Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout

Based on a deposition signed by fourteen Chiefs of the Thomson River basin on the occasion of a visit to their lands by Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1910, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout is a ritualized retelling of how the Native Peoples of British Columbia lost their fishing, hunting and grazing rights, their lands, and finally their language without their agreement or consent, and without any treaties ever having been signed. It is one of the most compellingly tragic cases of cultural genocide to emerge from the history of colonialism, enacted by four women whose stories follow each other like the cyclical seasons they represent.

"The play is both laugh-out-loud funny and a precarious high-wire act.... A flawless production...." --Globe and Mail