Three Day Road

The book i chose to read is “Three Day Road” by Joseph Boyden. The book is partially based off of a real-life World War One Ojibwa soldier, Francis Pegahmagabow. He was an amazing sniper and was given credit for 378 German kills and 300 more captures. I found this very interesting, especially since he was actually mentioned in the first part of the book. The characters are talking to a Canadian sniper, amazed at the number of kills he has, but the sniper tells him that it is nothing compared to an Indian sniper by the name of “Peggy”. Francis Pegahmagabow’s nickname was Peggy.

So far in the story there are two main characters that the point of view flips between. The first one is Niska and she is an Oji-Cree woman. She seems to be one of the last of her people living off the land and keeping up with their past traditions. When the story takes place from her point of view, it is often her telling her nephew stories of her past. This gives more background information on the tribe and how they lead their lives, as well as about how Niska got to where she is in her life. The other main character is Niska’s nephew, Xavier. He has just returned home from fighting in the first World War, and he lost his leg in the fighting. A lot of his perspective describes his role in the war and about his past with Elijah, another Cree sniper and Xavier’s best friend.

I already have a couple questions about this book just from reading the first part of it. The main one I have is what happened to Elijah? Elijah and Xavier fought together in the war, and Xavier tells stories about the war that Elijah is present in. But when Xavier returns home, Elijah is not with him. Where i am at in the book, this question has not yet been answered, so it leaves me wondering if Elijah was killed in the war, or if he was just somehow separated from Xavier.

Next, I’ll go over a few of the things i think will happen in the future of this story. One thing i definitely predict is that the story behind what happened to Elijah will be revealed. Even though he has only made appearances in stories form the past, he is still a major character and is a big part of Xavier’s life. So i think either Xavier is going to will talk about what happened to Elijah, or he and Niska might even try to find Elijah. Another major thing i think will happen is Niska is going to help Xavier recover from the effects of the war, both physically and mentally. Right now Xavier is sick, he’s missing a leg, and he has become addicted to the morphine that was given to him as a painkiller for his leg. On top of all this, he is haunted by his time in the war, so i think a big part of this book will have to follow his recovery and Niska helping him get through it.

Even in just the first part of this book, i was able to make quite a few connections. This book reminds me a lot of history class, learning about the first World War and the trench warfare. Xavier tells lots of stories about his time in the war, fighting in the trenches and a lot of it sounds similar to what i have previously learned. He talks about the rats in the trenches and how brutal the fighting was. There were even a lot of terms i was able to recognize, such as “duckboards” and “Ross Rifle”. I’ve also watched a lot of movies and TV shows and read books about World War One, so i have a lot of prior knowledge to make connections with.

Overall, i think the story is really interesting so far. It is very descriptive, the author is very good at using imagery to help you create a mental picture of the events taking place and, espicially with the war scenes, making you feel the emotions that the characters must be facing while these events take place.

“Francis Pegahmagabow.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 June 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Pegahmagabow.