The Temptations Of Big Bear: A Novel

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award, 1973

Rudy Wiebe's The Temptations of Big Bear is an epic of the Canadian West. As the buffalo-based food supply vanishes, Big Bear leads his Plains Cree nation across the prairie in search of a means of retaining the way of life quickly being lost—a life his people have lived for thousands of years. Against the onslaught of the White Queen's representatives, Big Bear resists pressure to cede the ancestral right to the land of his hungry but free people in exchange for temporary nourishment and a reserve.

In this award-winning novel, Rudy Wiebe brings alive the heroism and dignity of Big Bear's fierce struggle for justice that tore apart the Cree community and his own family. The Temptations of Big Bear is a beautifully written and moving novel about a tumultuous period in the history of the West.