Peyakow

“McLeod reflects on his adulthood as a queer, Cree man working to improve life for other Native people in Canada in his moving latest … The result is a heartwrenching meditation on love, loss, and identity.”

“A former teacher with extensive training in French and a natural politician, McLeod quickly fell into a succession of roles involving the negotiation and renegotiation of treaties. Particularly newsworthy are his investigations over a long period of Native children victimized by the residential school system, forcing a pro forma apology on the part of the Canadian government that acknowledged ‘that the existence of the schools was profoundly disrespectful of Aboriginal people.’ Every such acknowledgment, every line of every treaty, came at the cost of considerable legal, linguistic, and cultural wrangling … Sheds welcome light on little-known aspects of the interaction of Indigenous peoples with politically dominant outsiders.”

“Darrel J. McLeod’s Peyakow takes the reader on his personal odyssey and reveals the history of a country with a dark colonial mindset regarding Aboriginal people … Peyakow is a page turner. Take the time to read and understand the history of Indigenous people in Canada through books such as this.”

“[Peyakow] presents the Native experience in raw vignettes from the life of the author – the lowest lows and the highest highs … In a blend of drama, tragedy, and comedy, Peyakow is an epic tale of one man’s journey to find his culture and to help his people. For anyone interested in how a Native person navigates through current day Canada, this book is rich with personal experience and wisdom.”

“Peyakow is an autobiographical continuation of Darrel J. McLeod’s life that follows his raw debut memoir of growing up, Mamaskatch. In this one, McLeod focuses a lot on his time working in branches of Canadian Government, often an emotionally taxing job; many of the white folks in government have varying degrees of racism against First Nations citizens, particularly directed at anyone seeking compensation and acknowledgement of the cultural genocide that severely impacted nations across the continent. Meanwhile, many Indigenous people attempting to work with the Canadian government on these issues see McLeod as “working for the enemy”… and after seeing how some politicians act behind the scenes, McLeod can’t help but wonder if sometimes they were right. This book is more than just politics, though—Peyakow, ‘the one who walks alone,’ is also an ongoing history of family ties as well as trauma, the complexities that come with it, and McLeod’s continuing personal journey of connecting with his Cree heritage, and combining it with his identity as a gay man. McLeod’s work both as an activist and as a writer is incredibly impactful, and the life he’s lived certainly hasn’t been easy. Peyakow leaves the reader with a lot learned, and a lot to think about. Unflinching, honest, and powerful.”