The Winter Count

Dilys Leman

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780773544130
• eBook ISBN: 9780773596405
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Although relatively few First Nations joined the 1885 Métis insurgence, the Canadian government reacted punitively, instituting draconian "Indian" policies whose ill-effects continue to resonate today. The Winter Count traces these developments alongside another narrative - the debate over the sanity of Métis leader Louis Riel.

Dilys Leman weaves original poems and reconstituted archival texts, including medical reports, diaries, treaties, recipes, even a phrenological analysis, to create a montage that both presents and disrupts official history. Her narrative questions politically expedient myths that First Nations were allies of the Métis, would rise again in greater numbers, and needed to be scrupulously controlled to secure the opening of the West. Leman evokes the voices of historical and imagined characters to convey a political landscape teetering into lunacy and a government obsessed with its own vision of nation-building. We hear a bureaucrat extol the merits of the pass system, a court interpreter's ludicrous translation of treason felony into Cree, and Dr Augustus Jukes agonizing about his role on the secret medical commission tasked with reassessing Riel’s sanity, which would determine if he could be executed.

The Winter Count is a cautionary tale about moral responsibility. As Leman laments, our failure to be accountable human beings will surely haunt us: "Laudable pus / Political speeches / This water / brought too late / to a boil / Lance and forceps / rattling / their pot"

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Copyright
• CYPRESS HILLS RECIPES
• NEW RECRUIT
• IT IS THE DESIRE OF HER MAJESTY TO OPEN UP
• A MORE SUITABLE PROTECTION
• ON BEING A HOME FARM INSTRUCTOR
• FOR THE LOVE OF DRINK (1)
• IT IS THE DESIRE OF HER MAJESTY TO FEED
• WORDS FOR BUFFALO
• A GRANDER CALLING: EXPLANATIONS AT TEA
• ON CONDITIONS IN CYPRESS HILLS
• INDIAN ACT 1876, CHAPTER 18, SECTION 12
• TREATY SIX ADHESION, FORT WALSH, 1882
• THE SOUTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER WILL NOT RECEDE
• BIG BEAR’S SPEECH
• THREE CLASSES OF HALF-BREEDS IN THE TERRITORIES
• WHY A CLAIRVOYANT BORDER COLLIE IS NOT ENOUGH
• MY 1874 PHRENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
• INDICTMENT FOR THE CRIME OF HIGH TREASON
• TESTIMONY: RIEL’S TRIAL
• RULES FOR POLITE TEA
• GILBERT SANDERS’ DIARY, 1885
• FOUR CLOCKS IN THE TORONTO ASYLUM: NOTES ON DR DANIEL CLARK’S “MEDICAL EVIDENCE IN COURTS OF LAW”
• REPORTING ON PRISONERS
• HEADS MOUNTED ON WALLS
• DEAR MOTHER, PLEASE FIND ENCLOSED
• MORAL JUDGMENT
• JUST CALL ME THE FILLY FROM MOOSOMIN
• NOTES FROM INTERVIEWS
• DEAR FATHER, I AM FEELING MUCH ENCOURAGED
• MY SISTER’S RECIPE FOR “QUEEN PUDDING”
• ENDEAVOURING TO RESTORE ANIMATION
• REMEMBERING ST CATHARINES PEACHES IN MASON JARS
• FOR THE LOVE OF DRINK (2)
• ON THE BEAUTY OF THE PASS
• RECIPE FOR “INDIAN CANDY”
• IT WOULD BE WELL TO HAVE A SPY OR TWO
• WHAT MR PERCY ALLEN LOOKS LIKE
• FUTURE WRITING LESSONS
• INDIAN ACT 1876, CHAPTER 18, SECTION 62
• TOWARD A DEFINITION OF TREASON-FELONY, TRANSLATED FOR THE CREE
• NOTES ON BAND BEHAVIOUR DURING REBELLION
• REPORTING ON WHAT BIG BEAR SAID AT HIS TRIAL
• HOW TO HANG EIGHT INDIANS (AT ONCE) AT BATTLEFORD
• TEN STEPS TO L-U-N-A-T-I-C ON WALLS
• THE LUNACY COMMISSION
• YOU’RE A PATIENT WOMAN, MRS JUKES
• THE COMMISSIONER’S REPORT
• TO PUNISH
• FOUR CLOCKS
• DICTIONARY
• ON THE DOUBLE SOURCES OF TYPHO-MALARIAL FEVER
• CONTAGION
• WHAT WATER LOOKS LIKE IN DREAMS
• HISTORICAL NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS