Caribou Hunter: A Song of a Vanished Innu Life is written by Serge Bouchard, translated into English by Joan Irving. Bouchard is a writer and an anthropologist; in his prologue he gives a brief overview of the Innu people and introduces the readers to Mathieu Mestokosho, the real voice of the book. An Innu hunter and elder, Mathieu tells his story and in the process gives to the reader an understanding of life in the North. Far from being desolate tundra, the land holds great bounty and deep meaning for Mathieu and his people. They are nomadic and, as the title suggests, spend most of their time on the land in search of food; this lifestyle is the focus of most of Mathieu’s stories.

The first portion of the book is broken into four chapters that are arranged linearly, each describing a specific period of time. The first chapter is brief and highlights Mathieu’s youth. The next three chapters are devoted to recollections of hunting expeditions and life in the bush. It is here that Mathieu paints for the reader a rich picture of Innu life, knowledge and values. “We all knew where we were,” Mathieu recalls later in the book, “And where we were going. We knew every bit of the country and the names of al the lakes, all the trails.” (p. 144) He continues, “We thought about only one thing: making sure we had a good supply of food. You see how hard it was. We were full of spirit…[The merchants and priests] never knew what we did at our camps, out on the land, to survive. You had to be strong and spirited, and we were proud of what we accomplished.” (p. 150)

During the second part of the book Mathieu talks about the prejudices that the Innu have faced from outsiders, such as accusations of idleness, and what daily life is like for Innu men and women. “I don’t like it when people tell stories about how lazy and destitute the Indians were out on the land. The whites found it harder than we did. It wasn’t their work. They trapped, but they didn’t know how to hunt…It’s the opposite for Indians. They’re at home. They know how to hunt, and they never stop hunting.” (p. 140) Indeed, throughout the book the reader comes to appreciate the hard work necessary for the Innu to have survived for so long in their Northern homeland.

In the final chapter, Mathieu reflects upon lives of the Innu in the past. His stories of the elders highlight their intimate knowledge of the land and their close ties to the spirits of the animals that they relied upon for survival. He contrasts their behavior and attitudes with those of the white hunters, whose careless and wasteful hunting practices have lead to a decline in the number of caribou. “The caribou do to them what they do to us. If we’re not careful,” Mathieu says, “The caribou will disappear.” (p. 171)

The real strength of this book is that it is told entirely from Mathieu’s perspective and in Mathieu’s words. As a text in an anthropology course, this provides the reader with a fresh perspective. Oftentimes, texts describing indigenous peoples are either strictly descriptive or heavily interpreted. The former style tends to render the subjects as dry and detached, while the latter is too often affected by the author’s background and biases. Sometimes the best way to appreciate and understand what life is truly like for people is to hear from them directly.

With this casual style and conversational tone, the book is very readable. The reader can imagine sitting across the table from Mathieu and listening to his stories as they unfold like loosely flowing memories. His recollections are informal and not always linear, but this style only helps to draw the reader further into Mathieu’s narrative. Of course, there is a weakness to this approach. Mathieu’s recollections are almost entirely devoid of context, aside from what descriptions he provides. There is no overall framework given to help the reader grasp how Mathieu’s story fit in within the larger story of the Innu people. And most readers will not be coming to the text with extensive background knowledge of the Innu people and their history; such information, even in the form of footnotes or an appendix, might help the reader to better appreciate the significance of certain events.

Mathieu’s words are what they are; his stories are from his own experience, and as such they are no more or less valid than the experience of another Innu man or woman, or those of an outsider. The book is not intended to give the reader a detailed analysis of the Innu. Its intention is to introduce the readers to one Innu man with his own memories and experiences. As Bouchard writes in his prologue,

There were several Mathieu Mestokoshos among the Innu, magisterial men and women who were talkative, knowledgeable, and quick to smile. What was saved, was saved. The mean are dead and the women are gone. But something of them remains: philosophy, songs, sounds, poetry. Now all that remains is for us to listen, hear, understand, learn, and appreciate: the proud and solemn incantatory discourse, the representation of humane humanity, like the one we are all searching so hard for, in our time. (p. 28)