What constitutes family

I think that community constitutes family in this book. Community includes blood relatives as well as the indigenous people around Saul. In the western canon, coming-of-age and hero’s-journey stories often center around a white male main character who finds his strength by becoming independent and triumphing over his problems alone. While Wagamese is writing in conversation with these genres, he importantly deviates from the trope of the liberated individual by constantly emphasizing the necessity of community and interdependence. From St. Jerome's to life as a migratory worker, Saul responds to his trauma by choosing to be alone. Rather than finding himself in these moments, they are the darkest in Saul’s life. When he decides to follow the road alone, he quickly realizes that he misses his family and the camaraderie of his team. Each positive turning point in Indian Horse happens when Saul lets someone else help him: Erv Sift, Moses at the New Dawn Centre, the Kellys, his great-grandfather. Indian Horse suggests that strength isn’t being able to survive on one’s own: it's being brave enough to admit that you need other people, and that they need you. It is telling that the novel doesn’t end with Saul alone on the ice, facing his fears, but with the arrival of his neighbors and friends, coming to share the game with him. Through Saul, Wagamese models an Indigenous masculinity that embraces land, ancestry, and community rather than rugged individualism.