Tshakapesh au Café Chez Jacques

Dudemaine, André (Author)

Dudemaine, André

Author

text

While we have indicated a primary genre, there is a need to better represent Indigenous writings and contemplate how some fall outside the traditional fiction/non-fiction binary.

Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory

Story

Terres en vues

1995-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1995

n. 4

vol. 3

pp. 14-15

continuing

French

Oeuvre d’imagination
Périodique
Essay
Fiction

Aboriginal
Autochtones

tpatt:7f6c0f67-b211-4e6f-a841-c60095d2e479

2018-01-24T22:07:01.94Z

One December morning, Tshakapesh’s sister awakes feeling disturbed. She is certain that this will be “a bad Christmas” for all Indigenous people; she’d had a nightmare. In the dream, in a small town of the Abitibi region in the early 1960s, a group of Algonquins were just outside a café called Chez Jacques; they were not allowed inside. Through the window they could see all sorts of important men and women, eating voluptuously, even former prime ministers. Cold and hungry, the people outside are laughed at, scorned and ignored by the partiers inside, who threaten to call the police if they do not leave the premises. Tshakapesh’s sister did not want to go on telling her brother about the dream; she wonders why the dreamcatcher by her bed did not work. Tshakapesh checks the dreamcatcher and sees it has been nibbled on by mice. He fixes it and brings some bannock to the mouse. His sister goes back to bed and dreams again of the café, but it has been renovated and is now open to all. It’s new name: Café de la Grande Paix.