David Langelier returns to Quebec after five years of exile. Honourably discharged from the Canadian Armed Forces, he becomes a miner in Abitibi, his homeland. At the bottom of a gold mine, he keeps his heart at the surface, with Nicole, with whom he is madly in love. Thugs interfere in their relationship, a native, Pijeense, an Ojibway from Lake Nipissing, comes to his aid. But misfortune strikes again: cancer threatens the young mother-daughter. Although David is a former military man, the news frightens him, but he soon decides to confront the disease with Nicole and her daughter, little Jessica. It remains to be seen how it will all end... In this novel, two stories are presented in parallel, two very different realities have been living side by side for a few hundred years: that of the Natives and that of the French Canadians. We whites have been living alongside these people called "The Invisible People" since the turn of the last century. There was the fur trade and then colonization; it is only at the end of this last period that we finally became aware of their presence on the whole of this territory, a silent and quiet presence. Here, I highlight the Algonquin people, through the wise old man Sam. Over the years, he has befriended Bertrand, David's father and a veteran of the Second Great War. In any case, in the end it is a must read!
