Pearl Long Time Squirrel used a story from her family’s past for her first book, ‘Sacred Bird.’
STEFFANIE COSTIGAN, LETHBRIDGE HERALD
LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE
First-time author Pearl Long Time Squirrel staged a book reading of her new book Sacred Bird at Analog Books on Friday.
Long Time Squirrel said the inspiration for her novel came from a family story about an ancestor.
“It’s based on a true story. And it’s been passed down on the maternal side of our family. And it’s about our ancestor, and I’m quite sure, it’s a long, long time ago, when this happened.
“And because it was passed down on the maternal side, it was verbally, the last one who told me the story couldn’t remember the name of that person. And so I named that person a Sacred Bird because I’m dedicating that the name of the book to the person who told me the story,” Long Time Squirrel said.
A Blood Tribe member, Long Time Squirrel is now retired after an impactful career serving her community through addictions counselling, addressing family violence prevention and law enforcement.
Long Time Squirrel said her novel is a little over 200 pages with 15 chapters and was published through Friesen Press.
“The main part of the story is that she was taken, and then she had the determination to return to her home,” Long Time Squirrel said. “And that was the one thing that she was determined to come back. And (she) ended up experiencing a lot of hardship.”
Long Time Squirrel had been working on the novel for many years, having it on floppy disks and with the assistance of a family member and a company was able to have her story transferred to a USB stick.
“I couldn’t find all the floppy disks, so I had to start from scratch. It’s a good thing I labelled all the chapters and stuff like that. And then I had my daughter get me a laptop. She was one who really encouraged me.”
Sacred Bird is available in paperback, hardcover, and eBook at Amazon or through Analog Books.
Long Time Squirrel said she hopes people will be inspired when they read the book.
“I hope it inspires them to write their own stories down and I hope it gets them to do something about those stories and record them, because I have a lot of stories that I wanted to record.”
“I am hoping that the young people can be inspired and to strive for whatever it is that they know what they’re striving for. I know there’s roadblocks out there, but we can all overcome them,” Long Time Squirrel said.
Pearl Long Time Squirrel used a story from her family’s past for her first book, ‘Sacred Bird.’
