From The Barren Lands

Description

This is a story about the fur trade and First Nations, and the development of northern Canada, seen and experienced not only through Leonard Flett’s eyes, but also through the eyes of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

The lives of Indigenous people in remote areas of northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the 1960s and 1970s are examined in detail. Flett’s successful career with both the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company provides an insight into the dying days of the fur trade and the rise of a new retail business tailored to First Nations.

“a remarkable point of view.” — Trevor Greyeyes, First Nations Voice 

“a promising personal memoir  … it’s [Flett’s] incidental descriptions of what it was like on those far-away and isolated trading posts of the legendary HBC that makes this book spring to life as an entertaining read.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“Solutions and newfound pride in the Canadian identity can be found by looking honestly and responding appropriately to the lessons of history.” — “Indigenous people are not the ‘ghosts of history’” by Len Flett & Nicole Letourneau in the Thompson Citizen