Making the Carry: The Lives of John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater

Making the Carry is an extraordinary illustrated biography of John Linklater and Tchi-Ki-Wis, a Métis man and Anishinaabe woman who lived in the canoe and border country of Ontario and Minnesota from the 1870s until the 1930s. The book chronicles their experiences of radical upheavals in the Quetico–Superior region, including the cutting of white and red pine forests, the creation of Indian reserves/reservations and conservation areas, and the rise of towns, tourism, and mining. It also provides an intimate portrait of Métis people and a restoration of two fascinating Indigenous people to their rightful place in our collective past.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 03 April 2023
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

John Linklater, a Métis man and Anishinaabe woman, lived in the canoe and border country of Ontario and Minnesota from the 1870s until the 1930s. During this time, they experienced radical upheavals in the Quetico–Superior region, including the cutting of white and red pine forests, the creation of Indian reserves/reservations and conservation areas, and the rise of towns, tourism, and mining. With broad geographical sweep, historical significance, and biographical depth, Making the Carry tells their story, which has been overlooked for far too long. John Linklater, a renowned game warden and skilled woodsman, was also the bearer of traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous heritage, both of which he was deeply committed to teaching others. He was sought by professors, newspaper reporters, museum personnel, and conservationists—among them Sigurd Olson, who considered Linklater a mentor. Tchi-Ki-Wis, an extraordinary craftswoman, made a sweeping array of necessary yet beautiful objects, from sled dog harnesses to moose calls to birch bark canoes. She was an expert weaver of large Anishinaabeg cedar bark mats with complicated geometric designs, a virtually lost art. Making the Carry traces the routes by which the couple came to live on Basswood Lake on the international border. Johns Métis ancestors with deep Hudsons Bay Company roots originally came from Orkney Islands, Scotland, by way of Hudson Bay and Red River, or what is now Winnipeg. His family lived in Manitoba, northwest Ontario, northern Minnesota, and, in the case of John and Tch, the Quetico–Superior region.
John Linklater, a Métis man and Anishinaabe woman, lived in the canoe and border country of Ontario and Minnesota from the 1870s until the 1930s. During this time, they experienced radical upheavals in the Quetico–Superior region, including the cutting of white and red pine forests, the creation of Indian reserves/reservations and conservation areas, and the rise of towns, tourism, and mining. With broad geographical sweep, historical significance, and biographical depth, Making the Carry tells their story, which has been overlooked for far too long. John Linklater, a renowned game warden and skilled woodsman, was also the bearer of traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous heritage, both of which he was deeply committed to teaching others. He was sought by professors, newspaper reporters, museum personnel, and conservationists—among them Sigurd Olson, who considered Linklater a mentor. Tchi-Ki-Wis, an extraordinary craftswoman, made a sweeping array of necessary yet beautiful objects, from sled dog harnesses to moose calls to birch bark canoes. She was an expert weaver of large Anishinaabeg cedar bark mats with complicated geometric designs, a virtually lost art. Making the Carry traces the routes by which the couple came to live on Basswood Lake on the international border. Johns Métis ancestors with deep Hudsons Bay Company roots originally came from Orkney Islands, Scotland, by way of Hudson Bay and Red River, or what is now Winnipeg. His family lived in Manitoba, northwest Ontario, northern Minnesota, and, in the case of John and Tch, the Quetico–Superior region.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 203 x 152 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517913885