Buffalo Is the New Buffalo

'Education is the new buffalo' is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. Chelsea Vowel asks, 'Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?' Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Metis lens. Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonisation, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of 'Metis futurism' explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Metis.