[But if Boyden grew up canoeing across cold-water lakes and tramping through the birch forests with his relatives, no one ever explained their connection. His parents were raised during the 1930s when native heritage was considered shameful and many mixed-race people would pretend to be white.] I think my grandmother lived with this quietly, unhappily, ... My mother just refused to recognise it so didn't grow up with any kind of prejudice.

This memory, this pretty little stone, I examine it with my eyes closed tight. Turn it over in my fingers.

(The international exposure) has been this completely amazing bonus, ... It makes me very happy to see that I'm kind of exporting Canada.

I would give my left arm to fly in one of those aeroplanes...

[Boyden remembers hearing that when Pegahmagabow returned to Canada, he was made a conquering hero before the promises of rewards for hard service evaporated.] He wanted to begin to raise horses and to start farming, ... He went to his Indian agent [a government employee who managed the Indian reserves] and asked for a $300 loan and the agent turned him down, saying: 'How can I trust you with animals?'

[Among the native people who became important to Boyden was Francis Pegahmagabow, a sniper credited with killing 378 Germans during the Great War, who is fictionalised as the sharpshooter Peggy in the novel. Pegahmagabow was the chief of the Parry Island reserve near where Boyden's mother now lives, and Boyden grew up with his grandchildren.] Francis looked at being a sniper as a job, neither with happiness nor sadness, ... To him it was like trapping and he was very good at it. But Canadians have completely forgotten him.