Cover: The Shoe Boy: A Trapline Memoir, by Duncan McCue. photos: a snowty landscape that has trees, a small house and a wood pile, and a wooded island on it. On the landscape are coffee-cup stains and three polaroids on it: one of the polariods of a young Indigenous man on skis looking out to the camera; a second of the same young man crouched and cooking with a pan over a fire; and the third showing the young man with his arm around another young Indigenous man.
88 pages, 5 x 8
Paperback
Release Date:02 Apr 2020
ISBN:9780774880572
EPUB
Release Date:02 Apr 2020
ISBN:9780774880596
PDF
Release Date:02 Apr 2020
ISBN:9780774880589
GO TO CART SAMPLE CHAPTER ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIOBOOK

The Shoe Boy

A Trapline Memoir

UBC Press, Purich Books

At the age of seventeen, an Anishinabe boy who was raised in the south joined a James Bay Cree family in a one-room hunting cabin in the isolated wilderness of northern Quebec. In the five months that followed, he learned a way of life on the land with which few are familiar, where the daily focus is on the necessities of life, and where both skill and finesse are required for self-sufficiency.

In The Shoe Boy, that boy – Duncan McCue – takes us on an evocative journey that explores the hopeful confusion of the teenage years, entwined with the challenges and culture shock of coming from a mixed-race family and moving to the unfamiliar North. As he reflects on his search for his own personal identity, he illustrates the relationship Indigenous peoples have with their lands, and the challenges urban Indigenous people face when they seek to reconnect to traditional lifestyles.

The result is a contemplative, honest, and unexpected coming-of-age memoir set in the context of the Cree struggle to protect their way of life, after massive hydro-electric projects forever altered the landscape they know as Eeyou Istchee.

This memoir will be of interest to readers of all ages who want to know more about the interplay of traditional and contemporary Indigenous lifestyles, the challenges of identity for First Nations youth, and the relationship Indigenous peoples have with their land.

Frank, funny and evocative, The Shoe Boy deftly entwines the challenges of identity for First Nations youth, the sexual frustration and hopeful confusion of the teenage years, and the realities of living in an enduring state of culture shock. CBC Books
If you’re like me, you’ll have watched Duncan McCue’s journalism on the CBC for a number of years now, admiring his skill and diligence as a reporter. If you read his new book, his first, you’ll no doubt admire him a little bit more. Joseph Planta, The Commentary
It’s a thoroughly enjoyable, nicely balanced and ideal summer read (or winter read really, as it takes place in the cold). Daniel J. Rowe, Eastern Door
[Duncan McCue’s] voice is familiar as it is fresh. Bryan Lynch, The Straight
The Shoe Boy is a valuable read and will enrich anyone who tunes in to CBC Radio One on Sunday afternoons, as McCue establishes his voice in the conversation of Canada. Thomas Billingsley, Globe and Mail
McCue’s book, succinctly but beautifully written, takes the reader right to the people and places described, and leaves one wishing for more. Wilfred Laurier University, Announcement of Edna Staebler Nonfiction Award Shortlist
McCue takes the reader on a transformative journey and its lifelong ripple effect. Monique Gray Smith, author of Tilly and the Crazy Eights

Duncan McCue is an award-winning CBC journalist and the host of CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup. He teaches journalism at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism and Ryerson University, and was awarded a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. His numerous honours include an Innovation Award from the Canadian Ethnic Media Association, for developing curriculum on Indigenous issues. McCue is Anishinaabe, from the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation in Ontario, and the proud father of two children. He lives in Toronto.

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