History

Residential Schools, With the Words and Images of Survivors, A National History honours the survivors, the former students, who attended residential schools. Designed for the general reader this accessible, 112-page history offers a first-person perspective of the residential school system in Canada, as it shares the memories of more than 70 survivors from across Canada as well as 125 archival and contemporary images (65 black & white photographs, 51 colour, some never before published).

This essential volume written by award-winning author Larry Loyie (Cree), a survivor of St. Bernard Mission residential school in Grouard, AB, and co-authored by Constance Brissenden and Wayne K. Spear (Mohawk), reflects the ongoing commitment of this team to express the truths about residential school experiences and to honour the survivors whose voices are shared in this book.

Along with the voices, readers will be engaged by the evocative, archival photographs provided by the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre with the assistance of curator Krista McCracken. The book begins with the moving introduction by Larry Loyie, and moves to seven chapters that explore the purpose of this school system; cultures and traditions; leaving home; life at school the half-day system; the dark side of the schools; friendship and laughter coping with a new life; changing world–the healing begins; and an afterword. A detailed, full colour map showing residential schools, timeline with key dates, glossary, and a helpful index (including names of survivors and schools) make this vital resource a must-have for secondary, college, and universities, libraries, and the general reader.

Reviews
"A broad and comprehensive review of the history of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada told from the perspective of First Peoples in a very accessible way. Any educator, regardless of personal background or heritage, would find this timely resource very useful in any classroom." — Gary Fenn and Domenic Bellissimo, executive assistants, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation

"Written with a gentle hand, this book describes a history that few Canadians understand or even know about. From the first page, those in search of the truth are engaged in a journey of learning, as they come to understand the true battle of Aboriginal peoples to preserve their cultures and pride. This story is a true account of resiliency and human spirit." — Tracy Zweifel, executive director, Sagitawa Friendship Society, Alberta

Awards

- 2016 Winner of Golden Oak award in Ontario's Forest of Reading program

Educator Information
This must-have resource includes a detailed, full-colour map showing residential schools, a timeline with key dates, and a glossary.

Recommended for grades 7-12, but would still be useful for adults and college/university courses studying residential schools and Indigenous history.

This book has been evaluated and approved by ERAC (Educational Resource Acquisition Consortium, British Columbia).

Additional Information
112 pages | 10.43" x 8.26"

Sanaaq is an intimate story of an Inuit family negotiating the changes brought into their community by the coming of the qallunaat, the white people, in the mid-nineteenth century. Composed in 48 episodes, it recounts the daily life of Sanaaq, a strong and outspoken young widow, her daughter Qumaq, and their small semi-nomadic community in northern Quebec. Here they live their lives hunting seal, repairing their kayak, and gathering mussels under blue sea ice before the tide comes in. These are ordinary extraordinary lives: marriages are made and unmade, children are born and named, violence appears in the form of a fearful husband or a hungry polar bear. Here the spirit world is alive and relations with non-humans are never taken lightly. And under it all, the growing intrusion of the qallunaat and the battle for souls between the Catholic and Anglican missionaries threatens to forever change the way of life of Sanaaq and her young family.

Caution: Contains some mature content.

Educator Information
“Sanaaq is an unpretentious collection of fictional vignettes depicting Inuit family life in the 1950s Canadian eastern arctic. The author wrote at the request of an anthropologist attempting to learn Inuktitut and seeking to understand the context of specific words and terms.

Additional Information
248 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

The Haudenosaunee, more commonly known as the Iroquois or Six Nations, have been one of the most widely written-about Indigenous groups in Canada and the United States. But seldom have the voices emerging from the Haudenosaunee community been considered in order to understand its enduring intellectual traditions.

Rick Monture’s We Share Our Matters offers the first comprehensive portrait of how the Grand River Haudenosaunee of Southern Ontario have expressed their long struggle for sovereignty in Canada. Drawing from individuals as diverse as Joseph Brant, Pauline Johnson and Robbie Robertson, Monture illuminates a unique Haudenosaunee world view comprised of three distinct features: a spiritual belief about their role and responsibility to the earth; a firm understanding of their sovereign status as a confederacy of independent nations; and their responsibility to maintain those relations for future generations.

After more than two centuries of political struggle Haudenosaunee thought has avoided stagnant conservatism and continues to inspire ways to address current social and political realities.

Acclaimed author Thomas King is in fabulous, fantastical form in this bestselling short story collection. From the surreal migrations of the title story to the misadventures of Coyote in the modern world and the chaos of a baby's unexpected arrival by airmail, King's tales are deft, hilarious and provocative. 

Reviews
"The stories in this volume cover a lot of ground. King touches on the history of displacement, racism and stereotyping, oppressive government policy, marriage and relationships, and Aboriginal-white relations, among other topics." - Dragonfly Consulting Services Canada

Educator Information
Grade 10/11 English First Peoples resource used in the unit The Trickster - A Recurring Presence.

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.31" x 8.00"

In the pre-reserve era, Aboriginal bands in the northern plains were relatively small multicultural communities that actively maintained fluid and inclusive membership through traditional kinship practices. These practices were governed by the Law of the People as described in the traditional stories of Wîsashkêcâhk, or Elder Brother, that outlined social interaction, marriage, adoption, and kinship roles and responsibilities.

In Elder Brother and the Law of the People, Robert Innes offers a detailed analysis of the role of Elder Brother stories in historical and contemporary kinship practices in Cowessess First Nation, located in southeastern Saskatchewan. He reveals how these tradition-inspired practices act to undermine legal and scholarly definitions of “Indian” and counter the perception that First Nations people have internalized such classifications. He presents Cowessess’s successful negotiation of the 1996 Treaty Land Agreement and their high inclusion rate of new “Bill-C31s” as evidence of the persistence of historical kinship values and their continuing role as the central unifying factor for band membership.

Additional Information
216 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Arctic historian Kenn Harper gathers the best of his columns about Inuit history, which appear weekly in Nunatsiaq News, in this exciting new series of books.

Each installment of In Those Days: Collected Columns on Arctic History will cover a particularly fascinating aspect of traditional Inuit life. In volume one, “Inuit Biographies,” Harper shares the unique challenges and life histories of several Inuit living in pre-contact times.

The result of extensive interviews, research, and travel across the Arctic, these amazing short life histories provide readers with a detailed understanding of their specific time and place.

Series Information
This book is part of the In Those Days series, a historical series that collects writings on Arctic history.

Additional Information
200 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

This lavishly-illustrated book tells a story through words and images that has never before been told, not in any single book. The focus is entirely on the Mi'kmaq of the Island, an island which for thousands of years has been known to the Mi'kmaq and their ancestors as Epekwitk. That name means "cradle on the sea" and no more poetic description of PEI has ever been penned. The story of the PEI Mi'kmaq is one of adaptation and perseverance across countless generations in the face of pervasive change. Today's environment is far from what it was millennia ago. So too, the economy, society, lifestyle, language and religion of the people has witnessed some dramatic shifts. Nonetheless, despite all the changes, today's Mi'kmaq feel deeply connected to the Island in its entirety and to their ancestors and the values they still share. This book tells those many stories, and communicates much more. While the book is a stand-alone publication, it is also a companion to a travelling exhibition of the same name.

- Winner of APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award
- Winner of PEI Book Award for Non-fiction

Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, The Inconvenient Indian distills the insights gleaned from Thomas King's critical and personal meditation on what it means to be "Indian" in North America, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.
This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope--a sometimes inconvenient but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.

Awards

• 2014 Burt Award Second Place Winner

Educator Information
This resource is also available in French in a pocket-sized format: L'Indien malcommode: Un portrait inattendu des Autochtones d'Amerique du Nord (format poche)

Additional Information336 pages | 5.18" x 7.99"

The Poetics of Land and Identity is about the meaning of land for the many diverse First Nations within British Columbia. The work offers a study of the folklore and symbolic traditions within many Aboriginal regions and illustrates how these traditions emphasize the importance of orality and poetics as the defining factor in the value of land. Christine J. Elsey offers a deft, scholarly discussion of these “storyscapes,” providing us with a point of access for understanding First Nations’ perspectives on the world and their land. She provides an important alternative to the monetary, exploitative, resource-driven view of nature and land ownership and highlights the conflicts between the colonial, Western perspective of nature and the holistic view of First Nations people.

Like thousands of Aboriginal children in Canada, and elsewhere in the colonized world, Xatsu'll chief Bev Sellars spent part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school.

These institutions endeavored to "civilize" Native children through Christian teachings; forced separation from family, language, and culture; and strict discipline. Perhaps the most symbolically potent strategy used to alienate residential school children was addressing them by assigned numbers only-not by the names with which they knew and understood themselves.

In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her family-from substance abuse to suicide attempts-and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. 'Number One' comes at a time of recognition-by governments and society at large-that only through knowing the truth about these past injustices can we begin to redress them.

Awards

• 2014 Burt Award Third Place Winner

Educator Information
Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the unit Place-Conscious Learning - Exploring Text through Local Landscape.

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.67" x 8.20"

Xwelqwiya is the life story of Rena Point Bolton, a St:lo (or, as they are now called, Xwlmexw) matriarch, artist, and craftswoman. Proceeding by way of conversational vignettes, the beginning chapters recount Point Bolton? early years on the banks of the Fraser River during the Depression. While at the time the St:lo, or Xwlmexw, as they call themselves today, kept secret their ways of life to avoid persecution by the Canadian government, Point Bolton's mother and grandmother schooled her in the skills needed for living from what the land provides, as well as in the craftwork and songs of her people, passing on a duty to keep these practices alive. Point Bolton was taken to a residential school for the next several years and would go on to marry and raise ten children, but her childhood training ultimately set the stage for her roles as a teacher and activist. Recognizing the urgent need to forge a sense of cultural continuity among the younger members of her community, Point Bolton visited many communities and worked with federal, provincial, and First Nations politicians to help break the intercultural silence by reviving knowledge of and interest in Aboriginal art. She did so with the deft and heartfelt use of both her voice and her hands.

Over the course of many years, Daly collaborated with Point Bolton to pen her story. At once a memoir, an oral history, and an "insider" ethnography directed and presented by the subject herself, the result attests both to Daly's relationship with the family and to Point Bolton's desire to inspire others to use traditional knowledge and experience to build their own distinctive, successful, and creative lives.

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Métis Soldiers of Saskatchewan greatly contributes to our knowledge of the role played by Saskatchewan’s Métis during Canada’s war efforts. This important commemorative book contains hundreds of photographs as well as a detailed list of more than 1,700 Métis soldiers from Saskatchewan who fought in two World Wars and the Korean war.

Talking Tools: Faces of Aboriginal Oral Tradition in Contemporary Society explores the power of oral tradition in Aboriginal society as a foundational cultural and linguistic tool. Four distinct elements are examined: the story-keepers; the importance of practice; the emergence of new stories; and the challenges of sustainability. Finally, the emergence of new technologies and their relevance to the sustainability of the tradition and art of storytelling are discussed.

Additional Information

This book relates the history and self-identifying process of a Métis woman who lived on the western plains of Canada during the transitional period from fur trade to sedentary agricultural economy.
Marie Rose Delorme Smith was a woman of French-Métis ancestry who was born during the fur trade era and who spent her adult years as a pioneer rancher in the Pincher Creek district of southern Alberta. Sold by her mother at the age of sixteen to a robe and whiskey trader several years older than her, Marie Rose went on to raise seventeen children, establish a boarding house, take a homestead, serve as medicine woman and midwife, and to publish several articles in the early prairie ranch periodical, Canadian Cattlemen. The author relies on close readings of these articles, as well as the diaries, manuscripts, and fictional writing of Marie Rose Delorme Smith, along with personal interviews with her descendants. These sources allow a close examination of the self-identifying process for Marie Rose as she negotiated the changing environment of the western plains during the late 1800s and early 1900s when large numbers of Anglo-speaking immigrants settled in the area.
Clearly proud of her Métis identity, Marie Rose was a member of an extended family who served as Louis Riel’s soldiers, and she presented that identity tentatively in her own writings. Roles which Marie Rose assumed with pride were those of author, historian, mother, and historical character, and these roles serve as themes from which to examine her life.

First-hand accounts of Indigenous people’s encounters with colonialism are rare. A daily diary that extends over fifty years is unparalleled. Based on a transcription of Arthur Wellington Clah’s diaries, this book offers a riveting account of a Tsimshian man who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. From his birth in 1831 to his death in 1916, Clah witnessed profound change: the arrival of traders, missionaries, and miners, and the establishment of industrial fisheries, wage labour, and reserves. His many voyages – physical, cultural, and spiritual – provide an unprecedented Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships on the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Drawing on a painstaking transcription of Arthur Wellington Clah’s diaries, Peggy Brock pieces together the many voyages -- physical, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual -- of a Tsimshian man who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. Clah’s birth in 1831 coincided with the establishment of a permanent fur trade post, and he became student, teacher, and confidant to missionary William Duncan. Later, Clah’s spiritual voyage into the world of colonial culture transformed him into a devout Christian and an evangelist for the faith.

From the goldfields of BC and Alaska to the hop fields of Washington State, Clah witnessed profound change. His diaries reveal the complexities of personal interactions between colonizers and the colonized and the inevitable tensions within a community undergoing rapid change. They also show how Clah’s hopes for his people were gradually eroded by the realities of land dispossession, interference by the colonial state in cultural and political matters, and diminishing economic opportunities.

Taken together, Clah’s many voyages offer an unprecedented Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships as they played out on the Pacific Northwest Coast.

This book is required reading for students and scholars of indigenous peoples and colonialism and anyone interested in BC or Canadian history.

Reviews
"The Many Voyages of Arthur Wellington Clah is a striking book offering an on-the-ground viewpoint of colonialism as it evolved on the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada." - Susan Neylan, Wilfrid Laurier University, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, V. 13, No 2, Fall 2012

"A fascinating account...Peggy Brock has made a truly significant contribution to our understanding of the history of the northwest coast in the nineteenth century." - Robin Fisher, Mount Royal University, International Journal of Maritime History, Vol XXIV No 3

"Arthur Wellington Clah’s diary is likely the most remarkable document to come into the light of Pacific Northwest Coast history ... Surmounting the challenges presented by this rich and at times near impenetrable personal record, Peggy Brock has researched and admirably summarized fifty years of the diary, pulling out key themes and highlighting its many contradictions. This much-needed introduction to a man and an indigenous history of British Columbia and Alaska will change the way we think about our past." - John S. Lutz, author of Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations

Clah’s life and diary offer a window into the lives of the Tsimshian political hierarchy of the time and Tsimshian society’s interaction with colonialism ... His voyage is a metaphor for the voyage that his own and other indigenous people were also taking in their encounters with colonialism." - Neil Sterritt, consultant in Aboriginal leadership and governance

Additional Information
324 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 19 photographs, 4 maps | Paperback