YORKTON - When Joan Pelletier sat down to start writing what would become her recently released book Lebret – Looking Back and Beyond, she did so with a purpose in mind.
“I collected a number of stories my parents told me throughout the years and have been writing my own little stories in my memory of when I was growing up,” she told Yorkton This Week.
“The book is an autobiography of the years I was growing up in Lebret.
“I wanted to leave something behind on record about my childhood for my children and grandchildren.”
Pelletier said putting the old stories to paper is sort of new for her people.
“We as Michif people, like my parents and grandparents, did not necessarily write down stories or life experiences. The Michif language was an oral language where they told their stories and did not keep any records of them,” she explained.
The result is a book its publisher, the Gabriel Dumont Institute describes as “a poignant coming-of-age memoir of growing up as a Michif child in Lebret, Saskatchewan. Rich in stories and memory, Lebret is steeped in Michif culture and was the site of several Métis road allowance communities and a government-run Métis rehabilitative farm.
“First-time author Joan Pelletier takes readers back to a simpler, gentler time and place before the devastating disruption of having to leave her loving, supportive Michif family and road allowance community for the unfriendly and unfamiliar confines of the big city.”
Pelletier said the isolation of COVID really helped spur the book forward.
“The idea of the book came from the idea of me sitting around during COVID when we were isolated and could not go out,” she related.
“I needed to do something so I gathered all my writings and turned it into a book.
“This is my first book and am now working on another.”
Pelletier said Looking Back and Beyond was an effort she knew was worth undertaking.
“At the time I thought the book was worth writing because I was losing my older brothers and sister, my siblings were beginning to pass away and their memories and experiences were disappearing as well,” she said.
“I come from a large family that have all grown up now. I wanted to capture some of these experiences on paper to pass down to the younger generations.”
It was a way to preserve something of her parents as well.
“My parents only had their stories but I was very grateful that I had listened to them,” said Pelletier.
With the stories often deeply personal, Pelletier said getting them just right in print was a challenge.
“The book took me about three years to finish,” she said. “The most difficult aspect was to bring back to life on paper my parents, and siblings who have passed.
“Just writing about them brought back tears I didn’t realize were there and writing brought back many emotions I had not felt for a long time.
“But after all this it felt like a burden had been lifted.”
The book is one Pelletier is satisfied with, but added there are more stories yet to tell.
“I am very happy with the book as it is, although when I think about it there're many stories I did not tell, and should have,” she said, adding “well maybe next time.”
The book is a mix of happy memories and harsher realities.
“The best element of the book is the many happy times I had as a child growing up in a small community with many other Métis families and the culture shock I experienced when we had to move to the city,” said Pelletier.
“The book offers an example of many similar Michif people who had to leave their homeland and Michif communities and family ties, their way of life and their freedom for the city that was so unknown, so unfamiliar, so confining.
“Some Michif families would not survive.”
Pelletier said she believes the book will resonate with families who have faced displacement.
“I see the book being a target to audience of all kinds, many people who have been displaced from their home and their land, their greater relatives and their communities,” she said.
This book is available through Gabriel Dumont Institute Press (www.shopmetis.ca)
