Tatsea

Winner of the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award (Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards).

Set in Canada’s Subarctic in the late 1700s, a time when the Dogrib people were under constant threat of attack by raiders supplied with European weapons. After Ikotsali saves Tatsea and her father following a hunting accident, Tatsea is obliged to marry their strange-looking rescuer. One day when Ikotsali is away from camp, raiders arrive and kill everyone. The only lives spared are those of Tatsea, who is captured, and their infant daughter, whom she has hidden. When Ikotsali returns to find the carnage, the story of their struggle to survive and be reunited begins.

Tatsea brings back the years when our grandparents lived their lives.”
—Mike Nitsiza, counsellor, Mezi Community School, Wha Ti, Northwest Territories