JOURNAL OF A TRAVELLING GIRL

When Jules’ mother moves them to Wekweètì in far northern Canada for a job as the community administrator, she is only 5. Six years later, they are still living among the Tłı̨chǫ people, and while Jules, who is White, still occasionally feels like a cultural outsider, she has started to think of them as family. When her friend Layla’s grandparents invite her on a long and politically significant canoe trip, she is frightened. But her mother, knowing how sad she is about the death of the beloved Tłı̨chǫ elder Jules called Uncle Joe, insists that she go. Along the way she will witness her tribal friends in their Christian-Indigenous practices, their pride in their history, and their knowledge of the outdoors. She will gather wood, camp, portage, and paddle her way to deeper maturity and an understanding of the land, feeling the spirit of the ancestors draw her closer to nature and the meaning of the trip. Based on the 2005 signing of the Tłı̨chǫ Agreement, an event that was witnessed by the author, the book was written with tribal approval. (Like Jules’ mom, the author is not Tłı̨chǫ but worked for and lived with the band for some years.) It reads like a sincere effort to record their victory for the right to self-govern. The black-and-white illustrations by Beaverho (Tłı̨chǫ Dene) capture the river and forest well, but the human faces feel a bit cartoonish.

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