Sunday, January 29, 1995 - North Shore News — 23

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DAVE MCINTOSH (left) and
Jannicke Wiig rehearse their
roles for North Vancouver
Community Players’ production
of Balmoral, a farce by Michael
Frayn. The play runs until Feb.
11 at & p.m. For ticket reserva-
tions call 983-2633.

NEWS photo Mike Waketield

Shoot!;
Porter Books, 297 pp., paper

GEORGE ~ BOWERING’S
Skoot!:.does for the cowboy
Story: what Clint: Eastwood’s
Unforgiven did for the’ western
movie — debunk. But not with-
out a good snort of humor.

By Barbara Black
Contributing Writer

In his, characteristic maverick
style,: Bowering. knocks down the
Wild West facade and replaces it with
his own. ironic . reconstruction... But
this is no Hollywood set. '

ranch country in the late 1800s. The
story begins in the fashion of a native
legend, outlining the history of the

Nicola.and Shuswap peoples, up to.

the arrival’ of ‘the. white man. Of
course, Bowering writes, “white peo-
ple had their stories to tell,” too.

The’ storytelling-style mythology

is interrupted by descriptions of the -

Wild McLean Boys, three young out-
laws sitting idly in'a New West prison
awaiting their death.

©The Wild McLean Boys really did
E exist.'As did their father, the cruel and
self-important Donald McLean. No
doubt inheritors of Donald's psychot-
ic traits, the McLean boys went from
being’ horse thieves to frontier. mur-
derers. They..were native-white half-
breeds, who, thanks to their elder
brother, Allen, envisioned themselves
protectors of the Chilcotin Indians.

Victims of their own identity cri-

; they fancied they were staving off

the white invasion. Allen “liked the
idea, of. being historical.” writes
Bowering. But their mixed race was
to serve them ill in this task.

For, as the McLeans tried to ride

their. way into B.C. history. history:

was breaking a different tail, They
would end up as ‘notorious half-
breeds who fought the law and ended

By George Bowering, Key

up dangling froma noose.

Part fiction, part fact, Shoot!
recounts the adolescent fumblings of
the McLean gang, taking potshots at
colonial attitudes and frontier brava-
do along the way. The sarcasm
sneaks up, sly as an outlaw.

An example: After smallpox
wreaked havoc umong the natives.
the population in some villages “went
to zero. Archaeology began.”

Anti-westem vignettes abound.
Two eld Indian men “too old to be
elders” sit chewing the fat, ironic car-

‘icatures of the “red man-* In a hilari-

ous spoof, two yankee outlaws

‘named Turkey Doolan and Billy

Magee brave the Kamloops winter.to

rob a stagecoach. After almost getting ©

run over by the thing, they are dis-
mayed that their stagecoach has only
one old geezer. no passengers, no
strongbox. Its cargo is a bunch of car-

_pets. So they steal the driver’s mitts

and ride off with a rug tied lopsided-
ly to their horse.

Shoot! straddles a period of-histo-
ry that Bowering aptly describes as
“confusing times.”. when: white
European culture and law was sweep-
ing the province. When Indians and
whites as individuals were intermar-
rying but as groups were still wary of
one another. The result was that the

“white people ended up telling this

story.”

Amazingly, what Bowering is
able to do is to “re-mythologize™ our
own focal history and legend, while
at the same time blowing a hole in the
very hero mystique he creates. Ace
shot.

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