Book Review: Approaching Fire by Michelle Porter

Book: 172

Rating: 3/5

Thank you to Breakwater Books for sending me this book! I’m always looking to read more Canadian literature (especially Indigenous stories).

This is a deeply personal book about a woman's quest to find out the story of one of her ancestors. Told through musicology, jigs and reels, poetry, photographs, and the ecology of fire, Porter shares how she tracked down her grandfather's story, the Métis fiddler and performer Léon Robert Goulet.

I liked the way she weaved in her family's history, and the history of Métis in Manitoba. Porter's story highlights the importance of learning about our ancestors and where we come from; understanding their history and where we are today.

I appreciated her story and the various mediums in which she told it; while it is not a story I connected deeply with, this book wasn't written for me.