Part ethnography, part narrative, Like the Sound of a Drum is evocative, confrontational, and poetic. For many years, Peter Kulchyski has travelled to the north, where he has sat in on community meetings, interviewed elders and Aboriginal politicians, and participated in daily life.

In Like the Sound of a Drum he looks as three northern communities - Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope in Denendeh and Pangnirtung in Nunavut - and their strategies for maintaining their political and cultural independence. In the face of overwhelming odds, communities such as these have shown remarkable resources for creative resistance. In the process, they are changing the concept of democracy as it is practised in Canada.