The Devil's Chair

Alain Létourneau is a librarian in the J.N. Desmarais Library at
Laurentian University.

Off the east coast of Lake Superior lies a dangerous shoal known as
“The Devil’s Chair.” The Algonquian-speaking people used to refer
to it as the home of the great trickster Nanibojou, a place of evil.

In the “melting-potted” postwar Northern Ontarian community of
Mashkisibi, immigrants—many of them World War II veterans from Finland
or Germany—co-exist with the Natives and other local inhabitants.
There, in the wilderness, they share memories and are haunted by ghosts
from their past.

Other than the encounter—rather than the conflict—between the
Native culture and the white man, there is no real plot in Binning’s
novel. Everything is depicted with a great deal of realism, giving the
reader an opportunity to learn much about both life in the woods and
Native traditions. Important cultural colour is provided by Sibelius,
treasured composer of the many Finnish newcomers, and by the reflections
on the philosophy of history expressed by two of the book’s
characters.