also a love story about the landscape of Eastend. Although I've been through that area, I need to spend some real time visiting. Candace Savage paints a beautiful picture of this part of the world--steeped though it was in horror, tragedy and sadness. It ends with a very positive outlook by an Aboriginal man who puts everything back into perspective. Definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time.
June 6, 2013
It's more of a memoir than a history - Mrs. Savage seeking to fill the gaps left by the established mythology of "How the West was Won". Beautifully written and beautifully evokes the Cypress Hills and adjacent Saskatchewan and Eastend. I read it while on a trip through those places and thought that its gentle narrative and stark historical backdrop nicely mirrored the feeling of the pretty Saskatchewan townlets nestled in harsh and ancient hills and plains. Her quest unearths the reality of the First Nation experience and the loss of that narrative in our own history - for example, her description of the meeting of Sitting Bull and Crowfoot in the Cypress Hills not long after the battle of Little Bighorn - a diplomatic and political event of enormous significance that none of us have ever heard of. Highly recommend this book to anybody and especially for travellers on the road from Cypress Hills to Eastend!
December 28, 2013
As a geographer, I am often drawn to books with Geography, Maps, or Cartography in their titles. This one ended up being about a place that I had made a special point of visiting in 2010 after taking a class on Wallace Stegner and his writings on Eastend, Saskatchewan and reading most of Sharon Butala's books on the Cypress Hills. I visited Wallace Stegner's house where Candace Savage and her partner stayed as they got to know the town. I really enjoyed how she told her personal story, tied in the natural history of this unique location (Eastend and the Cypress Hills) and then told a history that went far beyond one that Wallace Stegner told of this place in bringing out the aboriginal history of this place, that is missing from most North American histories of places. She lets you into her thinking and this makes the book a very powerful as it combines the personal and the local with the ecological and social history of the place.
May 22, 2025
A Geography of Blood is one of those rare books that changes the way you see the world. Everyone who descends from settlers or benefits from the land taken from Aboriginal Peoples should read this book. Our true history (not necessarily the history you learned in school) is powerfully moving. And Candace Savage's writing is masterful — aside from the amazing story, the prose itself was a joy to read.
2025 re-read: My book club chose this book, and I was happy to read it again! The writing is just as beautiful as I remember. You can flip to any page and find lyrical prose about nature or the nature of the world. I found the second half of the book just as compelling as the first time I read it, though it was less shocking this time because the terrible historical lessons weren't new to me. As a memoir, it wraps up well, and as a commentary on the world, the ending is perfect: "To Be Continued."
2025 re-read: My book club chose this book, and I was happy to read it again! The writing is just as beautiful as I remember. You can flip to any page and find lyrical prose about nature or the nature of the world. I found the second half of the book just as compelling as the first time I read it, though it was less shocking this time because the terrible historical lessons weren't new to me. As a memoir, it wraps up well, and as a commentary on the world, the ending is perfect: "To Be Continued."
May 26, 2013
I enjoyed much of this book having spend time in Eastend and read Sharon Butala's books and Wallace Stegner's wonderful Wolf Willow.
There was a bit of the ingenue about Savage as she discovered the very difficult legacy prairie settlement left to the original inhabitants; she admitted it was hard to understand how she didn't realize this sooner - especially as she was completing a natural history of the prairies. The whole prairie ecology is/was intimately connected with the buffalo and their passing and indigenous culture that depended so much upon them. But she was honest about this and it's worth reading to the end to discover how she found her way to connect with that culture and its stories. Bravo! We do need to come to know those stories if we want to truly know the landscapes we live in - wherever they are.
There was a bit of the ingenue about Savage as she discovered the very difficult legacy prairie settlement left to the original inhabitants; she admitted it was hard to understand how she didn't realize this sooner - especially as she was completing a natural history of the prairies. The whole prairie ecology is/was intimately connected with the buffalo and their passing and indigenous culture that depended so much upon them. But she was honest about this and it's worth reading to the end to discover how she found her way to connect with that culture and its stories. Bravo! We do need to come to know those stories if we want to truly know the landscapes we live in - wherever they are.
December 24, 2012
This book is aptly titled. Part of the story is the history of the fate of the plains people at the hands of the Europeans. Although I have read this history for the past 40 years in: I LEFT MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, TRAIL OF TEARS, MASSACRE AT FROG LAKE, BLOOD RED THE SUN, and many many other books there were still accounts I had not heard before. I have visited the resting places of Crow Foot and Pound Maker. As a person who feels a strong connection to the land so much of this book put me there, somehow longing for those days before the 1850s.
This is also a story about finding connection with the land and its' first people.
The cover alone is worth the price of this excellent story. I am sorry it will not be read by ALL of us who are recent settlers.
This is also a story about finding connection with the land and its' first people.
The cover alone is worth the price of this excellent story. I am sorry it will not be read by ALL of us who are recent settlers.
January 5, 2014
I am normally not much of a history buff; however this book captured my interest as the author explores, researches, and brings to life many places that I have visited (Medicine Hat, Milk River, Maple Creek and Cypress Hills). The book is part memoir and part history and her descriptions of the prairies, extending as far as the eye can see, are so picturesque and vivid.
Progressing through the pages, a beautiful landscape sharply contrasts with the dark past as the author unearths the eradication of the buffalo and the disgraceful treatment of the native people by the Canadian and American government. A well written and important read.
Progressing through the pages, a beautiful landscape sharply contrasts with the dark past as the author unearths the eradication of the buffalo and the disgraceful treatment of the native people by the Canadian and American government. A well written and important read.
November 12, 2012
Well written and informative, this book was thought provoking, and left me feeling somewhat guilty, perhaps a little ashamed, perhaps apologetic. “she uncovers a darker reality – a story of cruelty and survival set in the still recent past.” Well researched. Learned much history related to upheaval and genocide of native people, bad treatment from Canadian and American governments, soldiers, police forces. Worthwhile and important. How much the author’s emotions skew her objectivity is hard to say.
October 31, 2012
Very powerfully done. At first, a well done mosey around eastern Saskatchewan, then a more deliberate search for the history of First Nations people and the disgraceful way that North American governments and settlers exterminated the people. The intentional slaughter of the buffalo as a food source, and the domino effect on the land, wildlife and people.
September 30, 2013
I found this book pulled together a lot of things I had learned or read about Canada, the geography, history and peoples. It gave me a new appreciation for the province of Saskatchewan. I like Savage's casual, engaging way of explaining history without it becoming stale. I hope she writes a follow-up book.
October 20, 2013
Spent the first 25 years of my life in Saskatchewan but learned more about where I'm from in this book than anything else I've read. Now that I finally know who Dewdney was, I'll never drive down Dewdney Avenue in Regina again without remembering that he really doesn't deserve a street named after him. My pick for "if you read one book this year".
January 5, 2013
A deeply moving personal journey of discovery about a generally ignored part of prairie history. A prick at the conscience of genocide right here at home. A worthy prize winner
August 24, 2019
An unfolding prairie tapestry that gradually extends deep into the past of Saskatchewan while simultaenously maintaining its focus on the author's life and her story of moving from Saskatoon to Eastend, SK - population just over 500. Along the way there is a lot of authorial interest in the biodiversity and natural geography of the Cypress Hills as well as some interesting thoughts on Wallace Stegner, in whose house Savage began some of this journey.
As a former resident of Saskatchewan for most of my life, there were large sections of the historical tapestry that struck me with the force of memory, infamy, and locality. The stories of the massacre of the Nakota by the wolfers, which infamously led to the founding of Fort Walsh and helped to catalyze the enforced and violent dispersal of many First Nations and Metis peoples from the area still carry the heavy weight of truth in its almost inadmissible guise (as some of the reviews reinforce). The stories of Chiefs like Big Bear, Piapot, Lucky Man, and Little Pine are as tragic as they are infuriating, and one of Savage's better traits as a writer is the delicacy by which she integrates this affective structure while remembering and visiting the Indigenous inheritors to this history to hear their words.
I was less taken with Savage herself, to be honest, and found the early chapters a little bit tough going. The mix of MFA-ish autobiography and prairie history doesn't always settle right. When it does settle, however, and when it lands on the latter as a major interest, the book hits hard indeed.
As a former resident of Saskatchewan for most of my life, there were large sections of the historical tapestry that struck me with the force of memory, infamy, and locality. The stories of the massacre of the Nakota by the wolfers, which infamously led to the founding of Fort Walsh and helped to catalyze the enforced and violent dispersal of many First Nations and Metis peoples from the area still carry the heavy weight of truth in its almost inadmissible guise (as some of the reviews reinforce). The stories of Chiefs like Big Bear, Piapot, Lucky Man, and Little Pine are as tragic as they are infuriating, and one of Savage's better traits as a writer is the delicacy by which she integrates this affective structure while remembering and visiting the Indigenous inheritors to this history to hear their words.
I was less taken with Savage herself, to be honest, and found the early chapters a little bit tough going. The mix of MFA-ish autobiography and prairie history doesn't always settle right. When it does settle, however, and when it lands on the latter as a major interest, the book hits hard indeed.
June 19, 2018
This is a memoir of the author's journey through the history of south-western Saskatchewan. Candace Savage and her partner intended to visit Eastend, Saskatchewan for a two week vacation, but were so drawn to the area that they bought a home there. As she began to explore the history of the area, she discovered the dark side of the settlement of the Canadian West, as the original inhabitants were starved and forced off the land to make way for the settlers. This was apparently a revelation for her, though it is most certainly not for me. I am well acquainted with the tragic and violent history she relates, but I give her credit for explaining it clearly and concisely, and nicely tying together various stories that are often told in isolation. She does so with sensitivity and respect. One reviewer here was quite critical of the author for feeling guilty for being a white person, but that is not the impression I got at all. Rather, she feels guilt for being the intended beneficiary of the removal of the aboriginals, as the descendant of settlers. As an Alberta farmer, I too feel a twinge of guilt that the land I own was once forcibly taken away from someone else. Part of me wants to take a star away from my rating for accepting the endorsement of the David Suzuki Foundation, but that would be petty.
September 28, 2021
An important look at the genocide of Prairie Indigenous folk, from the purposeful near-extinction of the buffalo to the false promises of treaties to help the tribes when they were starving, and telling these stories from the memory of the southern Saskatchewan landscape.
I wanted to love this book. The first half feels like way too much personal background information, the middle part finally starts to get good with a stark + honest look at the genocide of Prairie Indigenous folk, and then in the last half when she's really making important connections with the people and the land, it feels rushed and glossed over.
I wish the whole storyline could have been shifted forwards, with the background info spanning one chapter and the rich stories and journeys taken with Elders expanded.
She uses a lot of sarcasm and had some imagined conversations with old authors and elders which felt kind of strange and inappropriate.
I love the way she connects with land and allows her curiosity to guide her to gather more knowledge. All of her books are remarkably researched and beautifully written. And the way she does it is an important part of her journey, but I think this book in particular would have benefitted with more focus on the stories and less on the story teller.
I wanted to love this book. The first half feels like way too much personal background information, the middle part finally starts to get good with a stark + honest look at the genocide of Prairie Indigenous folk, and then in the last half when she's really making important connections with the people and the land, it feels rushed and glossed over.
I wish the whole storyline could have been shifted forwards, with the background info spanning one chapter and the rich stories and journeys taken with Elders expanded.
She uses a lot of sarcasm and had some imagined conversations with old authors and elders which felt kind of strange and inappropriate.
I love the way she connects with land and allows her curiosity to guide her to gather more knowledge. All of her books are remarkably researched and beautifully written. And the way she does it is an important part of her journey, but I think this book in particular would have benefitted with more focus on the stories and less on the story teller.
October 20, 2021
This book was a mixture of a research project and personal experience so although interesting and heartfelt and important in terms of illuminating historical mistreatment of the Prairie Buffalo People - indigenous first people- and the Buffalo as well, it lacked something to make it more engaging. I think it was a good attempt at making a historical “textbook” type of writing more personal and readable and shines some insight into what was a historical romanticizing of “how the west was won” or colonized and at what costs. It also links the significance of geography with the lives of the First Peoples and how the land itself holds the truth.
As a person who has lived in Saskatchewan and Alberta all my life, it has made me want to see the Cypress Hills and East-end areas for myself as I have also learned of its historical/sacred significance to the Blackfoot.
This book was written in 2012 and suggests there will be more information and stories coming out of Candace Savage’s research.
As a person who has lived in Saskatchewan and Alberta all my life, it has made me want to see the Cypress Hills and East-end areas for myself as I have also learned of its historical/sacred significance to the Blackfoot.
This book was written in 2012 and suggests there will be more information and stories coming out of Candace Savage’s research.
December 18, 2020
This is a wonderful book. Candace Savage begins by telling the story of how she and her partner ended up in the Cypress Hills of southern Saskatchewan. She brings us along on the exploration. And with each step brings us deeper into the history – the remarkable history – of that area of the Great Plains. She also uncovers the genocidal policies of governments on both sides of the border towards the indigenous peoples of the land. It has made me want – no stronger than that – feel the need to explore more our tragic relations with First Nations people in North America. As she has done that on the prairies - I need to do that closer to my home here in Ontario.
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