A first-hand account of a Swampy Cree boy’s experiences growing up in the Saskatchewan River Delta, one of the world’s largest inland deltas and one of North America’s most important ecosystems.
Depicting an Indigenous lifestyle that existed in Northern Saskatchewan way past the Fur Trade era, Ken Carriere shares his first-hand account of experiences as a young boy helping his father trapping, fishing, and hunting in the Saskatchewan River Delta.
Opimōtēwina wīna kapagamawāt Wītigōwa / Journeys of The One to Strike the Wetigo contains interviews with elders, stories, personal photographs, and poetry, along with some original Swampy Cree translations.
Creating a vivid portrait of what it was like to live off the land, Carriere also reveals how hydro-electric dams and other Western endeavours have impacted the livelihoods of so many Northern communities.

A retired educator, geologist, trapper, commercial fisher, and tourist guide, Ken Carriere is a fluent speaker of the Swampy Cree dialect and a member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in northeastern Saskatchewan. He currently resides in the northern Saskatchewan village of Air Ronge.

Ken Carriere's profile page

“Ken Carriere has written an admirable book…using the power of printed words to remember tradition and promote the survival of a culture confronted by forces that would destroy it.”—The Journal of Folklore Research Reviews

"Wonderful, insightful stories." —Russ Mirasty, Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan

"Wow! This is an excellent resource for those engaged in, or interested in, land-based education. It gives a wonderful, engaging account of living on the land in the past and, to some extent, in the present day. It's also a good resource for N-dialect speakers." —Solomon Ratt, author of The Way I Remember and Beginning Cree