Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Publisher's description (Vintage Canada, 2010): 
Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Until the day a handsome stranger pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle – and turns Otter Lake completely upside down. Maggie, the Reserve’s chief, is swept off her feet, but Virgil, her teenage son, is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger’s intentions, he teams up with his uncle Wayne – a master of aboriginal martial arts – to drive the stranger from the Reserve. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand. Drew Hayden Taylor is Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations.

Author biography (Drew Hayden Taylor Website): 
An Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations in Ontario, he has worn many hats in his literary career, from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., to being Artistic Director of Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. He has been an award-winning playwright, a journalist/columnist (appearing regularly in several Canadian newspapers and magazines), short-story writer, novelist, television scriptwriter, and has worked on numerous documentaries exploring the Native experience. Most notably as a filmmaker, he wrote and directed REDSKINS, TRICKSTERS AND PUPPY STEW, a documentary on Native humour for the National Film Board of Canada, and for CBC, co-created SEARCHING FOR WINNITOU, an exploration of Germany’s fascination with North American Indigenous culture. 2 years later he followed it up with the documentary COTTAGERS AND INDIANS, about Indigenous/non-Indigenous conflicts over land and water issues. Most recently, THE PRETENDIANS aired, exploring the phenomenon of non-Native people claiming Indigenous heritage.

Resource format: Novel

Age recommendation: Grades 10-12, University

Keywords: Anishnawbe, comedy, contemporary issues, history, First Nations, politics, mythology, intergenerational, stories, community, Otter Lake, fiction, Canada, traditional, identity, culture, tradition, reserve, Ojibway, cultural identity, motorcylist, conflicted, contemporary, grandmother, family, kinship, relationship, reconciliation, historical injustices, allyship, diversity

Year of publication: 2010

Publisher information: Vintage Canada