Gichigami Hearts

Linda LeGarde Grover is professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe. Her books The Road Back to Sweetgrass, Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year, and In the Night of Memory, all from Minnesota, have earned numerous awards, including the Native Writers Circle of the Americas First Book Award; Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards for Poetry, Memoir, and Fiction; and a Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Her book of stories The Dance Boots was the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize.

• ContentsPart I. Point of RocksGabbroAn Old StoryBimosewin: From the Bethel to the Union Gospel MissionFrom the Rocks to the DocksAnishinaabe Relatives and Holy PlacesGrandparentsLife Among the ItaliansThe BeanbagRain, Fog, Ghost, SpiderPart II. Gichigami HeartsWaawaashkeshiMoozLake HeartsLake SpiritsSea Smoke on GichigamiBarney-enjissThe Stone TomahawkPart III. Rabbits in WintertimeListening and Remembering By HeartRabbits in the SnowNiizh Odain: The Wolf and the RabbitThe Harbor: Nanaboozhoo’s Brothers of the HeartWoods Lovely, Dark, and DeepRabbits Watching Over OnigamiisingPart IV. Traveling SongThe End and Renewal of the EarthRedemptionMishomisGrandfather-iban Gi-bimosePlaces Remembered, Though Some Have ChangedHomelandTraveling SongAcknowledgments

"With compelling stories of sacred places, beloved people, myths, legends, and treasured memories, Gichigami Hearts is a moving tribute to the Ojibwe past."-Carolyn Holbrook, author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify   "With stories of the essence of land and people, Linda LeGarde Grover weaves a generational history of a sacredness inseparable from place, of the unbroken chain of Anishinaabe existence in Missabekong. Her powerful prose and ethereal poetry wash over the pages like waves along the shore of Lake Superior, revealing a strength of survival that goes beyond memory and reminding us to watch, listen, and breathe."-Gwen Westerman, Minnesota State University, Mankato   "In Linda LeGarde Grover’s Gichigami Hearts, we are given the gift of an intensely personal, and at the same time brilliant, walkthrough of Grover’s part of the Anishinaabe universe. Just a tremendously lovely and unique book."-Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse   "This thoughtful book-parts memoir, history, poetry, myth-presents Duluth and North Shore from the point of view of those who lived there long before white people. Grover, a prizewinning writer and enrolled member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, brings to vivid life the neighborhoods around Duluth’s Point of Rocks, the town of Chippewa City and places in between."-Star Tribune Magazine   "[Grover’s] own layering of family history, creation stories and tribal lore makes this book a complex map of a place and its people in intimate, worldly and otherworldly terms."-Star Tribune   "Gichigami Hearts is for fans of history and story alike."-Book Riot   "In Gichigami Hearts, one does not read a story only once and walk away. With each new telling, more is revealed. Every story connects with another, back and forth in time."-Colors of Influence   "Genre-defying . . . Sharing stories and histories, Grover lyrically reflects upon her community’s relationships to the land, the culture and one another."-Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine   "There is so much to explore in this collection, with stories that connect us all."-Superstition Review   "A blend of the amusing and tragic, the spiritual and the embodied, the indigenous and the immigrant, these stories portray life lived in the light of Anishinabbe ways."-Ely Winter Times   "Gichigami Hearts flows like beadwork: each piece of prose, or poetry, or photograph is applied to the background of history, of place, of memory, or of kinship, with a vine of connection unifying seemingly disparate elements. "-American Indian Culture and Research Journal   "Grover does an excellent job of illustrating what her forbears lost-and what they discovered-as they were moved to reservations and sent to boarding schools, and as they clashed against a culture that sought to ‘solve’ their own way of life. There is no grievance or malice in the way she tells these truths. Grover takes her role as storyteller seriously and keeps a consistent tone of reverence for the history she is imparting. "-Mankato Free Press   "Through her creative writing style, LeGarde Grover takes us on a journey. Understanding that the purpose of telling stories is to pass down knowledge from generation to generation, she takes on this responsibility in a unique and personal manner."-Tribal College Journal