Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Maggie, the Reserve’s chief, has been struggling with her responsibilities in the community and as a mother to her aloof teenage son, Virgil, after the death of her own mother and the loss of their last connection the old ways of life.

Then John, a mysterious white man, pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle and turns Otter Lake upside down. Maggie gets swept away, but Virgil is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger’s intentions, Virgil teams up with his uncle Wayne—a master of aboriginal martial arts—to drive the stranger from the Reserve, using tricks that would make the Nanabush proud. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand.

An exploration of political, religious, and cultural challenges combined with a lighthearted playfulness, Motorcycles & Sweetgrass is a poignant and charming story for the ages.

The author

Drew Hayden Taylor is an Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations and has worn many hats in his literary career, including performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; lecturing at the British Museum on the films of Sherman Alexie; and being Artistic Director of Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. He is an award-winning playwright, a journalist/columnist, a short-story writer, a novelist, a television scriptwriter, and has worked on numerous documentaries exploring the Native experience. In recent years, he has proudly served as the Writer-in-Residence at various universities and theatre companies across Canada.