A Memoir That Humanizes the History of Land and Loss

Through intertwined family stories, Jill D. Swenson examines reservations, allotments and the lasting effects of assimilation policies

Often, the best gift you can give an author is a book review, even if it is just two sentences on a website. Today, I gift my developmental editor with a review of her book, The Land of the Everlasting Sky: A Memoir of Loss and Legacy on Lake of the Woods by Jill D. Swenson.

A developmental editor is someone who reads your rough drafts and gives you suggestions on how the story might flow together. Where you might place chapters, what you might cut and how to make emotional arcs strong. You work on this before the final polishing of your manuscript.

Jill D. Swenson

Because I appreciate and admire Jill, and although it intimidates me because she is my teacher, I wrote a review of her book. Jill taught me more about writing in the active tense rather than the passive voice and about the importance of showing rather than telling.

Jill shared an ARC (Advanced Review Copy) with me.

Here is my review of Jill’s book.

The Land of Everlasting Sky: A Memoir of Loss and Legacy on Lake of the Woods

By Jill D. Swenson

Braided memoir

Published by She Writes Press and distributed by Simon and Schuster (Scheduled for release June 2, 2026)

280 pages

In a nursing home, a very elderly Native American man reaches to cradles a little white girl’s head in his hands and speaks Ojibway. The little girl is visiting the nursing home with her Aunt Audrey to deliver sweet rolls to the residents. She has no idea what the old man has said, but the memory of this event stays with her. That little girl is Jill D. Swenson, the author of the book. She spent summers in Warroad, Minn., on Lake of the Woods on the northern edges of Minnesota near Canada. Her mother’s family had been settlers near Warroad, but as a child, Jill lived in Minneapolis.

That Native American man who cradled Jill’s head was Kakaygeesick.

Above: A photo of a Dec. 1968 story of Minneapolis Tribune story about Kakaygeesick’s death.

This book uses Jill’s personal stories of individuals to explore land ownership in the United States. It discusses the homesteading movement of the 1860s, what reservations are and why some individual Indians have allotments of land, and why some Native Americans are considered tribal members and others are not.

This book is an enjoyable read, the author’s writing is descriptive, and one can imagine the events as they unfold. It is considered a braided memoir – two story lines woven together.

A map to refresh your memory on where Warroad and Lake of the Woods are located.

In 2014 after Jill’s mother dies, she visits her Aunt Audrey, her mother’s sister who still lived in Warroad. Jill finds it to be comforting to be around Aunt Audrey. Jills learns of Don Kakaygeesick, the great grandson of the old man Kakaygeesick. Jill is the great granddaughter of Swedish immigrant homesteaders. Jill and Don forge a friendship, and Jill learns the Kakaygeesick family is forced out of their allotment of land, so that Seven Clans Casino can be built. She also learns that Don is not a member of a recognized tribe.

Jill’s head is swimming-- how could this be when he is a direct descendant of Kakaygeesick and both of his parents are Native American?

What then follows is the story of Jill’s life intertwined with a biography of events in Don’s life and the history of land and how the United States made laws pertaining to the legal ownership of land.

And example of the descriptive writing is,” The smell of melting snow tickled Don Kakaygeesick’s nose as he looked out the open window of his second-grade classroom. The April sunshine had turned the playground to mud.”

The writing is clear, but the twists and turns of what happens to the Indian people are hard to follow, because the laws are hard to understand. Looking back from today’s view they don’t make sense or may even seem wrong, but at the time, many white Americans knew they were taking land, but they also thought they were doing what was best for the Native children so that they could assimilate into white society.

Jill addresses that she doesn’t want to be a white savior trying to find justice and hoping her book will do that. She does want to take the reader through the tangled history of land ownership and the attempt to assimilate Native Americans.

One of Jill’s writing partners asked why she cared so much. Her answer:

“I kept coming back to that memory of when I met Kakaygeesick and he held my head in his hands. He had made me part of the story. He connected me spiritually to this place.”

In order to move forward we must understand our past. This uses individuals stories as way teach the broader history of reservations, homesteads and allotments. Jill succeeds in presenting difficult history in the form of a book that is both informative and enjoyable to read. As I read, I couldn’t help but think that what happened at Lake of the Woods, probably happened all over the United States.

I recommend this book to people who want to understand more about reservations, allotments and blood quantum. I know I didn’t learn about this in history class.

If you want to order her book and have it shipped to you I recommend this Bookshop link. Bookshop gives part of its sales back to local book stores and you may choose your favorite local bookstore.

Jill will have books signing and reading events in Appleton, other Wisconsin towns, the Twin Cities, northern Minnesota and other locations see her events page to learn more.

And if you haven’t ordered a copy of my Book Blooming Hollyhocks: Tales of Joy in Hard Times here is a link to do that: Itascabooks.com