Gerald Friesen

Gerald Friesen, The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman. University of Manitoba Press, 2024.

The Clio Prairie Prize is awarded to The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman. A political biography of Canada’s first Indigenous premier, this outstanding book presents the life and times of John Norquay. Richly detailed, based on rarely used archival sources and written in a compelling narrative style, this illustrated volume elaborates on Norquay in ways that focus understanding and debate about the Red River Colony, Manitoba, Indigenous Peoples and relations with Canada, and the role of the British Empire in western Canada. Friesen presents Norquay as a multilingual man and politician struggling under intense colonial pressure to carve out a space for himself, his family, and his community in late nineteenth-century Canada. More than the history of an individual, the book makes a significant contribution to scholarship about the Prairies region and Canadian historiography, showing Manitoba after 1870 as a place negotiating with itself and Ottawa as to its position within Canada. The book provokes new questions to pursue about Norquay and the world he inhabited. Friesen gives us not only a remarkable biography but a new way to consider the dynamics of Manitoba’s Indigenous Peoples, western Canada, and the politics of Canadian Confederation.