Books & Islands in Ojibwe Country: Travelling through the land of my ancestors, by Louise Erdrich

This slim volume was sent to me by an 85-year-old friend with whom I share memories of our own ancestors up in Deer River, MN, where my family’s cabin is located.  Erdrich’s heritage is Ojibwe, or Chippewa as we knew them when we were young, and Deer River is on the edge of the large Leech Lake Indian Reservation near where this book takes place.  It was written in 2003, and I was startled at the beginning of the book to learn that Erdrich was travelling with an 18-month-old toddler – her former husband had been dead by suicide for several years at that time.  As it turns out, she had this baby, at 47, with a man many years her senior, Tobasonakwut, an Ojibwe elder, sun dancer, and healer.  Leaving her home (and three other late-teenaged daughters) in Minneapolis, the author and baby Kiizhikok head north towards Ontario and Lake of the Woods, where she will meet Tobasonakwut.  They will visit islands in Lake of the Woods that are decorated by ancient Ojibwe pictographs.  Her travels will also take her to the Boundary Waters area east of there, between Minnesota and Canada, to another island where a man named Ernest Oberholtzer established a huge personal library of books.  Throughout these journeys, Erdrich, who is also striving to master the very difficult Ojibwe language, meditates on her ancestral heritage, record-keeping through written word and pictographs, and the connections between culture and language.  An interesting glimpse into the life and mind of this well-regarded author.  127 pp.