Arnolda Dufour Bowes Bio

Arnolda Dufour Bowes

Photo by Jane Rose Photography

A dynamic Métis woman originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Arnolda studied creative writing with Guy Vanderhaeghe at the University of Saskatchewan. Her first book, 20.12m, is a compelling and acclaimed coming-of-age collection of stories based on her father’s childhood among the marginalized Métis Road Allowance community at Punnichy, Saskatchewan, during the late 1940s. The book received several major awards in 2022: Danuta Gleed Literary Award and $10,000 grand prize from The Writers Union of Canada and the international High Plains Award for Best Indigenous Writer. It was among SaskBooks’ best-selling titles of 2021 and won the Saskatchewan Books Indigenous Publishing Award.

Arnolda is a spirited woman who is a mom, wife, sister, auntie, and friend on a life journey to continually recreate herself with the change of seasons in her life. She is an artist, faith believer, strength builder and truth teller.

She values learning new skills and living purposefully and finds writing therapeutic. Arnolda sees herself as an organic creator; she creates beauty from the smallest remnants, whether through words, music or art. Her deepest desire is using her skills to paint vivid stories that must be heard or seen.

rnolda, when not

busy with her

family or dabbling in a

new art form at their

cozy home on the

Prairies—is writing

for fun and working to

improve her craft.

She has participated in the following activities related to her book 20.12m:

Legislative Library Reading with Dr Allyson Stevenson and Guy Vanderhaeghe (Nov 25, 2022).
Interview with Jeff Rogstad, CTV: Noon News, 5 pm Newshour and Morning Live (June 21 & 22, 2021).
Saskatchewan Aboriginal Writers’ Circle Inc. Live reading at SAWCI Word Splash Event (June 16, 2022).
Presenter and guest speaker in Herbert High School history class (April 2022).
Guest speaker with Jesse Thistle’s Metis studies class at York University (January 2022).
SaskBooks guest speaker (September 2021).
Saskatchewan Aboriginal Writers’ Circle Inc. Guest speaker at “Anskohk Story-iors Workshop” (November 2021).

Arnolda acknowledges the land on which she resides and pays respect to the ancestors of Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis.

Arnolda believes we must find balance in health in all four aspects of life — physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. She loves music, books, nature, fitness and her family. And she hopes her life exemplifies courage and inspires others to voyage bravely further than they imagined.

Arnolda was educated as a nurse but has learned to adapt throughout the journey of her life. She has competed in various sports as an adult and was trained as a fitness, boxing and yoga instructor. Her adventurous spirit has led her and her family around the world. Her greatest celebrations are her children, Rhiannon, Keana, and Joshua, and her deepest desire, that she instill in them a thirst for adventure and an appetite for risk. She is also a stepmother of 4 wonderful adult children and is grateful for her loving husband of 20 years, Jeff. He endlessly encourages her to nurture and grow her gifts and talents, especially storytelling.

The two quotations that speak most profoundly to her heart and life are:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?”

~ Marianne Williamson

“According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyways. Because bees don’t care what humans think is impossible.”

~ The Bee Movie, 2007