R.I.P Darrel J. McLeod (1957 – 2024)
September 04th, 2024
Darrel McLeod at home in Sooke, BC.
Darrel J. McLeod, whose debut memoir of resilience as a Cree from Treaty Eight territory in Northern Alberta, Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age (D&M, 2018), won the Governor General Literary Award in the Non-Fiction category, has died. He passed away in Victoria unexpectedly on August 29, 2024 at the age of 67, following a brief and sudden illness.
“Mamaskatch,” a Cree word used as a response to dreams shared, evokes feelings of awe. In an interview with CBC Radio’s Shelagh Rogers for The Next Chapter, McLeod explained his personal connection to this word: “Mamaskatch, has stuck with me over the years. Mom used to say it a lot when we were kids when things happened that were a bit extraordinary. I gave the book that title after going online with some fluent Cree speakers. I asked them what it meant and they gave various meanings, ranging from, ‘How strange’ to ‘It’s a miracle.’ It is the perfect title. I keep saying that word over and over again now. Somebody asked me yesterday what would your mother say if she read that book and I said she would say, ‘Mamaskatch.'”
McLeod spent his early years in a trapping cabin in Northern Alberta with his great grandfather, Joseph Powder. As he described in Mamaskatch, this was an idyllic period and Joseph Powder’s teachings would be a constant solace for McLeod throughout an unsettling childhood and youth filled with poverty, bullying, racism, gender identity issues and suicide. McLeod later lived in Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa. He achieved academic success with a degree in French language and literature from the University of British Columbia, as well as a diploma in Education, and a certificate in dispute resolution. This launched McLeod into a unique career that included the role of chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and that of executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. He also travelled a lot, exploring the world from one pole to the other, and trips to Europe and South America. After retirement, McLeod began writing, singing and playing jazz guitar from his Sooke home as well as winters spent in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
McLeod followed Mamaskatch with a second memoir titled Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity, A Memoir (D&M, 2021), which was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. His third title, and his first novel, A Season in Chezgh’un (D&M, 2023) follows James, a talented and conflicted Cree man from a tiny settlement in Northern Alberta, who has settled into a comfortable middle-class life in Vancouver’s trendy Kitsilano neighbourhood. He is living the life he had once dreamed of—travel, a charming circle of sophisticated friends, a promising career and a loving relationship with a caring man—but he chafes at being assimilated into mainstream society, removed from his people and culture. The untimely death of James’s mother, his only link to his extended family and community, propels him into a quest to reconnect with his roots. He secures a job as a principal in a remote northern Dakelh community but quickly learns that life there isn’t the fix he’d hoped it would be: his encounters with poverty, cultural disruption and abuse conjure ghosts from his past that drive him toward self-destruction. During the single year he spends in northern BC, James takes solace in the richness of the Dakelh culture—the indomitable spirit of the people, and the splendour of nature—all the while fighting to keep his dark side from destroying his life.
A Season in Chezgh’un is shortlisted for the 2024 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
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