I never want to play down to the reader. I think readers are willing to go along if they're intrigued.

There's the concept that dreams are as important - if not more important - than reality. The attention that one pays to those things in the shadows is very much a part of the Indian experience.

Compared to Americans, Canadians are often more gentle in their approach to things. They're much more apologetic. There's less room for conflict.

As a fiction writer, of course, you need to take some leeway with certain aspects of history to make the story work.

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.

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

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