This week on The Write Question, in the first part of a two-part conversation, Chris La Tray, Métis storyteller and Montana Poet Laureate (2023-2025), discusses his memoir, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home (Milkweed Editions). Host Lauren Korn asks Chris to lay the foundation for their conversation: Who are the Little Shell? Who are the Métis? And how do their histories and futures reverberate in the Missoula valley, across the state, and throughout the country?
This conversation has been edited for time.
About Chris:
Chris La Tray is a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North, and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. His third book, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, was published by Milkweed Editions on August 20, 2024. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His book of haiku and haibun poetry, Descended from a Travel-worn Satchel, was published in 2021 by Foothills Publishing.
Chris writes the weekly newsletter, “An Irritable Métis,” and lives near Frenchtown, Montana. He is the Montana Poet Laureate for 2023–2025.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Whole Country Was…One Robe: The Little Shell Tribe’s America by Nicholas C. P. Vrooman (Drumlummon Institute and Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana; out of print)
Chris La Tray recommends:
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions)
The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings by James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw (James Vukelich)
Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country: Traveling Through the Land of My Ancestors by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins)
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer (Revised and Expanded Paperback, Minnesota Historical Society Press)
The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America by Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz (Flatiron Books)
Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha LaPointe (Counterpoint LLC)
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (Milkweed Editions)
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk (Yale University Press)
Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice (ECW Press)
The Death of Jim Loney by James Welch (Penguin Random House)
Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day by Kaitlin B. Curtice (Brazos Press)
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta (HarperCollins)
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer (Riverhead Books)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home (Milkweed Editions) and One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large (Riverfeet Press) by Chris La Tray
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions), The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (Scribner), and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Oregon State University Press) by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen (Ballantine Books)
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk (Counterpoint LLC)
Dog Flowers: A Memoir, an Archive by Danielle Geller (One World, Penguin Random House)
Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Susan Devan Harness (University of Nebraska Press)
A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Two Dollar Radio)
Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot (Counterpoint LLC)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Montana Book Co., located in downtown Helena, Montana, since 1978, offering new books for all ages, vinyl records, and community activism. For delivery in Helena and shipping online, visit mtbookco.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
