“Neither Wolf Nor Dog” by Kent Nerburn - Recommended Resource

“Neither Wolf Nor Dog” is the story of Kent Nerburn’s travels with a Lakota elder named Dan. Is is a novel and a movie.

"Neither Wolf Nor Dog" begins with Nerburn traveling to South Dakota at the invitation of an elder named Dan, who had seen the oral history books Nerburn helped Ojibwe youth publish based on the stories of their elders and who wanted Nerburn to turn his own stories into a book. But crossing the cultural divide is challenging for Nerburn. He hits a breaking point and decides to go home, but then his car starts to gush smoke.

Nerburn: After my car broke down, I was trapped. I'm a hundred miles from anywhere and there was nothing I could do, so I threw up my hands. And along came Dan and his friend Grover and said, "Ah, we saw the smoke signals from your car." So they said, "Come on, don't worry about your car."

This absolutely, astonishingly huge mechanic who ran this junk shop said he could take care of it, so I left my car and they pretty much took me on a road trip through their world and their life and Dan's understanding of both the Native experience and the white experience as it impacted the Natives as he understood it. And so that became the source of the book.

(Source: OPB Article by Aaron Scott, New Oregon Writer's Classic Novel Hits The Big Screen: 'Neither Wolf Nor Dog' https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/neither-wolf-nor-dog-movie-kent-nerburn-novel/)