Loon: Memory, Meaning, and Reality in a Northern Dene Community

In August 1975 at Foxholm Lake on the reserve of the Chipewyan, a Northern Dene people, in the Northwest Territories of Canada, the anthropologist Henry S. Sharp and two members of the Mission Band encountered a loon. Loons are prized for their meat and skin, so the two Chipewyan tried-thirty times-to kill it. The loon, in a brazen display of power, thwarted these attempts and in doing so revealed itself to be a "spirit." In this book, Sharp embarks on a narrative exploration of the Chipewy...