Review of Trevor Herriot\u27s Towards a Prairie Atonement

Harding-Russell, Gillian

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 15 | No. 2 Article 32-2-2017Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor HerriotGillian Harding-RussellUniversity of SaskatchewanPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeHarding-Russell, Gillian. "Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 , article 3, 2017,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/3.  The prairie that holds us   Towards a Prairie Atonement by TREVOR HERRIOT University of Regina, 2016 $22.95  Reviewed by GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL  In Towards a Prairie Atonement, Trevor Herriot writes a thoughtful and well researched account of the impact that colonial and capitalist greed has had on the fragile ecosystem of the prairie. When the Canadian government abandoned its community pasture plan to protect the prairies in 2012, Herriot, in looking back at their historical development, discovered a previous injustice had been done to the Métis of Ste. Madeleine, who had formed their own first version of a communally-shared prairie and had been driven from it. As Herriot consults Métis elder Norman Fleury, the author's voice emerges with heartfelt need to unbury the truth of the past and to find a solution to the present. Here is an account, at moments stunningly lyrical, that will make the reader acutely aware of the dangers faced by the prairie with thirty-one species at risk, but also a hope for reconciliation with the Métis people that could be achieved by rebuilding the land.   In the first chapter, Herriot recounts how the book began. After the federal government passed the prairie pasturelands over to the province so that they might be sold to the private sector, a concerned federal employee approached the author asking him to help defend the birds and creatures on that territory and a group called Public Pastures—Public Interest (PPPI) was established a month later (6). Adding a complicating and immeasurably sad thread to the story of the book's genesis, Herriot tells the reader of his missed meeting with filmmaker Narcisse Blood, an elder from the Blood Reserve who wished to talk with him about the grassland project and who, along with his actor daughter's friend, Michele Sereda and two other artists, were tragically killed in a car accident in 2014. In honour of Narcisse Blood, Herriot chooses his beguiling and apt words "one tent peg to share" (7) concerning the indigenous and white people's need to share the prairie as the epigram for the opening chapter (3). The tender and lyrical opening to the first chapter leaves no doubt about what inspires the naturalist Herriot to write this most important book about the prairie:   The longspur, white tail feathers  flashing, exploded into flight at our  feet and then settled a short  distance away. We stooped to look  at the swirl of green shade hiding   her four speckled eggs, warm and holy. (3)  For one of the many endangered birds of the prairie, such as the longspur, to reproduce in its natural prairie setting is a gratifying feat and must be heartening to a naturalist and to us all. In many ways Towards a Prairie Atonement reads as an ode to the prairie on the brink of elegy.  "Colonialism, we have learned too late, is an utterly unreliable narrator" (13), Herriot sorrowfully remarks, and proceeds to discover the roots of the abuse of the land and its people in colonial and capitalist 1Harding-Russell: Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor HerriotPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017  interests and transactions among invading peoples. Although conventional history books portray the Métis under the leadership of Cuthbert Grant as having butchered Governor Semple and brutally mutilated  several settlers, Herriot offers an alternative account by the historian Coltman (based on sixteen dispositions from settlers) that suggests the mutilations came at the hands of one particular Frenchman and his three sons (58).  Accordingly, throughout Canadian history such distortions have interfered with our understanding of the indigenous and Métis people whom Herriot believes have a more balanced understanding of the prairie and how to sustain it.  After the rivalry of the Northwesters and the Hudson Bay Company over beaver furs turned into a rivalry over buffalo skins (buffalo formerly hunted as a source of pemmican to sustain the fur trappers) and the corporate giant, Hudson Bay, bought out the Northwesters, the buffalo came to be hunted on too large a scale and their numbers rapidly diminished on the prairie. Herriot offers a sinister image of Governor Simpson's plan to keep the indigenous people subordinate by making them dependent on the white man. The Governor’s self-incriminating words from a private journal reflect his grotesque view:   I am convinced that they must be ruled with a rod of iron, to bring and keep them in a proper state of subordination....In the plains however this system will not do, as they can live independent of us, and by withholding ammunition, tobacco, and spirits, the staple articles of trade, for one year they will recover the use of their bows and spears and lose sight of their smoking and drinking habits. (63)  Such an account by the head of the corporate giant of the Hudson Bay's Company, in many ways equivalent to our contemporary CEOs of corporations such as Monsanto, who overturn ethical concerns for the sake of profit, is chilling to say the least.  After the near extinction of the buffalo, which is vividly pictured with a three-year-old Gabriel Dumont among those participating during the last hunt in 1840 (75), the Great Depression and degradation of the land through over- farming and the draining of swampland ensued. In the 1930's, Herriot recounts, the federal government set up the Community Pastures as a way to replenish the land but in so doing displaced a group of Métis in northern Manitoba who had themselves developed a sustainable farming method that included a mix of private and public lands maintained for the commonwealth of the community. Theirs was a strip farming model in which each private land holding faced the river and extended to the community pastures behind it where each owner owned a "hay privilege" that included the first two miles of the open prairie (99). After that distance, the wildness of the prairie was maintained for all to share in its natural state.   Building on this Métis model of three-way land entitlement practised in Ste. Madeleine, Herriot proposes a solution to the present ecological dissolution of the prairie in the form of a compromise system 2The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 3https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/3  in which public and private interests would be met (99). Although the details of such an arrangement and land allotment are not discussed, the concept is a worthy one that Towards a Prairie Atonement leads us towards most eloquently.  Who can resist Herriot's portrait of the prairie with the more enduring avian species of lark sparrow seen as "a tiny guard at the gates of a lost kingdom" (84)? The sadness that we must feel when we hear that the longspur (whose eggs we encountered on the first page) might be lost along with other birds, including Sprague's Pipit and Swainson's Hawk, is real (85). Here Herriot, also author of River in a Dry Land, and Grass, Sky, Song, among other books about the prairie, provides us with a heartfelt and clear-eyed account of the dire situation we face on the prairie as told in both facts and poetry (camouflaged as prose even as birds hide in the prairie grasses)—not to mention the groundwork for a path that may be its solution.  GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL is a freelance writer, reviewer, and editor working for a number of magazines, among them Event’s Reading Service. She received an MA from McGill (1976) and her PhD from the University of Saskatchewan (1986). She has three poetry collections and five chapbooks published. A sequence of poems "Making Sense" was chosen as the best suite of poems in Exile's Gwendolyn MacEwen chapbook competition (2016). A chapbook Fox Love came out last autumn in The Alfred Gustav Press series.  3Harding-Russell: Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor HerriotPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017

Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 15 | No. 2 Article 3
2-2-2017
Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot
Gillian Harding-Russell
University of Saskatchewan
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Harding-Russell, Gillian. "Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 , article 3, 2017,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/3.
 
 
The prairie that holds us  
 
Towards a Prairie Atonement by TREVOR 
HERRIOT 
University of Regina, 2016 $22.95 
 
Reviewed by GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL 
 
In Towards a Prairie Atonement, Trevor 
Herriot writes a thoughtful and well 
researched account of the impact that 
colonial and capitalist greed has had on the 
fragile ecosystem of the prairie. When the 
Canadian government abandoned its 
community pasture plan to protect the 
prairies in 2012, Herriot, in looking back at 
their historical development, discovered a 
previous injustice had been done to the 
Métis of Ste. Madeleine, who had formed 
their own first version of a communally-
shared prairie and had been driven from it. 
As Herriot consults Métis elder Norman 
Fleury, the author's voice emerges with 
heartfelt need to unbury the truth of the 
past and to find a solution to the present. 
Here is an account, at moments stunningly 
lyrical, that will make the reader acutely 
aware of the dangers faced by the prairie 
with thirty-one species at risk, but also a 
hope for reconciliation with the Métis 
people that could be achieved by rebuilding 
the land.  
 In the first chapter, Herriot recounts 
how the book began. After the federal 
government passed the prairie pasturelands 
over to the province so that they might be 
sold to the private sector, a concerned 
federal employee approached the author 
asking him to help defend the birds and 
creatures on that territory and a group 
called Public Pastures—Public Interest 
(PPPI) was established a month later (6). 
Adding a complicating and immeasurably 
sad thread to the story of the book's 
genesis, Herriot tells the reader of his 
missed meeting with filmmaker Narcisse 
Blood, an elder from the Blood Reserve who 
wished to talk with him about the grassland 
project and who, along with his actor 
daughter's friend, Michele Sereda and two 
other artists, were tragically killed in a car 
accident in 2014. In honour of Narcisse 
Blood, Herriot chooses his beguiling and apt 
words "one tent peg to share" (7) 
concerning the indigenous and white 
people's need to share the prairie as the 
epigram for the opening chapter (3). The 
tender and lyrical opening to the first 
chapter leaves no doubt about what 
inspires the naturalist Herriot to write this 
most important book about the prairie: 
 
 The longspur, white tail feathers 
 flashing, exploded into flight at our 
 feet and then settled a short 
 distance away. We stooped to look 
 at the swirl of green shade hiding  
 her four speckled eggs, warm and
 holy. (3) 
 
For one of the many endangered birds of 
the prairie, such as the longspur, to 
reproduce in its natural prairie setting is a 
gratifying feat and must be heartening to a 
naturalist and to us all. In many ways 
Towards a Prairie Atonement reads as an 
ode to the prairie on the brink of elegy. 
 "Colonialism, we have learned too 
late, is an utterly unreliable narrator" (13), 
Herriot sorrowfully remarks, and proceeds 
to discover the roots of the abuse of the 
land and its people in colonial and capitalist 
1
Harding-Russell: Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017
 
 
interests and transactions among invading 
peoples. Although conventional history 
books portray the Métis under the 
leadership of Cuthbert Grant as having 
butchered Governor Semple and brutally 
mutilated  several settlers, Herriot offers an 
alternative account by the historian 
Coltman (based on sixteen dispositions 
from settlers) that suggests the mutilations 
came at the hands of one particular 
Frenchman and his three sons (58).  
Accordingly, throughout Canadian history 
such distortions have interfered with our 
understanding of the indigenous and Métis 
people whom Herriot believes have a more 
balanced understanding of the prairie and 
how to sustain it. 
 After the rivalry of the Northwesters 
and the Hudson Bay Company over beaver 
furs turned into a rivalry over buffalo skins 
(buffalo formerly hunted as a source of 
pemmican to sustain the fur trappers) and 
the corporate giant, Hudson Bay, bought 
out the Northwesters, the buffalo came to 
be hunted on too large a scale and their 
numbers rapidly diminished on the prairie. 
Herriot offers a sinister image of Governor 
Simpson's plan to keep the indigenous 
people subordinate by making them 
dependent on the white man. The 
Governor’s self-incriminating words from a 
private journal reflect his grotesque view:  
 
I am convinced that they must be 
ruled with a rod of iron, to bring and 
keep them in a proper state of 
subordination....In the plains 
however this system will not do, as 
they can live independent of us, and 
by withholding ammunition, 
tobacco, and spirits, the staple 
articles of trade, for one year they 
will recover the use of their bows 
and spears and lose sight of their 
smoking and drinking habits. (63) 
 
Such an account by the head of the 
corporate giant of the Hudson Bay's 
Company, in many ways equivalent to our 
contemporary CEOs of corporations such as 
Monsanto, who overturn ethical concerns 
for the sake of profit, is chilling to say the 
least. 
 After the near extinction of the 
buffalo, which is vividly pictured with a 
three-year-old Gabriel Dumont among 
those participating during the last hunt in 
1840 (75), the Great Depression and 
degradation of the land through over- 
farming and the draining of swampland 
ensued. In the 1930's, Herriot recounts, the 
federal government set up the Community 
Pastures as a way to replenish the land but 
in so doing displaced a group of Métis in 
northern Manitoba who had themselves 
developed a sustainable farming method 
that included a mix of private and public 
lands maintained for the commonwealth of 
the community. Theirs was a strip farming 
model in which each private land holding 
faced the river and extended to the 
community pastures behind it where each 
owner owned a "hay privilege" that 
included the first two miles of the open 
prairie (99). After that distance, the 
wildness of the prairie was maintained for 
all to share in its natural state.  
 Building on this Métis model of 
three-way land entitlement practised in Ste. 
Madeleine, Herriot proposes a solution to 
the present ecological dissolution of the 
prairie in the form of a compromise system 
2
The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 3
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/3
 
 
in which public and private interests would 
be met (99). Although the details of such an 
arrangement and land allotment are not 
discussed, the concept is a worthy one that 
Towards a Prairie Atonement leads us 
towards most eloquently. 
 Who can resist Herriot's portrait of 
the prairie with the more enduring avian 
species of lark sparrow seen as "a tiny guard 
at the gates of a lost kingdom" (84)? The 
sadness that we must feel when we hear 
that the longspur (whose eggs we 
encountered on the first page) might be lost 
along with other birds, including Sprague's 
Pipit and Swainson's Hawk, is real (85). Here 
Herriot, also author of River in a Dry Land, 
and Grass, Sky, Song, among other books 
about the prairie, provides us with a 
heartfelt and clear-eyed account of the dire 
situation we face on the prairie as told in 
both facts and poetry (camouflaged as 
prose even as birds hide in the prairie 
grasses)—not to mention the groundwork 
for a path that may be its solution. 
 
GILLIAN HARDING-RUSSELL is a freelance 
writer, reviewer, and editor working for a 
number of magazines, among them Event’s 
Reading Service. She received an MA from 
McGill (1976) and her PhD from the 
University of Saskatchewan (1986). She has 
three poetry collections and five chapbooks 
published. A sequence of poems "Making 
Sense" was chosen as the best suite of 
poems in Exile's Gwendolyn MacEwen 
chapbook competition (2016). A chapbook 
Fox Love came out last autumn in The 
Alfred Gustav Press series.
 
 
3
Harding-Russell: Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017


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Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot

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