Darrel J. McLeod on his memoir Mamaskatch, residential schools and unconditional love

Darrel J. McLeod is Cree from treaty eight territory in Northern Alberta. Before deciding to pursue writing in his retirement, he was a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. His memoir Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age won the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. 

We met at the Canada Council's offices in Ottawa to discuss it, along with negotiating land claims and arguing for concessions; residential schools; catholic priests, sexual abuse and the fear of God. The United church, the Evangelical church, listening to birds; music; non-binary definitions of gender; traditional native foods, fish heads, red willow shoots, and moose thigh bones. Death. Unconditional love. Alcohol and weakness. And stand-up comedy.