![]() ![]() ![]() A trader who married into an extensive Ojibwe family could gain powerful influence and build fur-trade relationships. As for the connection between Wolfred and the girl, there were many liaisons between voyageurs, traders, and Native women, which resulted in a distinct people, the Metis. She saves him in a series of near escapes, and then nurses him back to health when he falls ill with labyrinthitis, brought on by the intense cold in his ears. This situation-in which a child is sold by her mother-has haunted me ever since I first read it in an old historical account of a trading outpost. What happens astounds him, and pleases the girl. ![]() How did the idea for this symbiotic, cross-cultural relationship come to you?Īctually, it seems to me that it’s Wolfred who needs help once he decides to suggest that the girl kill Mackinnon in order to get away. In the end, the girl also saves the clerk. Your story in this week’s issue, “ The Flower,” involves a kind of escape: a seventeen-year-old clerk, Wolfred, helps an eleven-year-old Ojibwe girl get away from the white trader, Mackinnon, who “bought” her from her alcoholic mother. ![]()
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