North Spirit: Sojourns Among the Cree and Ojibway

by Paulette Jiles

In 1974, Paulette Jiles was sent by the CBC to work as a journalist in Big Trout Lake, a village in remote northern Ontario without radio or television. North Spirit is based on the seven years that Jiles spent working with the northern Cree and Ojibway peoples, who call themselves Anishinabe. Jiles explores the turning point of the Anishinabe, when new technology is beginning to clash with traditional culture. With the beautiful writing that Jiles is known for, North Spirit reveals the enduring legacy of northern mythology.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Indigenous, Biography Memoir

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Paulette Kay Jiles was an American poet, memoirist and novelist.

Reviews

[Cathrine ☯️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75★
This collection of stories from time spent among First Nation people in Northern Ontario in the early 70s was refreshing reading. I’m quite the Paulette Jiles fan and was attracted to it as I am to native culture. It’s not the kind of book you plow through, but rather take in small doses as you ponder a life so different from your own. A particular book for a particular reader at a very particular time.

[Phyllis Runyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paulette Jiles spent seven years in northern Ontario with the Cree and Ojibway people as a radio announcer. She writes about everything, the weather, the changes going on with the culture, the harrowing plane rides as she goes from village to village but mostly about the people and especially the elders. She brings to life the day to day struggles of just existing in this environment but also the humor and family life.

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Story of how Paulette Jiles got her nickname of Paunets i.e. Shabby Little Sioux

“There’s no L in Ojibway, so ‘Paul-ette’ becomes ‘Paun-ette,’ A puan is a Sioux.
“Why are you laughing Nathan?”
“You’d just have to know the language! It’s too complicated!!” He fell into frank, outright laughter.
[…]
“What about this Sioux business?” I said.
“It’s just that puan means something like, oh, ‘weird foreigner.’ And ette becomes ess , that’s a diminutive suffix that implies something kind of messy and worn-out. Ha ha ha! Shabby Little Sioux! Oh, sorry, excuse me.” He got up and laughed himself out...
- from Chapter 20 (pgs. 129-130 in the 400 page Anchor Canada edition)

"North Spirit" is Paulette Jiles's 1995 memoir of the several years in the 1970s that she spent in northern Ontario after moving to Canada in the late 1960s from Missouri. She had been a poet early in her writing career but has subsequently taken to writing historical fiction. Her latest novel News of the World from 2016 seems to have been a breakout book for her based on the number of its ratings and reviews on Goodreads.

I especially enjoy fish-out-of-water stories and learning about other languages and cultures and "North Spirit" covered all of those bases for me. It is fairly wide-ranging as it covers all of the various jobs that Jiles had over several years included stints as radio station assistant, newspaper photographer & reporter and theatre playwright. The framing device of the story is a theatre tour of northern Ontario communities for which Jiles was the play writer and where the young cast included the Canadian actor Graham Greene who went on to a wide-ranging career of various TV and film roles. Jiles used her learned radio station experience to create the stage work.

The several dozen chapters are often self contained stories of Jiles's adventures in First Nations communities where she learned the basics of Cree and Ojibway languages and the writing of their syllabics. Her respect for the elders in the communities especially rings through as well as her enjoyment of the story-telling of myths and legends. Her self-deprecatory humour also helps in endearing us to her personality. The opening quoted story here is a great example of that and also gives an idea of the spirit and tone of the book.

My thanks to good friends Liisa and Martin who gifted this book to me! Meegwetch!

[Maurice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jiles spent some time among the Ojibway and Cree people of northern Canada, their native environment, learning their language, culture, and stories, and gaining their friendship. There are some wonderful sections of this book, but I can't help feeling that the book needed more editing. Just as the stories themselves, this book should be read in the winter, preferably before a warm fire. You will definitely come away from it wondering why you aren't taking more walks in the wilderness, and why the heck you do spend so much time in front of the TV.

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of an adventurous soul traveling to, and living in, a hostile environment can be interesting. For me, this story was not interesting. It was tedious and verbose. Others may find the local language treatment of interest.

[Joan Galat · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy is called North Spirit, Travels among the Cree and Ojibway Nations and Their Star Maps
by Paulette Jiles

An engaging approach and good read. I enjoyed the mythology within the narrative, the cultural reflections, and the portrayal of life in the north. This book especially interested me because it describes how Paulette first moved north as a community animator for a radio station, a position I once held when working in radio in northern Alberta. Highly recommended.

[Zella Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've really enjoyed Jiles's historical fiction over the years. This memoir covers the nearly 10 years she spent in Northern Ontario in small, remote fly-in Ojibway and Cree communities working as a journalist, first coordinating the set-up and operations of a local language FM radio station and then working as a journalist for the area's first local language newspaper. Along the way, she also gets recruited to write a community theater play while she also works on her own poetry manuscripts. Jiles is originally from Southern Missouri and much of the book pairs vignettes of her stories from this time with her studies of the local languages and folklore. I particularly loved the chapter that reflected on Ojibway and its complex structure of animate and inanimate nouns. Might be more ponderous and reflective than some may enjoy in memoirs, but it's a funny, insightful, honest account of a time that Jiles still clearly looks back on fondly but without overly romanticizing.

[Al Canary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting; I picked this based on my enjoyment of 3 of the Author's previous works and (I assume that this one must have been Her first.... I almost put it down following I an early chapter that translated several words of the Ojibway language. (Boring?) I finish reading 1-2 Chapters at a sitting, determined to finish & gradually got the rhythm & sense of the Poetess writing in "first-person" . style of Her original style. Poetess/Writer experience of early employment! Well done!

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this out from the library. I loved two of Paulette Jiles novels and wanted to read more by her. This was an interesting memoir written in the 1990s about her time in a small, Native village in the Canadian wilderness. Jiles was there to run a radio station. I think it could be pretty good but I have other things I need to be reading. And, I had to return it.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like an old tale of discovery told in legend form.

[Luce Cronin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although seemingly disjointed at first, once I got into the groove of this book, I quite enjoyed. Contains some beautiful passages. It is the story of Paulette Jiles, a journalist who was sent by the CBC to work in remote Northern Ontario.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good info and one woman's experience of the north...related to Native culture. Written by a CBC guru.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book! She was on the panel at a UND Writer's Conference.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful!

[Rashel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best nonfiction book! Written so well it was like living her adventures. Amazing insights to native American lives.