Kidmonton , livre ebook

Brindle & Glass - Linda Goyette

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86 pages

English

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Description

An original look at a city's development through the eyes and words of real children who have lived there.

Kidmonton: True Stories of River City Kids is a lively illustrated book for young readers that relates the city's history entirely from the point of view of real children over time.

Using the techniques of fiction to bring true stories to life, the book embraces all of Edmonton's children: aboriginal, immigrant, inner-city and suburban, challenged and privileged, born in Edmonton and recently arrived. A timeline, glossary, and suggestions for more reading and city exploring are also included.

This chapter book has been written specifically for eight and nine year-olds who often encounter Alberta's history for the first time in Grade Four. Full of fresh, vivid writing—and humour—it will be a pleasure to read in the classroom or at home. Kidmonton tells the city's story to its youngest citizens in a bold, new way.

Please visit www.courageouskids.ca for more information on the whole Courageous Kids series.

Informations

Publié par	Brindle & Glass
Date de parution	01 février 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781926972114
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0055€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

by Linda Goyette
to Evan, with love
Table of Contents

The First Ones
We Walked Across the Prairies
Jimmy Jock
The Hidden Boys
Victoria’s Promise
Annie Laurie’s Moose Ride
Billy’s Trick
Eliza’s Treaty
Our Raft Trip to a New Home
The Day the Edmonton Police Banned Tobogganing
High Level Hijinks
Fred’s Flood
Alfred’s Letter
Gertrude and the Castle
Peace in Flight
Odilé’s New Shoes
Peter’s War
Attention! It’s Time to Mention Our Inventions!
Hockey Hero of 65th Street
The Chocolate Bar War
The Night of the Orange Sky
Why July is Perfect
James’s Discovery
Angela and the Tornado
Hockey English
Bradley’s Whirlwind Tour of Edmonton
Welcome to Our Birthday Party
What Happened Next?
Can You Speak Kidmontonian?
Acknowledgments
About the Author

An Unknown Day
The First Ones
Do you like this place? We found it for you. On a winter day, more than eight thousand years before you were born, we followed rabbit tracks to the top of your highest hill, then slid down to the river’s edge on frozen wolf hides.
We come from the north. Our people follow the herds to warmer places, always travelling. When the older ones stopped to make a camp, we slipped away into the snowy woods. No one saw us go. We chased a rabbit through the trees, and when it disappeared, we followed its tiny footprints to a clearing at the top of the hill. We looked down in surprise. Far below us a wide river twisted like a snake towards the sun.
We were hungry. Sliding down, down, down to the riverbank, we found a heavy stick and pounded a hole in the ice. We scooped the icy water into our cupped hands and took a drink. A silver-blue fish swam into the open space, and faster than a blink, my sister caught one tip of its tail and flipped the fish into the snow. We cooked it over a small fire, warming our hands in the wood smoke.
It began to snow, softly at first, and then heavily. The north wind bit the tips of our ears. Our eyelashes turned to icelashes. We squinted through the ice crystals, but soon we couldn’t see our footprints along the shoreline, or our sliding place down the hill, because fresh snow covered every trace of our trail.
“We’re lost,” my sister whispered in a shivery voice. “We will disappear in the snow. Nobody will ever know we were here.”
Did you know I carry the tooth of an ancient animal for good luck? I was told that if the tooth ever saved me from danger, I should hide it in a safe place for someone else. Would it help us today? I held the tooth in my closed fist, hoping it would lead us back through the blizzard to our clan.
“Keep walking,” my sister said to me. “Don’t stop.”
We walked on the top of the snowdrift, counting how many steps we could take before our feet pushed through the snow’s crust and we sank to our knees. We followed the river’s edge. At last we heard a familiar voice, calling our names. Our grandmother was waving to us from the top of a cliff.
“Wait for us!” we shouted. We ran to meet her. She told us she’d been searching for us all day, and led us back to the fire.
This morning our family is moving on again. We’ve been walking since sunrise, deep into a ravine.
We buried the wild animal tooth for you to find near a creek that meets the river. When you touch it, remember we were the first human beings to taste this rushing water, cold and clean. Our names will be a secret. The river is our gift to you.

1755
We Walked Across the Prairies
Tân’si! Are these the Beaver Hills? We need a rest.
We come from the east. Nine months ago we left our camp at York Factory near Hudson’s Bay to travel with Attickasish and Connawapa and the English stranger called Henday. Our fathers are searching for western hunters who will trade beaver pelts to the Hudson’s Bay Company. They are leading Henday because he doesn’t know the territory.
Henday makes us laugh until our sides hurt. He is a tall man with shaggy hair and crooked teeth. He looks like a skinny bear with a long snout. At night in our tent he snores and whistles through his teeth in his sleep. When we tickle his bare feet with willow twigs, he wakes up with a snort and mutters funny words in his own language.
“Blathering Beelzebub!” he shouts into the darkness. “Blast of a blunderbuss!”
In the morning we ask him what these English words mean. He doesn’t remember saying them.
Henday is trying hard to learn our language. He makes many silly mistakes when he tries to say our words. Once he grabbed his gun, and told our mother he was going hunting for misisâhkwak for us to eat the next day. “Don’t hurry back,” our mother said with a smile. Misisâhkwak means horseflies.
We travelled by canoe through the early summer. One night French-speaking traders sneaked into our camp on the riverbank, and shouted that Henday was a spy in their trading territory. There was a lot of yelling. They threatened to capture us, and send Henday to France! We ran for the woods, and hid in the highest branches of the poplar trees, listening to the shouts in three languages. Finally Henday convinced them to go away, and we crept from our hiding places.
The next day we were back on the river. When we reached the grassland, we left our canoes on the shore and began the long walk overland.
Have you ever walked across the prairies? We walked day after day, following rivers, through the summer and early fall. Yes, our feet hurt. Even so, we had a lot of fun, teaching Henday how to chase prairie dogs. “I’ve never seen these critters before,” he said. “What funny little varmints.”
That night Henday told us he was searching for the Archithinue people who live closer to the mountains.
“I’ll promise them fine cloth, beads, and gunpowder if they will come to York Factory to trade their furs,” he said.
Our mothers looked at each other without speaking. Finally Henday’s wife said: “Why would they travel such a distance when they can trade with our people in this territory? Perhaps the Company will have to come here to trade with the Archithinue.”
“To this wilderness?” he grumbled. “Impossible!”
We found the Archithinue at a camp with two hundred lodges. Henday told us that the chiefs offered him the pipe, and gave him buffalo tongue to eat. We stayed outside and traded our bows and hoops with the Archithinue of our own age. We ran races with them. They gave us a small pup as a gift when Attickasish said it was time for us to travel north.
The pup is never far from our heels as we walk. She chases chipmunks and magpies but sometimes we carry her when she’s tired. All day we’ve pulled our sleds along the frozen Saskatchewan River, looking for a place to camp.
We hear soft laughter from the woods, as younger children of the Beaver Hills spy on us from behind the trees. “Don’t worry about them,” our brother said. “They’re our relations. This is where our father was born.”
Twelve of us will make our camp tonight where two rivers meet. We’ll camp with the Beaver Hills people until the snow melts. Our fathers will build birch canoes for the journey to York Factory in the spring, and our mother will make snowshoes.
Henday promises we will have a feast for a saint named George at the end of ayikîpîsim, the frog moon. He says he will fly a cloth decorated with red, white, and blue sticks for his king. He asks us: “Are your bows ready? The geese are returning. I’d love to taste roast goose at the feast.”
Maybe he knows that the kids in his camp are better hunters than him!
Every night Henday dips a feather into a pot of blue, and scratches words on a thin skin he calls paper. Our mother says he’s telling the story of our journey here. We are mihcet awâsisak, the nehiyawak, of this territory. Did Henday tell you our names?

1811
Jimmy Jock
Tell me about your horses. That’s all I want to know about you.
How fast can you ride? How many horses do you own?
I’m Jimmy Jock Bird, and I can leap on a pony in one jump, and ride across the flats faster than riders twice my age. I work as an apprentice at Edmonton House, piling furs in the storehouse after each trading day, but I don’t plan to stay in this place like a rock beside the river. I want to ride into the mountains with Nicholas Montour, my uncle, and come back to tell my family about my hunting trips with the Kutenai and Salish tribes. I want to bring home new horses.
“Forget about going west,” my father warned me yesterday. “You’re going east, boy. I’m taking you to Mr. Geddes’s school at York Factory this summer, since there is no school at Edmonton House. No arguments!”
Do you know why my father wants me to learn to read, write, and count in English? He is the boss for the Hudson’s Bay Company in this part of Rupert’s Land. He was born far away in England, so he gave English names to my brothers, and to me, and he called my mother “Mary,” after his sister. Her true Cree name was Oomenahowish. She died when I was eight years old. Now I have a new stepmother, Elizabeth, from across the yard at Fort Augustus. At Edmonton House we speak Cree, mixed with English and Gaelic and Fr