An amazing book. This book is based on the true story of the McLean Gang -- three Metis brothers and their friend Alex Hare -- in the late 1800s. It paints a picture of life in the Canadian west, including the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company, colonization, identity (as "half-breeds" the McLean Gang had challenges fitting into both the settler and the Indian communities), morality and so much more. It is beautifully written, if you stick with it. The book is a blend of stories and legends and jumps around a lot, but as the narrative becomes clear, you are rewarded with an amazing story that will make you think about our history. ( )

Shoot! started out as a slow and very confusing read for me. Bowering weaves historical fact with native legend and his own unique story-telling. The first 100 pages of the story was a bit of a challenge to piece together, bouncing around like a pinball ricocheting around in a pinball machine. Flipping narratives and timelines every page or so can get a bit unnerving for any reader, I think. Thankfully, Bowering finally settles into his story and calms down the narrative flipping to a more manageable level, allowing me to finally sit back and get drawn in. Bowering, Canada's first Poet Laureate, captures the dead cold of that 1879 interior BC winter with a practiced hand, communicating its terrifying raw, elemental beauty. In Shoot!, Bowering strips bare and exposes to the light of day the stories that have been relegated to the 'dusty basement' of BC's recorded historical past. While this story is on its surface a story about a gang of outlaws, the posse who tracked them down and the English justice that they they faced in New Westminster, it has a dark underbelly that I believe to be the thrust of Bowering's story. As mentioned by Sherrill Grace in her afterword to the story:

"Shoot! is a story about the HBC (Hudson Bay Company), its white businessmen, their Indian country wives, and their mixed-race children who would not be fully accepted by either white or native communities. These children were especially feared by those white colonizers who wanted to make fortunes and create a civilized English-speaking society of law, order and status out of a wild, rich, as yet unexploited land, and who definitely wanted to deny their past sexual alliances."

Unlike a number of the famous outlaw gangs of the American Wild West that I have read about, the McLean Gang, outside of Allan, were still mere boys. Allan, the oldest, was 25. Charlie and Alex Hare were 17 and young Archie was 15. Their rampage was fueled in part by the way they were treated as 'breeds'. For the McLeans, their suffering started at the hand of their violent father, a Hudson Bay Company Chief Factor and grew into one of community-wide disgust, disdain and indifference after their father's death in 1864 at the hand of a Chilcotin warrior when the family's Hat Creek ranch was taken away from their Native Indian mother by the white settlers, leaving the family destitute. For all members of the McLean Gang, their anger was also fueled by the fact that one of Kamloops richest white settlers, Mara, was having his way with the McLean brothers' young sister, Annie. Bowering's story hit a resounding nerve within me as a reminder of Canada's settlement past and how important it is for stories that are a legacy of Canada's past to be communicated and shared. At their trial in New Westminster, Judge Henry Pering Pellew Crease makes a statement that, as Bowering has written, may explain why the McLean Gang and their rampage are not widely captured in the recent written histories of the province: "You have caused great terror throughout the country, and by a campaign of robbery and assault and murder you have disgraced British Columbia." They do always say that history is written by the winners/victors. I believe that Bowering has brilliantly captured in his story the very fact that everyone has a story and it is all of the stories, not just the stories of the victors, that need to be heard and shared.

I can recommend this story to anyone who has an interest in outlaw gangs of the 19th century North American west. For me as a Canadian and a British Columbian, this story has extra meaning and really resonated with me. It has also left me with a lot to think about. ( )