RED RIVER RESISTANCE

A sequel offers a teenager’s further
adventures through Métis history.

In Vermette’s (Pemmican Wars,
2018, etc.) graphic novel, Métis teen Echo Desjardins is starting to fit in a
little better at Winnipeg Middle School, making friends and getting involved in
the Indigenous Students Leadership group. But she still spends most of her time
listening to music on her cellphone and getting swept up in the lectures that
her teacher gives on the history of the Métis people. This volume covers the 1869
Red River Rebellion—or Red River Resistance, as Echo’s back-in-time friend
Benjamin calls it, because “there will be no violence.” After the Hudson Bay
Company sells the land on which the Métis people live to the government of
Canada, Métis leaders Louis Riel and Ambroise Lépine attempt to halt the
inevitable flood of settlers. They establish a provisional Métis government for
the Northwest Province. Though the Métis take great pains to negotiate
peacefully with the incoming Canadian government, troublemakers both inside and
outside of their territory—including the anti–Roman Catholic, anti-French, anti-Indigenous
Orangemen—may make the violence that Benjamin promised would never occur impossible
to stop. As Echo witnesses one of the great what-ifs of North American history
fall apart, the tragedy is reflected in the pain she feels in her personal life
back in the 21st century. As in the previous volume, the story is accompanied
by beautiful, full-color artwork by the team of Henderson and Yaciuk (Pemmican
Wars, 2018, etc.). This book has less of Echo’s own life in it than the first
novel, and the historical portions, with their many bearded 19th-century
leaders, feel perhaps more didactic and less dramatic than the author’s account
of the Pemmican Wars. Even so, this underexplored portion of North American
history should prove intriguing and affecting for readers, particularly those
living in the United States, where the struggles of the Métis people are
largely unknown. By contrasting these historical events side by side with Echo’s
story, this installment does a wonderful job showing how the ripples of past
policies have shaped the current day and how political decisions always have a
personal cost.

A visually stimulating and
emotionally gripping graphic novel about the Métis people.