Blending memoir, oral history, and narrative, Walking the Old Road reaches back to a time when Chippewa City, then called Nishkwakwansing (at the edge of the forest), was home to generations of Ojibwe ancestors.
 
Drouillard, whose own family once lived in Chippewa City, draws on memories, family history, historical analysis, and testimony passed from one generation to the next to conduct us through the ages of early European contact, goverment land allotment, family relocation, and assimilation.
 
This history, infused with a powerful sense of place, connects the Ojibwe of today with the traditions of their ancestors and their descendants, recreating the narrative of Chippewa City as it was- and is and forever will be-lived.