Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse

This book is another example of the richness of the literature associated with BC's Chilcotin Country, which despite its remoteness and almost-unpopulated status has produced some of British Columbia's most readable writings. It is one of St. Pierre's best works and certainly his best novel, although his collections of short essays on life in the Chilcotin and elsewhere in BC contain various gems. Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse captures the quiet magic of the Chilcotin Country, the deliberate and slow speech and peculiarly adroit way of thinking of life in that high, last frontier. St. Pierre is vastly underrated as a writer, maybe because of his journalistic career, but this book reveals a laconic, dry-witted genius that rivals or exceeds the best of Stephen Leacock and more famous Canadian wits. There are a couple of memorable passages that come to mind in writing this review - Smith's exhortation of Ol' Antoine (the character played by Chief Dan George in the movie version, and perhaps written with Dan George in mind) to escape the clutches of the white man's legal system by running away to the high mountains (hyas hyas stone illahee, a particularly Chilcotin-style phrasing of the Chinook) and Antoine's defiance of that advice, and Antoine's courtroom scene where he recounts his apparently fictional participation in the Nez Perce War; proof to Smith and those in the courtroom that, while it may be a tall tale, that Ol' Antoine is one of the "skookum tillikums" - the grand old men of the frontier (the phrase means strong/capable/genuine people). More of a novella than a novel, and stylishly written, this book is highly enjoyable and a good read for both adults and children (of a certain age). The original film didn't live up to the muster of the book, in this reviewer's opinion, and this is a story crying out for a cinematic remake.

Smith's farm is too high, his banker is getting restive, and an Indian who has killed a White man has shown up in a shack on his land. In the TV film, Chief Dan George got his first part. When he comes into Smith's cabin, he says memorably:Hello this place. My favourite book.