The Bear-Walker and Other Stories

John Stanley is a policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

This book consists of nine Anishnaubae (Ojibwa) stories as told by three
elders: Basil Johnston, Sam Ozawamik, and Frank Shawbedees, from the
Lake Huron communities of Cape Croker, Wikwemikong, and Saugeen,
respectively. The stories were translated by Basil Johnston and
beautifully illustrated by David Johnson, an Anishnaubae from Curve
Lake.

While Johnston possesses a good elder’s and scholar’s sense that
these stories are part of an important heritage that is in danger of
being lost, he has a poorly developed sense of how to use the printed
medium to instruct about Native culture. General readers of this book
will have many unanswered questions, not the least of which has to do
with the cultural context surrounding such figures as the Bear-Walker,
Nanabush, and Mishibizheu (translated here as the Great Lynx).
Particularly unsatisfying are the single-page Great Lynx story (in which
this key cultural figure merely appears in a dream and then disappears)
and the tale about the Nebaunaube (Mer-man), which ends with the bland
statement “Such is an Anishnaubae story—wherever there is lake there
will also be fish.”

Finally, Johnston’s failure to include the original text alongside
the English translation lessens the value of this work for scholars.