Looking for Henry

From the Cover: The Plains Indian tradition of looking for common ancestors and common memories occurred when one family came unexpectedly upon another during the nomadic season. Similarly, Clive Doucet's search for "missing" Métis painter Henry Letendre and the resulting poem sequence Looking of Henry, becomes a search for self, for history, and for the intricate weave of Métis, Acadien and Micmac destinies and dispossessions. In this original, compelling book, Clive Doucet delves into his own Cape Breton Acadian roots and works with Letendre's paintings and ancestry to parellel the sad histories of the Métis and Acadien people.

From notes made by the author. Our small planet is dotted with flags and carved into many territories. Acadie is a curious place because it has a flag but no frontiers, and no territory since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714. And yet Acadie exists, it is a place of history, culture, spirit, and can be found most any place that spirit exists, and this has been so since the exile.

Looking for Henry is about that spirit. It's about trying to understand the history of North America which divides people into winners and losers. The Acadiens, the Micmac, and the Métis are among the losers. It's about trying to understand history from the perspective that is rarely written - the side that didn't get the land. It's about identity, creation and continuity. It's about looking for the connections between people through the song of the heart, not the sound of the gun. It's about the Acadiens. It's about the Métis. It's about the connections between them

Thistledown Press 1999, Paperback $13.95.