Treat Them as Buffalo

A gripping historical debut novel about the mysterious kidnapping of Métis boys and a town set on edge, told against the backdrop of the North-West Resistance of 1885

During a game of buffalo hunters, young Nikosis Eriksen’s cousin goes missing in broad daylight, leaving nothing but scuff marks in the muddy spring snow. It’s the first in a series of kidnappings of local Métis boys that sets the town of Lac-aux-Trois-Pistoles, Saskatchewan, on high alert. As the new detachment of North-West Mounted Police drag their feet, the women of the Eriksen-Desjarlais family, Niko’s Nimama, Auntie and Chapan, take on the desperate search for Cousin.

Gun-slinger Kate McCannon and her band of women and children have been living in a camp outside town while the family men have joined Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont in the resistance. News of the victory at Duck Lake arrives in the camp as McCannon and the women join the search for the missing boys. When a missing boy is recovered alive yet badly wounded, the need to find Cousin becomes all the more pressing. It isn’t until Niko discovers the true identity of the man responsible for the kidnapping that he is forced to grapple with his own identity and his truth, and resolves to bring Cousin back from his captor’s clutches, no matter what it takes.

Told in the unforgettable young voice of Niko, Treat Them as Buffalo is a remarkable debut novel about the violent events of 1885 and the survival of a people when threat comes from every direction.