Raised in bleak circumstances on a reserve in Manitoba, Raphael Ironstand, a Métis, stowed away in a truck at age nine to accompany other children to a residential school. There he was taunted as 'Monias' (white man in Cree) for having light skin. Later, upon reading a copy of Stewart Dickson's Broken Wing, a novel about a bush pilot in Northern B.C., Ironstand was inspired to get in touch with Dickson, who was living in Gibsons, B.C. Together they produced Hey Monias! The Story of Raphael Ironstand (1993). Ironstand was living in Nanaimo when his memoir was published.

[BCBW 2005]