From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way

“He told us stories about how our people once had lived in large communities in handmade houses just like his all over Saskatchewan, living off the land, but that was before the government attacked us and stole our land during the resistance, before our clans fell apart.”

Jesse Thistle reflects on the stories that his maternal grandfather, Mushoom Jeremie, told him and his brothers about their family and larger community’s past. These memories and details are lost to Thistle until later in life when he reconnects with his mother’s family while at university and learns more about Métis-Cree culture. However, offering this information to the reader at the beginning of the story is Thistle’s way of establishing the importance of his Métis-Cree background and identity in the way his life unfolds.

“Jerry’s tiny fists punched up and into the darkness, right before his little body was dug out and broken. He would put himself between me and the Monster. He would rescue me from whatever it was that had him and Josh squealing in the next room while I cried myself to sleep.”

Thistle has hazy memories of his time in a foster home; however, he remembers it being an unpleasant experience. The memory of his older brothers Josh and Jerry attempting to protect Thistle from the “Monster” that attacked all three of them at night shows how, in their earlier days, both older brothers took on a protective role. Thistle does not elaborate on his relationships with his brothers, but anecdotes such as this quote reveal what their bond looked like and how it changed over time.

“Grandpa believed in an honest day’s work. He told us he was raised by his grandfather, Pappy Peter McKinnon, after his own father, a coal miner, passed from a heart attack. He used to say that if a man didn’t have callused hands, he couldn’t be trusted and didn’t really work.”

Cyril Thistle, the three brothers’ paternal grandfather, was a proponent of honest work and taught the boys how to use tools early in life. Despite Thistle’s defiance toward his grandfather and their eventual estrangement, the value of hard work remains instilled in Thistle even in his darkest moments.