Author struggles with his place in the world

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Lake of the Prairies:

A Story of Belonging

By Warren Cariou

Doubleday Canada

318 pages, (hc)

$32.95

Lake of the Prairies is, first, a story of a man and the forces that have made him what he is today. It is also a nuanced portrait of Meadow Lake, Sask., the author's hometown and the place where he grew into adulthood.

Warren Cariou currently lives in Winnipeg, but he has also lived in Saskatoon, Regina, Toronto, London, Ont. and Vancouver. In Lake of the Prairies, Cariou explores the ideas of memory and belonging by discussing a place he has now lived half his life away from but to which he still feels attached.

In his search to make sense of the idea of home-and its shifting terrain-the author discusses the in-between place Meadow Lake plays in terms of its geography (not Prairies but not the north), his own in-between place as a person of Metis ancestry, and the in-between-ness of truth as revealed in the real and imagined stories of a place and its people. (As a child, Cariou remembers finding arrowheads and other artifacts, which were never connected to the Cree of the nearby Flying Dust Indian Reserve, whose history played no part in the glorious settler narratives the local whites told as their version of history.)

Cariou doesn't just use his own story to illustrate how place and personal story become intertwined and irreducible from one another. The author discusses race relations in Meadow Lake, and the way skin color, class distinction, and special talent (an excellence at sport, for example) determined and conferred acceptance.

His memories of Clayton Matchee, the Meadow Lake-born former Canadian Airborne soldier involved in the torture and murder of Somali citizen Shidane Abukar Arone, serves as a particularly chilling reminder of the effects of racism.

To Cariou, Matchee committed the torture and killing because he wanted to fit in. He saw that fitting in meant not being Native, so, Cariou said, Matchee internalized the racism he suffered growing up in Meadow Lake and acted just like the racist non-Natives of his youth, essentially becoming, Cariou said, an honorary non-Native in his treatment of the darker-skinned Abukar Arone.

Lake of the Prairies takes care to point out the role our stories play in locating and grounding us. Cariou's father was a teller of tall tales and mythic family stories, and this led to Cariou's intense interest in his place in the family, and his family's place in the world (surely the first sign that he would become a writer).

The book also illustrates the confusion and questioning that occurs when those stories change: Cariou only found out he was Metis when he was in his late 20s. The author still struggles with this new-found knowledge and by the end of the book comes to no clear understanding of his place, only a superior understanding of the power of labels.

Lake of the Prairies is perfectly paced and expertly structured. The author weaves personal anecdote, historical detail, and meditative remembrance together to form chapter-by-chapter explorations on various subjects, but also presents a linear autobiography that functions as the main narrative. Cariou also has a dry wit and a sure eye for the comedic, which balances the book nicely.

Like every good memoir, Cariou presents his story and the story of Meadow Lake as a mirror through which readers might reflect on their own history and place in the world.

Lake of the Prairies is storytelling at its absolute best.