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

Canada and America are very, very different. It's true that we share a language and many customs. But Americans have a very different view of the world.

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

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.

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.

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