The Gift of the Great Buffalo is a thrilling adventure story and an excellent history lesson about Métis-Ojibwe culture all wrapped up in one. The author of We Are the Water Protectors, Carole Lindstrom, who is Métis and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, explains in an author’s note that although she grew up enjoying Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, “being portrayed as a ‘savage’ in a book where I felt an actual kinship to Laura Ingalls was very difficult for me to understand. It felt as if I were being hurt by a friend.”
Lindstrom wrote The Gift of the Great Buffalo to let readers know that “before there was a little house on the prairie, there was a little tipi on the prairie.” The book follows Rose, a young Métis girl accompanying her family to a big gathering for a twice-a-year buffalo hunt. Readers will be fascinated to see how the group hunt is organized, with “strict laws that were enforced by the captains, to ensure order and fairness.” Lindstrom skillfully incorporates other historical context as well, noting that European settlers had already eliminated most of the buffalo.
Aly McKnight’s illustrations capture the close relationship between Rose and her family, the sense of community fostered by the hunt, and the excitement of the big gathering. She wonderfully depicts tangible objects, like a steam locomotive—an invention that hastened the demise of the buffalo—as well as the spiritual connections Rose and her family have to the land and the animals they hunt. In a moving spread, readers see Rose listening to the voice of the buffalo spirit as a giant herd grazes amidst the green prairie grasses.
When Rose’s father, who is a captain, and others have trouble finding buffalo, Rose takes matters into her own hands in a daring show of female empowerment. While the story is both compelling and satisfying, the actual hunt is not portrayed—which is understandable, although its omission feels somewhat glaring, with only a single line mentioning, “It was a good hunting day.” Overall, The Gift of the Great Buffalo offers a meaningful look at Métis-Ojibwe history, and will have broad appeal for young readers.
