Big Bear

Penguin Canada’s “Extraordinary Canadians” series includes just two biographies of key figures in the conflicts between First Nations groups and the Canadian government that culminated in the 1885 North-West Resistance: one biography of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, and this volume on Big Bear. The book traces Big Bear’s life across the North-West, highlighting his leadership role amongst the Plains Cree and his negotiations with government authorities during increasingly fraught Indigenous-settler encounters in the mid/late nineteenth century. Taking a similar approach to that of his 1973 novel “The Temptations of Big Bear,” acclaimed Canadian author Rudy Wiebe mixes historical facts with imaginative liberties to craft a lively biography of Big Bear. Includes chronology and sources.