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.

America seems to celebrate its more violent past, but Canada doesn't like to recognize those things. The willingness to accept the existence of violence separates our two countries.

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

The beliefs of Native people are no less powerful or important just because they focus on a different "form of magic."

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

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

There's a few scholars that object to how the italicized sections suggest that Native people are to take some part in the blame for how colonization occurred. But I say, "Yes they are." Not nearly as much blame as the colonizers, of course. But we are not just victims. I hate this idea that we are all just victimized and oppressed and etcetera etcetera. It's dehumanizing in its own way.