The Sasquatch at Home

FRONT FLAP: Wow, I said when I heard the story. What does my name mean? Big lady. Um, what else does it mean? Ma-ma-oo paused. Biiiiiig lady. I paused. . Implied in my name, Wiwltx° . is a high rank as it was obtained through marriage and only given to women of noble birth. I was disappointed in my name, and it had nothing to do with rank: I had story-envy. A helicopter chops though the low clouds, thumping like a grouse when close, then fading-hollow taps as it traces the tower lines west into the rugged mountains. Logging roads seam the quiltwork patterns of regrowth along the steep sides of the Coast Range that frames the deep waters of the Douglas Channel. Towards the ocean, in The Kitlope Heritage Conservancy, the old-growth forest remains untouched. Beneath the evergreen canopy, the dense moss muffles sound and rain leaks through in heavy drips. BACK FLAP: Eden Robinson is the internationally acclaimed author of Traplines, Monkey Beach, and Blood Sports. Traplines was the winner of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Britain's Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Monkey Beach was nominated for the Giller Prize, the 2000 Governor General's Award for Fiction, and was selected as the Globe and Mail's Editor's Choice. Robinson is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. BACK COVER: In March 2010 the Canadian Literature Centre hosted award-winning novelist and storyteller Eden Robinson at the 4th annual Henry Kreisel Lecture. Robinson shared an intimate look into the intricacies of family, culture, and place through her talk, reprinted here as The Sasquatch at Home. Robinson's disarming honesty and wry irony shine through her depictions of the trip she and her mother took to Graceland, the potlatch where she and her sister received their Indian names, how her parents first met in Bella Bella (Waglisla, British Columbia) and a wilderness outing where she and her father try to get a look at b'gwus, the Sasquatch. Readers of memoir, Canadian literature, Aboriginal history and culture, and fans of Robinson's delightful, poignant, sometimes quirky tales will love The Sasquatch at Home.