Residential Schools

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"

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"

Kiss of the Fur Queen is a powerful and beautiful tale of siblings and tricksters, culture and trauma, and finding yourself in a world that tries to tell you who you are.

Born into a magical Cree world in snowy northern Manitoba, Champion and Ooneemeetoo Okimasis are all too soon torn from their family and thrust into the hostile world of a Catholic residential school. Their language is forbidden, their names are changed to Jeremiah and Gabriel, and both boys are abused by priests.

As young men, estranged from their own people and alienated from the culture imposed upon them, the Okimasis brothers fight to survive. But wherever they go, the Fur Queen--a wily, shape-shifting trickster--watches over them as they fulfill their destiny to become artists.

Educator Information
Grade 11/12 English First Peoples resource for the unit Further Steps toward Reconciliation - Understanding Residential Schools through Text.

Note: This novel contains mature and challenging material (profanity, coarse language, depictions of sex, sexual abuse, violence, etc.). 

This resource is also available in French: Champion et Ooneemeetoo.

Additional Information
328 pages | 5.17" x 7.98"

When residential schools opened in the 1830s, First Nations envisioned their own teachers, ministers, and interpreters. Instead, students were regularly forced to renounce their cultures and languages and some were subjected to degradations and abuses that left severe emotional scars for generations. In Finding My Talk, fourteen aboriginal women who attended residential schools, or were affected by them, reflect on their experiences. They describe their years in residential schools across Canada and how they overcame tremendous obstacles to become strong and independent members of aboriginal cultures and valuable members of Canadian society. Biographies include: Eleanor Brass, Journalist, Plains Cree, Saskatchewan, Rita Joe, Poet/Writer, Mi?kmaq, Nova Scotia, Alice French, Writer, Inuit, Northwest Territories Shirley Sterling, School Administrator/Storyteller, Nlakapmux, British Columbia, Doris Pratt, Education Administrator/Language Specialist, Dakota, Manitoba, Edith Dalla Costa, School Counsellor, Woodland Cree, Alberta, Sara Sabourin, Community Worker, Ojibway, Ontario. Dr. Agnes Grant worked with the Native Teacher Training programs at Brandon University, Manitoba, for thirty years. As an administrator and professor, she spent much of her time in remote communities. Dr. Grant is the author of No End of Grief: Indian Residential Schools in Canada and three other books. She lives in Winnipeg.

Authenticity Note: This book has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label because of the contributions of the fourteen Indigenous women who share their stories in it.  It is up to readers to determine if this will work as an authentic text for their purposes.

After her beloved Grandmother dies, EdNah, a seven-year-old Pawnee girl, goes to live with a father she hardly knows on a Navajo reservation miles away. Heartbroken but resilient, she begins to create a new life for herself in this unfamiliar place.

Just as EdNah starts to feel at home in her new surroundings, she is sent away to a strict government-run Indian school. With her world turned upside down once again, EdNah must learn to rely on herself and her newfound community of friends.

Told in the unconventional voice of a seasoned storyteller, Rattlesnake Mesa is a true account of a girl coming-of-age during a complex time in America’s past. Both heartbreaking and humorous, you will be moved to tears and laughter as you experience EdNah’s spirited celebration of life as a healing.

One of the first books published to deal with the phenomenon of residential schools in Canada, Resistance and Renewal is a disturbing collection of Native perspectives on the Kamloops Indian Residential School(KIRS) in the British Columbia interior. Interviews with thirteen Natives, all former residents of KIRS, form the nucleus of the book, a frank depiction of school life, and a telling account of the system's oppressive environment which sought to stifle Native culture.

Winner of the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (BC Book Prize) in 1989.

Now in its 8th printing.

Authenticity Note: This book has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label because of the interviews and contributions of Indigenous peoples in this work, whom the author thanks and acknowledges in the introduction of the book. It is up to readers to determine if this an authentic work for their purposes.