Towards a Prairie Atonement

2016 | History & Politics

Towards a Prairie Atonement addresses the question of our relationship with the land. Enlisting the help of a Metis Elder, Trevor Herriot revisits the history of one corner of the Great Plains. This book's lyrical blend of personal narrative, prairie history, imagery, and argument begins with the cause of protecting native grassland on community pastures. As the narrative unfolds, however, Herriot, the award-winning author of Grass, Sky, Song and River in a Dry Land , finds himself recruited into the work of reconciliation. Facing his own responsibility as a descendent of settlers, he connects today's ecological disarray to the legacy of Metis dispossession and the loss of their community lands. With Indigenous and settler people alienated from one another and from the grassland itself, hope and courage are in short supply. This book offers both by proposing an atonement that could again bring people and prairie together.

Trevor Herriot (Author)