QU'APPELLE — Métis author Tara Gereaux dedicates her new novel, Wild People Quiet, to her late grandfather. It's a fitting dedication as the main character, Florence Banks, mirrors the actions of grandfather, Clarence: They both hid their Métis identity.
“I really wanted to write this book to understand the circumstances that my grandfather was living in when he was a young man,” said Gereaux. “I don't know exactly when he might have made that decision to live as a white man, but I imagine it was probably when he was just a young man starting out on his own.”
In 1946, the setting for Wild People Quiet, Gereaux’s grandfather would have been around 20 years of age.
“I really wanted to explore that time period and understand the context and all the things that were at play that might have contributed to his decision,” Gereaux said.
Wild People Quiet opens with Florence, 51 years of age, going through her Saturday night routine of bleaching her hair. She’s been doing this for almost 30 years. With her fair complexion, her hair is the only trait that might give her away as Métis. Outwardly denying she is Métis is a step she first took at 16 years of age when she denied that Clancy, with his “rust-coloured skin and curly mussed hair that’s damp-soil dark,” was her brother.
Almost two-thirds of Wild People Quiet shifts between Florence’s adolescent years, covering 1910 to 1913, and present day 1946. Initially, says Gereaux, she offered Florence’s earlier experiences through flashbacks.
“But then I realized that those memories played a key part in the decisions that she's currently making in the present time. It felt important to me to go back and to highlight those key events that were very important for her journey to help explain some of the things in the present,” said Gereaux.
Florence lives with her family as part of the Métis community that live on the road allowance in Saskatchewan. The road allowance is Crown land set aside to eventually construct roads. As she grows up, Florence experiences racism and misunderstanding directed at her and her people. In 1946, that attitude still exists.
Florence has lived in the little town of Torduvalle in Saskatchewan for the past 11 years. Torduvalle, with its rich people and condescending church folk, also serves as a defining character in the novel. Florence has a good office job, is widely respected and owns her house. Her well-crafted lie falls apart when Clancy gets a job as a farmhand and calls out to her when he sees her in town.
Wild People Quiet is divided into four sections named after the traditional Métis floral beadwork, which represents balance: Flowers, Leaves, Buds and Stems. Métis are known as “the flower beadwork people.”
“I always knew that I wanted beading to be a major part of the story and of Florence's character arc. I always knew that was going to play a big role in her journey…but the structure didn't come to me until much later. Once that structure came, then her arc…came more smoothly and more easily to me after that,” said Gereaux.
Beadwork has also been important to Gereaux in her own journey to learn her Métis heritage.
Growing up in Fort Qu’Appelle, Sask. and Winnipeg, Gereaux knew she was Métis but was warned not to talk about it. She knew nothing about her Métis culture. After living 15 years in Vancouver, Gereaux moved back to Saskatchewan to live in Regina.
“It wasn't until I moved back home, and my family had moved back home as well just before I did, then we started to explore (our Métis heritage). And I think it was probably just being home again on the prairie,” said Gereaux.
She became a Métis Nation-Saskatchewan citizen and “turned to the community” to learn about being Métis. She started taking jigging lessons, Michif classes and learned to bead.
For her novel, Gereaux reached out to the Gabriel Dumont Institute for an advisor and access to material.
“I did a ton of research,” she said. “I felt like I was continually surprised when I was writing this … It was especially shocking to learn that much of that happened during Tommy Douglas' term as premier of Saskatchewan. (He) had the reputation…for opening doors and doing many things for Indigenous people. But at the same time…he was behind the clearing of many road allowances across the province.”
Douglas’ actions figure prominently in Wild People Quiet and in a pivotal decision Florence makes.
The title for the book is a quote attributed to Prime Minister John A. MacDonald in 1869 as negotiations began with Louis Riel and his Métis supporters. MacDonald said, “I anticipate that [the lieutenant governor] will have a good deal of trouble, and it will require considerable management to keep those wild people quiet.”
“When I read that quote, it was like a lightning bolt that connected to the decades-long situation…of Métis people who decided to live as white people,” said Gereaux. “That, to me, that's where it all began. That led to the dark times, as it's called, where people were hiding themselves…”
Researching and writing the novel allowed Gereaux to understand her grandfather “a little more” and other Indigenous people who made similar decisions to hide their identity.
It’s an understanding she hopes others—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous—will take away, too. She also hopes readers learn the history of Canada and the Métis people that was never taught in school.
Wild People Quiet is published by Simon & Schuster Canada. It can be purchased in bookstores or ordered at https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/wild-people-quiet-a-novel/9781668060568.html.
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