Duck Soup book to celebrate Metis stories

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Do you have a funny story to tell based on your own experience? Is there a humourous family legend that you want to share?

To celebrate the provincial centennial, the Central Urban Metis Federation Incorporated is collecting stories for a book to be titled Duck Soup for the Metis Soul.

The federation's vice-president, Shirley Isbister, wants all Saskatchewan Metis to submit their stories and participate in creating this Metis legacy.

"I don't think that there's a better legacy than a book. It can be photocopied by people all over the province. If they don't get a copy somebody can photocopy it for them. There'll be stories in there that will have happened to my children's grandparents that they'll be able to pass on to their children. And that's how I think it will be within each community, there'll be somebody. Maybe your mother will write a story and then you've got seven or eight kids who will want that book and then want to have copies to give to their kids," she said.

Isbister hopes this book will do more than just act as a celebration.

"In Saskatchewan we have all these problems with the Metis Nation and all of these things, and humour has always been a way of working through things and a way of healing. And I always thought there's so many funny stories out there that it was always a goal of mine to one day to be able to produce a book of humourous stories. And I mean duck soup, well that was always a kind of like chicken soup for me."

Isbister said she will print every submission and that the more funny stories there are, the better the book will be.

"I know within my own family that there's humourous stories passed down from generation to generation, and so I'm hoping for some of those and current humourous stories, funny political stories. Just people's basic humourous stories that's happened within their own lives, of within the Elder's lives, that's the type that we're looking for."

The federation will release the book on Nov. 16, 2005 as part of the Louis Riel Day celebrations in Saskatoon. All contributors will receive a copy of the book and an invitation to the celebration.

You can e-mail your story to cumfihp@yahoo.ca or mail your story to: C.U.M.F.I., 315 Avenue F South, Saskatoon, SK. S7M 1T3. The federation asks that you include your name and address so you can receive your copy of the book and invitation.