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Description:
She is Mary James, a strong-willed teenager, with copper dun skin and unexpected blue eyes. She is The Métis Girl, a warrior drawn into a dangerous summer of horse-racing against Western Canada’s first cowboys and cattle ranchers.
But her wild, gambling days are about to end as homesteaders, grain farmers and oil companies claim the open prairie and foothills around Calgary.
Forced to make a difficult decision and out her future, she reluctantly agrees to attend her family’s Sun Dance ceremony. There, as blood flows over her chest, she discovers an astonishing truth about herself - one that convinces her to give up her risky ways.
Review
From horse-trader to driller, The Métis Girl emerges as a resourceful leader who changes the destiny of her family and friends while guiding them into Alberta’s modern oil era.
It’s difficult enough to find a good book about the wild west, but almost impossible if one seeks a tale filled with intrigue, wit, honesty, action and a plausible enough sense of reality to provide a reader with a deja-vue flashback of a real-life experience. But that’s exactly what you can expect when you pick up a copy of Tyler Trafford’s latest Sun on The Mountains Novel, The Métis Girl, recently released by Rattlesnake Books and distributed by Winnipeg, Manitoba-based VidaCom Publishing.
The Métis Girl is an action packed saga of the old west, but unlike the gunslinging tales that we’ve become accustomed to, Trafford offers his readers what can only be described as some real insight into the way it was, or at least should have been. His story line is so perfectly told that it’s difficult at times to separate realism from fantasy, and one is often left wondering: is this real?
The answer is no; this is a work of fiction, even though the central theme and many of the characters and situations within the 444 pages of text seem as real as the chair you’re sitting on right now. Trafford’s style is unique; it’s as though he’s pulled himself out of the past and into the future, his experiences transferred to the pages of his book, hidden between the lines so that only the canniest of readers can spot him. Just as the first two books in the Sun on the Mountains series that I’ve reviewed, (The Story of Blue Eye: 2004 and Alexander’s Way: 2006), The Métis Girl fills the bill when it comes to satisfying the mind and filling the senses with a delightful appreciation of life in western Canada during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Métis Girl is another in a continuing saga about the James family and its relationship with the Blackfoot Tribes of southern Alberta. Unlike its two predecessors, The Métis Girl, aka Mary James, a mere baby in the first Sun on the Mountains Novel, is now a teenager, but in reality a grown woman, a woman that readers will think a bit hard and testy when first introduced, proof that first impressions aren’t always as accurate as the clichés say they are. Readers will have the opportunity to not only watch this young, strong-willed Métis Girl move from chapter to chapter, they’ll have the opportunity to grow with her, to sense the changes, to appreciate the viewpoints, to admire her sturdiness, feel her softness, understand her philosophies. The Métis Girl is a girl like no other. Her life, filled with woes and burdens as well as excitement, confrontation and true love, takes on some down-to-earth shapes as she matures from a somewhat rebellious youth with a mind of her own into a strong willed woman, a leader of the pack, albeit with a mind of her own.
The Métis Girl is a tale of intrigue, but more than that it is a story that comes full circle as Mary moves from a gambling and horse racing culture to a character that finds within herself a new identity and a new realization of who she is. A clever and creative individual, Mary James, fiction or otherwise, is a delightful character that today’s readers will have little trouble identifying with, or learning from.
Trafford’s latest release is brilliant and exciting and as well-written as any you’ll encounter when it comes to the western culture of yesteryear. The Métis Girl is one book that every Canadian, especially those who live in the west and those who wish they were, should have on their night stands or in their home libraries. It’s a book that you’ll find difficult to put down, not just because of its almost non-stop action, but because author Tyler Trafford’s style is easy-to-read, easier to understand and as fluid in motion as a bird on the wing or a fish in the water.
Trafford, in an earlier interview, told me that as prolific as he is, he doesn’t know exactly where the words he writes come from.
“I don’t know where the words come from; I don’t know what drives me,” he commented during a short interview. “I just know that I really enjoy telling stories that people can identify with, that people can sit down and relax with; no pressure, no responsibility, just good entertainment about a subject that not everyone is familiar with, our past.”
And that’s exactly what he delivers, time after time - a great story that everyone can identify with. The Métis Girl is no exception; it’s a down-to-earth tale about the growth of a strong-willed girl and the era of history that she’s born into. And if I’ve said it once, I’ll repeat it again: No matter how factual or fictional a book is, research is always a prerequisite to good writing. Trafford goes the extra mile, as is obvious by his sensitive writing style, his knowledge of the west and his keen perception of people, past and present. The Métis Girl is another story that’s been waiting far too long to be told; but oh yes, it is fiction, isn’t it?
Special Thanks to John Copley & Alberta Native News for use of this review.
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