“If you know the land, you know where berries are plentiful, where to find plants for medicines, and where the animals like to be. To me this is home. Like it is home to the moose, rabbit, beaver, duck….” Growing up on the shores of Reindeer Lake between family trapline and the Southend reserve, Tommy Bird longs to be a trapper and fisherman just like his dad. As snowmobiles replace trapline dogs and more and more families move to permanent settlements, outside influences in young Tommy’s life grow, but so does his determination to follow the seasonal cycle of bush life that has sustained his family for generations. In Following the Seasons, Bird recounts his coming-of-age in the tumultuous space between old ways and new, and how he found his footing not on the path laid out for his generation by the outside world but in his relationship with the land. This memoir captures an irretrievable moment of transformation in Bird’s Woodland/Rock Cree community and shares invaluable knowledge for the survival of future generations.
