We all fight on two fronts, the one facing the enemy, the one facing what we do to the enemy.

Being a mixed-blood person of Ojibway and European ancestry, I always found that I only heard one side of the story - that was the conquerers' side, the side of the French Jesuit missionaries that came to live in what is now Ontario.

There were incredibly complex societies already existing in North America long before Europeans arrived. So many people think that before European contact it was just Natives huddling around a fire, waiting for civilization to come save them. But that was not the case.

Sometimes, it's not getting what we want that offers us the most important Lessons

The world is a different place in this new century, [...]. And we are a different people. My visions still come but no one listens any longer to what they tell us, what they warn us. I knew even as a young woman that destruction bred on the horizon. [...] War touches everyone, and windigos spring from the earth.

From a craft standpoint, telling a story in the first-person present tense over the course of 500 pages is a daunting challenge.

The history needs to serve the story, not the story the history. But at the same time you can't stray too far.