In His Debut Novel, Blair Palmer Yoxall Rejects the Cowboys vs. Indians Western |
The traditional western format has long featured the “Cowboys vs. Indians” archetype. These are often tales of good vs. evil, where a gun-slinging cowboy leaves a trail of dead, “savage” Indians in his wake as he traverses the wild American West. But what if the cowboys were also Indians? This is the question that Métis writer, Blair Palmer Yoxall, ponders in his debut novel, Treat Them as Buffalo, out this week.
Through the eyes of a 12-year-old Métis boy named Niko, Yoxall tells the story of the Northwest Resistance of 1885, when the Métis and some First Nations peoples led an armed rebellion against the Canadian government. Set in the fictional town of Lac-aux-Trois-Pistoles, the events of the Northwest Resistance are the backdrop for young Niko’s world, where he and his cousin play buffalo hunters. But when his cousin and other young boys start to go missing, one at a time, a string of violence destroys Niko’s understanding of his world, his family, and himself.
As the police show little interest in investigating the boys’ disappearance, a coalition of Métis women in Niko’s community takes on the task of finding them. They set up camp near a remote lake and hide out from the kidnappers. There, the women organize daily and nightly search parties, scouring the area for the abducted boys and protecting those still in their care. Riding horses and armed with guns, the women perform patrols and devise plans to save the captured boys and apprehend their kidnappers. In Treat Them as Buffalo, Yoxall creates a community where tenderness and mutual care abound, even amid tragedy and high tensions.
Yoxall drew his inspiration from traditional western novels like Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last Crossing, but........