One Book Northland goes to the wolves

Cloquet native's 2020 book with wolves is chosen

There was an ease about Thomas Peacock as he made a presentation and later sat down to talk about his work as an author of revered books about the Native experience.

He was at the Jan. 6 Dream Catcher Winter Gathering for educators from the region, talking about the use of "story" in teaching and learning about Native ways. It was the first such live gathering at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College in Cloquet since the pandemic hit.

Peacock is a Cloquet native, growing up as part of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. This year, his 2020 book, "The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told By Wolves," is the 22nd One Book Northland selection, a yearlong celebration of work at libraries and bookstores across the region.

Like much of his work, "The Wolf's Trail" has received accolades from reviewers for its simple yet penetrating way of teaching readers about a culture.

"It just kind of flowed," Peacock said of a book that blossomed from a collection of short stories he was writing. They included animal characters and spun into a work of art he still hasn't clearly identified, nor really wants to.

"The Wolf's Trail" is the story of a rather reluctant older wolf that young pups look up to, calling him "Zhi-shay" in Ojibwe, meaning "Uncle." He proceeds to tell stories of creation, and the relationship between man and wolf, a sacred one in Peacock's culture.

Once he found the voice in the novel, he researched wolves, especially those of the area and the South Shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin.

The premise is to tell the creation story, Peacock said. The creator sent a wolf out to name all things, he said, and then separate the wolf and human, with the warning that both will lose their lands, be hunted for hair, and become extinct.

There is a heaviness to all that, but Peacock uses ease, humor, and simple storytelling to make an impact on the reader.

The book is another example of Native storytelling which has earned Peacock two Minnesota Book Awards and other accolades.

Peacock was preparing to take off to Florida for the winter last week, but not before the FDLTCC event and talking to people at the Cloquet library to map out a presentation there in April.

"I had a feeling," he said, that the book would resonate. He talked to wolf experts and people at the International Wolf Center, and could sense he was on to something.

"I don't have a real process," Peacock said of how he ends up with a finished work. "I'll try different voices. I have an idea in my head."

He talked of his fictional memoir, "Walking Softly," that started as a third-person narrative. As he went along, the idea of a first-person, memoir-type work took hold. It meant he had to painstakingly comb through what he had written to change the voice.

"I don't outline," he said of forming his ideas. "I just keep going."

What he ends up with helps shape a work, and then the editing process begins. When in the hard throes of writing, he will rise early and try to get a chapter done in 12 hours.

Peacock is co-owner and publisher of Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing, specializing in Native children's books written by Native authors. The other owner is his partner, Elizabeth Albert-Peacock, a member of the Red Cliff band in Wisconsin, and fellow presenter last week at the FDLTCC event.

Peacock began writing in college when he took an introduction to poetry class. He liked it, and had a few poems published in chapbooks and did readings. He knew he had writing in him, he said, but it wasn't until he wound down his career as a school teacher, professor and college administrator that he could find time to blossom.

"It took all my energy," he said of his work.

Early on, his writing was mostly nonfiction, created from research and interviews.

"I kind of ran out of things to say," he said, followed by an easy smile. "In fiction, you can say whatever you want."

His presentations on storytelling and his writing often hearken to his own childhood, and how his elders saw the world and "held a lot of culture very close." There is more freedom to tell Native stories today, he said, and it can be beneficial.

Yes, "it's like giving away our secrets," he said, which often exposes "our issues, our contradictions. I write about those."

But allowing people to express their pride, their ancestral roots and culture, opens a "beautiful" world for them and others, even non-Natives, he said. "Look at who attends powwows. Half the crowd is non-Native."

"We are all related," he said in an earlier presentation on a lesson book he and Elizabeth have created for educators. It deals with how to understand Native culture looking forward and also backward, where many of today's misperceptions and slights find germination.

It's hefty stuff, but Peacock uses that ease to make it understandable, relatable. He tells his own stories from his eight decades on earth, and the question of "Who am I?"

It also comes with humor.

"Rez humor," he said, which can be "dark" and "self-deprecating."

He thinks of "The Wolf's Trail," and the relationship between the pups and reticent Zhi-shay.

"When the pups ask for stories, they start to wonder if he's just too dumb" to interpret the tales. Peacock laughed.

Look for information on One Book Northland events celebrating Thomas Peacock's novel,

"The Wolf's Trail: An Ojibwe Story, Told By Wolves," as April approaches.