Jigging for Answers

Three underlying facts propel this poetic and often poignant book: in September 1870, an anti-Métis militia stoned to death Elzéar Goulet, an uncle of the author’s great-grandfather, the fiddler Léon Joseph Robert Goulet; family photos and records were deliberately burned decades later; and a fear has been passed down from generation to generation. “Be careful,” a respected elder tells the author: “you’ll be criticized for / speaking out for / the Métis for / your people / for telling your story.”

Approaching Fire is an exploration of absence, erasure, and the irrepressible yearning to discover what has been suppressed. Ostensibly, it is the poet, journalist, and writer Michelle Porter’s attempt to make sense of her great-grandfather’s career as a stage and radio performer in 1930s Winnipeg, before Léon Robert Goulet abandoned the spotlight and headed to Mission, British...