One December morning, Tshakapesh’s sister awakes feeling disturbed. She is certain that this will be “a bad Christmas” for all Indigenous people; she’d had a nightmare. In the dream, in a small town of the Abitibi region in the early 1960s, a group of Algonquins were just outside a café called Chez Jacques; they were not allowed inside. Through the window they could see all sorts of important men and women, eating voluptuously, even former prime ministers. Cold and hungry, the people outside are laughed at, scorned and ignored by the partiers inside, who threaten to call the police if they do not leave the premises. Tshakapesh’s sister did not want to go on telling her brother about the dream; she wonders why the dreamcatcher by her bed did not work. Tshakapesh checks the dreamcatcher and sees it has been nibbled on by mice. He fixes it and brings some bannock to the mouse. His sister goes back to bed and dreams again of the café, but it has been renovated and is now open to all. It’s new name: Café de la Grande Paix.
