Bøger af David Gidmark

Discover the dying art of birchbark canoe building as seen through the eyes of someone who is passionate about it. In this book David Gidmark tells the story of the building of a traditional birchbark canoe and his apprenticeship learning the skills and the language of the Algonquin of western Quebec. Through learning how to do (how to strip the bark from the tree, fashion gunwales from the cedar logs, carve the ribs with a crooked knife and sew the huge sheets of bark onto the frame with spruce root), David Gidmark learns how to see the wilderness and relate to it in Algonquin ways that are very different from ours. As his knowledge increases, so does his respect for the culture and wisdom of native peoples. Part way through this odyssey, he meets his future wife, Ernestine, a young Ojibway woman who was taken at the age of five from her family and placed in a residential school. As she and David made a life together in the woods, she was able to begin relearning her language and culture.

In his early twenties, Riley Dorais has a good life. He lives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin; has a good job in the post office; two loving parents; and a girlfriend, Cindy. All in all he's content, but one unanswered question continually nags at him, leaving him feeling incomplete. Riley is adopted and has a deep emotional need to find and meet his birth patents. His adoptive parents, Frank and Jean, are hurt by their son's search, but for Riley this is about discovering his past and hopefully reconciling with the parents who gave him up. Locating birth parents who don't want to be found is a difficult endeavor-one that leads to Riley hiding in a county records office in Minneapolis and stealing his own birth certificate. As the young man draws closer to his goal he comes to two conclusions: one of his birth parents is dead, and the other may not be willing to welcome a long-lost son. Written by David Gidmark, Father and Son offers a touching, bittersweet examination of the drive many adoptees have to find their natural parents and the unpredictable nature of such reunions.