Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Taylor’s Motorcycles and Sweetgrass takes place in Canada on a fictional Indigenous reserve called Otter Lake First Nation. Reserves are defined under the 1876 Indian Act as “tract[s] of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that ha[ve] been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band [of Indigenous people].” Though such reserves are analogous to reservations in the US, they constitute a legally distinct entity, and for this reason, this guide uses the term “reserve” rather than “reservation.” The fictional Otter Lake reserve is based on real locations in Canada: Among the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe people (spelled Anishnawbe/Ojibway in the novel), 14 such reserves and reservations exist in Canada and the US.

As chief of her band, Maggie must balance her people’s legitimate claims to autonomy and self-determination against their white neighbors’ inchoate fear of losing their privilege. When her Anishnawbe band buys 300 acres of land to add to the reservation, white locals resist the move without being able to articulate a reason for their actions: “Five hundred years of colonization had told them you took land away from Native people, you didn’t let them buy it back. As a result, the local municipality was fighting tooth and nail to block the purchase” (35).