Day of the Dog-tooth Violets

June M. Blurton is a retired speech/language pathologist.

When her mother dies, Nan finds out she is half Chippewa. Also half
Chippewa is Gunner, who attended the same school (located in a village
in the Muskoka region of Ontario) as Nan. Gunner’s family is poor, and
his mother, Winnie, follows a Chippewa lifestyle. His father, Hamar, is
a Norwegian who escaped to Canada during World War II; Hamar is an
angry, violent man who, fortunately, is seldom at home.

In the course of this interesting story, we learn a great deal about
the Chippewa customs of hunting, trapping, and living off the land, and
about their myths of the region. There is also a graphic description of
Hamar’s escape through the mountains of Norway. The narrative tends to
be plodding, however, with superfluous detail and dialogue that
doesn’t reflect the characters. Despite these drawbacks, the novel is
worth reading.