To express my sentiments and impressions regarding Three Day Road frankly, I am compelled to admit that it is one of my favourite books of all time. Joseph Boyden has incorporated so many different elements into his novel, including coming of age, friendship, indigenous issues in Canada and the tragedy and horrors of war. In simple, frank sentences he weaves together a poetic narrative that unites these large and complex themes, and the novel was a pleasure to read. I was riveted with fascination and trepidation during much of Xavier’s account of his experiences with Elijah during the war, as the two young men cowered under artillery barrages and dueled snipers, and I was witness to the ancient traditions and practices of the Cree people and slow death of their culture through the eyes of Niska. Three Day Road had a tremendous impact on me, and I look forward to discussing it more fully in class and reading it again throughout the years.

As the novel progressed, I grew more and more fascinated with the character of Niska, Xavier’s aunt who makes the journey up the Moose River to collect him, or, as she originally thought, Elijah, upon his return from the war. This act makes her significant, but it is what she represents and what she has experienced that makes her a truly significant character in the novel. Niska represents the ancient culture and traditions of the Cree people, and their relationship to the land before the colonization of Canada. In her childhood, Niska was immersed in the mythology and traditions of her people, largely through her father’s influence, and also had the ability to see visions of the future. When she witnesses her father’s ritual execution of a woman and her child guilty of cannibalism, her father tells her that she may one day be a hookimaw, or the shaman and spiritual leader of her clan. From her youth, Niska was tied to the culture of her people, and for readers she comes to represent those ancient beliefs and practices, as well as the later resistance to European colonialism and the settlement of Canada. Niska goes to residential school for a brief period of time and, following her enforced haircut by the nuns, decides to remove the rest of it on her own as a symbol of defiance. Though she is punished, she escapes the residential school with her mother’s help and goes to live in the bush. Her refusal to conform to colonialism and her already established representation of the old indigenous ways signifies for readers the resilience and determination of aboriginal tradition to resist colonialism. In later years, Niska is able to interpret and command the spiritual world, as she does to avenge her betrayal by the French fur trader, a betrayal that echoes the “betrayal” of indigenous groups by the first colonists, but slowly she is relegated to the bush and forced out of society. This process represents the decline of aboriginal cultures alongside the rapid rise of colonialism in Canada. Niska is significant because she represents aboriginal culture and tradition, and the events that happen to her, including her rebellion against the residential school system, betrayal by the French trapper and eventual relegation from society signify for the reader different events and issues faced by the aboriginal culture and community at large in Canada.