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Treat Them as Buffalo

Contributors

By Blair Palmer Yoxall

Formats and Prices

Price

$18.99

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $18.99

An electric debut that delivers a classic Western from an Indigenous perspective—as teenage boys being to disappear from one great plains Métis community, a young man attempts to uncover the evil force lurking out of sight

In 1880, Nikosis “Niko” Erikson spends his days playing buffalo hunter, even though it’s been many years since a member of his tribe has actually seen one of the once-ubiquitous animals. But when his beloved Cousin goes missing, things start to fall apart. With law enforcement failing—indeed refusing—to investigate the disappearance, the community members take matters into their own hands, rallying around the leadership of a sawn-off shotgun-slinging rancher named Kate McCannon.

The resultant women-led coalition of freedom fighters strikes back against the Mounted Police as they investigate the boys’ disappearance and take their futures into their own hands. But violence continues to haunt Niko, and boys continue to disappear. As he leaves his boyhood behind and draws closer to finding Cousin, Niko’s investigation points to a harrowing revelation about his own heritage, which heels closer to violence that any boy would wish to know.

Written with the pace and punch of The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu and the inventiveness of The Only Good Indians, Treat Them as Buffalo delivers a gripping portrait of a young man coming of age before his time. Debut author Blair Palmer Yoxall bursts on the scene with the verve, cleverness, and heart of a much more seasoned writer.

On Sale
May 5, 2026
Page Count
224 pages
Publisher
Algonquin Books
ISBN-13
9781643756813

Blair Palmer Yoxall

About the Author

Blair Palmer Yoxall (he/him/his) is a writer and poet. His fiction won the 2015 Striking Prose Competition Sponsored by Terry Whitehead and the 2019 James Patrick Folinsbee Prize in English, and has been shortlisted for a 2017 Norma Epstein Foundation Award and a 2019 Indigenous Voices Award. His poetry and fiction have appeared in glass buffaloThe Fiddlehead, and Carving Space: The Indigenous Voices Awards Anthology. Blair is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Alberta and of Métis and settler parentage. He holds an M.A. in English in Indigenous Literatures and Westerns, and enjoys fly-fishing in the Alberta Rockies. Treat Them As Buffalo is his debut novel. Follow him on Instagram @atayookee.

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