Towards a Prairie Atonementby Trevor HerriotPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$22.95 ISBN 9780889779648 Award-winning writer, prairie naturalist, and birder extraordinaire—Regina’s Trevor Herriot requires little introduction. River in a Dry Land: bestseller. CBC Radio: regular. I’ve just devoured Herriot’s Towards a Prairie Atonement—an eloquent treatise on the interconnected injustices that Colonialism and profit-at-all-costs dealt the prairie Métis and all living things dependent upon the Aspen Parkland grasslands. Though compact in size, this three-part essay dispenses an enormous amount of history, appeals for a reckoning, and delivers a few slight feathers of ecological hope. Herriot says he “set [his] heart on telling a story that [would] inspire people to take a second look at what we all lost, and could yet restore, in our regard for more sophisticated and nuanced forms of land governance”. The wisely-woven text begins with a map of the Saskatchewan and Manitoba rivers and historical sites discussed, and an edifying timeline that stretches from the 1600s to 2012. These centuries saw the beginnings of Canada’s fur trade; the North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies jostling; buffalo’s demise; a plethora of government decisions that greatly impacted upon the Métis; the plight of Louis Riel; the…

The Economy of Sparrowsby Trevor HerriotPublished by Thistledown PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$24.95 ISBN 9781771872461 I’m considering what I enjoyed most about award-winning Regina writer, grassland conservationist, and naturalist Trevor Herriot’s first foray into fiction. His debut novel, The Economy of Sparrows, conveys the story of pensioner Nell Rowan, a Saskatchewan-born birder and researcher who—after earning a biology degree at Carleton and working for two decades as a night janitor cleaning “the bathrooms and hallways of the National Museum of Nature’s research and collections facility”—returns to her family’s southern Saskatchewan farmstead and remains dedicated to learning everything possible about “long-dead bird collector” William Spreadborough, and the other early naturalists and collectors she read about on her work breaks. Is there some connection between Spreadborough and her own family? This multi-layered book succeeds on every level. Firstly, the plot: Nell’s obsession with Spreadborough drives the story, but there’s also a mother who walked into winter and was never found; a teenaged foster child with a knack for communicating with animals; interesting rural neighbours; and Nell’s passion for documenting the birds in her area … her “bird survey stuff”. Nell tries to remain optimistic, but her faith in policy-makers re: reports, surveys…

Backyard Bird Feeding: A Saskatchewan Guide: A Complete Guide to Year-round Bird Feeding in SaskatchewanWritten by Trevor Herriot and Myrna PearmanPublished by Nature SaskatchewanReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9-780921-104353 It’s apropos that a Blue Jay graces the cover of Backyard Bird Feeding: A Saskatchewan Guide: A Complete Guide to Year-round Bird Feeding in Saskatchewan. The Blue Jay is my home province’s provincial bird, and Blue Jay is also the name of Nature Saskatchewan’s quarterly publication. And did you know that these handsome birds also have such incredible memories, they hide seeds and nuts in trees or in the ground and return later to enjoy them? I can’t even remember where I left my glasses a minute ago. The seven chapters in this photograph-full softcover provide a compendium of information for those who, like bird-experts Trevor Herriot and Myrna Pearman, admire—and are inspired by—“the remarkable lives of wild birds,” and understand how it’s beneficial to birds and humans when we study, support and discuss them. “To feed birds in a mid-continental temperate place like Saskatchewan is to reach out a hand toward the untamed dramas outside our windows,” the co-authors write. This easy-to-read, school notebook-sized guide begins with a history…

Islands of Grass Text by Trevor Herriot, Photos by Branimir Gjetvaj Published by Coteau Books Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $39.95 ISBN 9-781550-509311 Saskatchewan naturalist, activist, and Governor-General’s Award-nominee Trevor Herriot has penned another title that should be on every bookshelf, and particularly on the shelves of those who love our precarious prairie grasslands and the threatened creatures who inhabit them. In Islands of Grass, Herriot has teamed with environmental photographer Branimir Gjetvaj to create a coffee table-esque hardcover that’s part call to action, part celebration, and part Ecology 101. The pair’s mutual passion for our disappearing grasslands – the term “islands” deftly illustrates their fate – is evident on every page of this important and beautiful must-read. Herriot’s erudite essays are personal, political, and urgent. Filled with first-person anecdotes (ie: his father’s memories of dust storms), plus stories from ranchers, ecologists, and agency professionals, they also explain the history of grass and reveal how pioneers were encouraged to plow in order to prosper. There’s much plant, bird, and animal information, including statistical numbers re: their endangerment and recovery. The book’s five chapters are written in the engaging conversational/informational style Herriot’s faithful readers have come to expect, ie: the opening…

Towards a Prairie Atonement by Trevor Herriot Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $22.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-454-4 For the Métis, who lived on the Canadian prairies for centuries, land was everything. They hunted on it, sustained themselves on it, fought for it, and died for it. In Towards a Prairie Atonement, naturalist Trevor Herriot’s same reverence for the land is reflected in the deep spiritual undertones embedded in his narrative. Enamoured with both the prairie and its inhabitants, Herriot pays particular attention to the birds and trees, as is his naturalist inclination. He argues that if man does not take care of the land, nature will exact its revenge, as it did in the raging dustbowl of the Dirty Thirties. If you sit very quietly in the outdoors, he says, you can hear the land moaning its loss. Herriot has a flair for playing with descriptive language, such as “fingers of grassland around bowls of forest” and “men and women as hardy as poplar trees.” He points out that some of our English words, such as coulee, originated from Michif, the Métis language rooted in a mixture of Cree and French. Herriot draws heavily on Métis Elder…