Gabriel’s Beach by Neal McLeod Published by Hagios Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $17.95 ISBN 978-0-9783440-5-4 “With the stories and the strength of our ancestors, we can find our home in the river again.” These are among the introductory words of Neal McLeod, a writer, visual artist, film-maker, comedian, and professor at Trent University in Peterborough, ON, and in his poetry collection Gabriel’s Beach, we find some of the stories and individuals this champion of Cree and Métis culture pays homage to. The “Gabriel” of the title is the poet’s mosôm (grandfather), a respected soldier who fought at Juno Beach, “where thunder met\the water,” and one of the many ancestors from whom the poet draws strength during his own personal battles. McLeod thanks Gabriel for “teaching us that that fire of the beach helps us to survive and keeps us from surrender,” but admits that in his own life, he has been a “son of a lost river, unable to hold the fire of Gabriel’s beach.” The book’s first section is a mostly serious tribute to Gabriel and others, and it relays some of the war horrors Gabriel and fellow soldiers experienced: “hunger made them crazy\stomachs empty\vessels without holding\they…