LI KEUR: RIEL’S HEART OF THE NORTH
Place: The heart of the continent
Time: Present day and the 1870s
Languages: Southern Michif, French-Michif, Anishinaabemowin, French, and English
This work is entirely of my imagination and cannot be construed as an historic account despite a foundation of extensive primary archival and secondary research of the 19th century, extensive engagement with the land, with the Michif peoples, and our kinship networks of the 21st century throughout our homeland. Any mistakes or omissions are entirely mine. Any linguistic mistakes are entirely mine.” – Suzanne Steele
Li Keur is an invitation to visit. It is almost winter, a time when stories stalk the earth. In dreamlike sequences, Joséphine-Marie, and her beloved grandmother Mémère tell us a favourite family story, one told to give comfort in troubled times.
It imagines the becoming of the Métis peoples and introduces a mystical, historic past that exists in the present in the form of ‘ghost’ or ‘ancestor’ choruses. Thus, Joséphine-Marie and her family situate themselves at the heart of the continent as Métis peoples.
The opening act introduces us to the Black Geese of Fate, agents of change and the main protagonists; the Anishinaabeg knowledge keeper, Marie Serpente; Josette, a young Michif sharpshooter and runaway; Marguerite Monet dit Belhumeur; and the historic Louis Riel living out his fate. We also meet Baptiste Robideau, a buffalo guide who may or may not be the younger Riel.
We then transition from the mystic to “reality” as Joséphine-Marie is startled awake from her story-dream into the present. Far from home, she struggles with her studies and sense of identity until she is visited by her darling Mémère who helps her navigate this difficult time through more story, this time of a young woman sharpshooter of the 1870s at the last bison hunts and her love for a buffalo guide named Baptiste Robideau.
The story within a story begins in the 1870s Red River at a dance. We learn Josette is being bargained over by her father, Pierre LaGrande to an old trader, Jacques LaCrosse, who wants her in marriage. Josette, an independent spirit, refuses to be a part of this, switches clothing with her best friend Rose, and runs away south across the Medicine Line (the US/Canada border) with Robideau, who has been hired to take a wealthy English aristocrat to the last bison hunts.
Joining them are Marie Serpente, a dear friend of Josette’s from childhood, and LaRoche, a Canadjenn (Quebecois), Marie’s love partner and Robideau’s guide partner. The quartet journey to St. Paul, fetch their Englishman, then meet the buffalo hunts of Pembina and Ile. Marie. Josette babysits the Englishman while Robideau and LaRoche come and go over the Medicine Line to do “business.”
Over the course of the opera, we encounter bison brigades, smugglers, attend kitchen parties filled with jiggers and fiddlers, and take in a boxing match!
Overarching narratives encompass 21st century Joséphine-Marie’s reckoning with identity, 1885 Riel’s historic reckoning with his fate as he sits in his jail cell playing crib with his jailers, and a love triangle. All the while, the Black Geese of Fate manipulate, play with, or torment every character, including us!
In the final act, we come to the ‘historic’ Riel and face the terrible challenges of the 1880s for Indigenous peoples at the heart of the continent, themes 21st century peoples will recognize: refugeehood, environmental degradation, political insecurities, and much more.
But this work is meant first and foremost as a celebration of the independence and fortitude of the Métis peoples and our kinship networks at li keur, the heart of the continent, and in particular, how the women have sewn and mended our cultures and our challenges – traits that Joséphine-Marie will take with her well into the 21st century as she prepares for her own leadership guided by stories of Josette, Mémère, Riel, and the Black Geese of Fate!
