Three Day Road

•  Joseph Boyden
• Penguin; 2005
• Paperback; 400 pages
• 9780143056959

It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is gravely wounded and addicted to morphine. As Niska slowly paddles her canoe on the three-day journey to bring Xavier home, travelling through the stark but stunning landscape of Northern Ontario, their respective stories emerge—stories of Niska’s life among her kin and of Xavier’s horrifying experiences in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme.

Inspired in part by real-life World War I Ojibwa hero Francis Pegahmagabow, this unblinking, impeccably researched novel is the astonishing story of two Cree snipers in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme, and the winding journey home to northern Ontario that only one of them will make. A remarkable tale of brutality, survival, and rebirth, Three Day Road is an unforgettable reading experience.