She tells him her coming-to story: her grandmother and then her grandmother’s brothers, William and Jonas, raised her. That night, Rose crawls in bed with Frenchie. The Rogarou will damn Minerva's entire family. There, Minerva tells the girls the story of the Rogarou, a dog-man shape-shifter that she beat and then became intimate with. Miig's family breaks through a fence to spend a few nights at the closed Four Winds resort. Wab admits that she saw two men in the woods last week, one of whom she recognized and who was dishonest. Miig suggests that it's complicated and that in their case, both they and the Recruiters are motivated by the same thing: survival. Later, Wab asks if circumstances make people bad, or if people make bad circumstances.

He comes face to face with a giant moose, but he decides not to shoot it. On his own in the woods, he wonders if he could torture children for marrow if he stopped dreaming. A few days later, Frenchie is again part of the hunting group. When he returns, he's distraught to discover that Minerva has been teaching Rose their language. Miig takes Frenchie and a few others hunting, and Frenchie feels superior for being included. Later that evening, Rose arrives and joins the family.

She desperately wants to hear Story, but Miig thinks she's too young. Per RiRi's request, Frenchie goes to her tent to tell her stories. As governments began fighting over water and taking it from Anishnaabe lands, the north started to melt, and natural disasters killed millions of people. After the end of those original schools, water became scarce. The Indigenous Anishnaabe people were proud and valiant warriors, but newcomers opened residential schools to subjugate them and deprive them of their language. One night, Miig explains that dreams live in their bone marrow and then tells the teens Story, the narrative of how the world got to where it is now. Frenchie's family consists of the teens Chi-Boy, Wab, and the twins Tree and Zheegwon the kids RiRi and Slopper Miig, and the Elder Minerva. Miig finds Frenchie, asleep and ready to die.įrenchie is now sixteen, and he's been on the run with Miig for the last five years. It's cold, he's sick, and the little food he has is spoiled. When the coast is clear, Frenchie starts running north. Mitch makes Frenchie hide in a tree and sacrifices himself. Frenchie and his older brother, Mitch, find a bag of Doritos, but the sound attracts Recruiters. His mom became depressed, and Recruiters got her. Not long ago, Frenchie’s dad left with the Council to try to convince the Governors to stop the atrocities happening at the residential schools. The story delves into how he found Miig, the middle-aged Anishnaabe man who becomes Frenchie’s surrogate father figure. The novel begins with the “coming-to story” of Frenchie, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the Métis Indigenous community in Canada.

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