Indigenous Narratives

One man’s story of growing up in the hunting and gathering society of the Ojibways and surviving the residential school system, woven together with traditional legends in their original language.

Members of Eli Baxter’s generation are the last of the hunting and gathering societies living on Turtle Island. They are also among the last fluent speakers of the Anishinaabay language known as Anishinaabaymowin. Aki-wayn-zih is a story about the land and its spiritual relationship with the Anishinaabayg, from the beginning of their life on Miss-koh-tay-sih Minis (Turtle Island) to the present day. Baxter writes about Anishinaabay life before European contact, his childhood memories of trapping, hunting, and fishing with his family on traditional lands in Treaty 9 territory, and his personal experience surviving the residential school system. Examining how Anishinaabay Kih-kayn-daa-soh-win (knowledge) is an elemental concept embedded in the Anishinaabay language, Aki-wayn-zih explores history, science, math, education, philosophy, law, and spiritual teachings, outlining the cultural significance of language to Anishinaabay identity. Recounting traditional Ojibway legends in their original language, fables in which moral virtues double as survival techniques, and detailed guidelines for expertly trapping or ensnaring animals, Baxter reveals how the residential school system shaped him as an individual, transformed his family, and forever disrupted his reserve community and those like it. Through spiritual teachings, historical accounts, and autobiographical anecdotes, Aki-wayn-zih offers a new form of storytelling from the Anishinaabay point of view.

Reviews
"Aki-wayn-zih will educate not only Canadians but the world as to what my people went through during this tragic part of history. I recommend this book wholeheartedly, and I hope that it inspires our young people and the public to learn more about Indigenous Peoples, our history, and why we remain strong in our culture, our languages, our lands, and our nations." — David Paul Achneepineskum, Matawa First Nations

"Eli Baxter eloquently weaves us through his life on the land. This is not just a book, but also a record of Anishinaabay customs and beliefs. What also makes this an incredible treasure is the fact that it is expressed in the language. No doubt a language resource for many generations to come, the information in this book is sacred and will transform lives." — Isaac Murdoch, Onaman Collective

"I truly enjoyed reading this book: its way of storytelling drew me in from the opening page. Aki-wayn-zih sets up the storytelling approach of the Anishinaabay language, offering important teachings in a subtle way, and bringing in a strongly experientially grounded sense of the language and its importance for healing and connecting with the spirit of land relations." — Timothy Brian Leduc, Wilfrid Laurier University and author of A Canadian Climate of Mind: Passages from Fur to Energy and Beyond

"Aki-wayn-zih will help many North American settlers and immigrants understand the history of the Anishinaabay people and the land that now sustains all of us. This book is eloquent and well written and offers perspectives that range from supporting dominant narratives to providing important contrasting views. It is clearly the work of an articulate storyteller respected in and beyond his community." — Margaret Ann Noodin, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and author of What the Chickadee Knows

Additional Information
160 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 5 photos, 1 map | Hardcover 

Dadibaajim narratives are of and from the land, born from experience and observation. Invoking this critical Anishinaabe methodology for teaching and learning, Helen Agger documents and reclaims the history, identity, and inherent entitlement of the Namegosibii Anishinaabeg to the care, use, and occupation of their Trout Lake homelands.

When Agger’s mother, Dedibaayaanimanook, was born in 1922, the community had limited contact with Euro-Canadian settlers and still lived throughout their territory according to seasonal migrations along agricultural, hunting, and fishing routes. By the 1940s, colonialism was in full swing: hydro development had resulted in major flooding of traditional territories, settlers had overrun Trout Lake for its resource, tourism, and recreational potential, and the Namegosibii Anishinaabe were forced out of their homelands in Treaty 3 territory, north-western Ontario.

Agger mines an archive of treaty paylists, census records, and the work of influential anthropologists like A.I. Hallowell, but the dadibaajim narratives of eight community members spanning three generations form the heart of this book. Dadibaajim provide the framework that fills in the silences and omissions of the colonial record. Embedded in Anishinaabe language and epistemology, they record how the people of Namegosibiing experienced the invasion of interlocking forces of colonialism and globalized neo-liberalism into their lives and upon their homelands. Ultimately, Dadibaajim is a message about how all humans may live well on the earth.

Reviews
“Dadibaajim is the product of a lifetime of reflection, and the distilled narrative we are presented shares an invaluable part of our Anishinaabe – and larger human – story that might have otherwise never been told. This work brings new value and appreciation for the role and positionality of our senior and traditional Elders, our Indigenous languages, and knowledge building customs and protocols that are inherent to the community." — Brian McInnes

"Dadibaajim is a fascinating story of the people and the land told from a uniquely Anishinaabe perspective. It also gives us hope for the future of these stories and traditions, particularly in the narratives, experiences, and perspectives of the younger generations that are represented." — Brian McInnes

“Dadibaajim is brilliant in its unapologetic incorporation of Anishinaabemowin and its prioritizing of Anishinaabe way of being in the world. It contributes to important decolonial work and challenges settler histories and discourse.” — Brittany Luby and Margaret Lehman

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Ch 1: How We Know

Ch 2: Subjectivity

Ch 3: As Written of Us

Ch 4: Our Anishinaabe Selves

Ch 5: Boreal Narratives

Ch 6: Colonial Identity

Ch 7: Anishinaabe Rectitude

Ch 8: Historical Texts

Additional Information
176 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Black and white illustrations and tables, maps, index, bibliography | Paperback

Daughters of Aataentsic highlights and connects the unique lives of seven Wendat/Wandat women whose legacies are still felt today. Spanning the continent and the colonial borders of New France, British North America, Canada, and the United States, this book shows how Wendat people and place came together in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and how generations of activism became intimately tied with notions of family, community, motherwork, and legacy from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. The lives of the seven women tell a story of individual and community triumph despite difficulties and great loss. Kathryn Magee Labelle aims to decolonize the historical discipline by researching with Indigenous people rather than researching on them. It is a collaborative effort, guided by an advisory council of eight Wendat/Wandat women, reflecting the needs and desires of community members. Daughters of Aataentsic challenges colonial interpretations by demonstrating the centrality of women, past and present, to Wendat/Wandat culture and history. Labelle draws from institutional archives and published works, as well as from oral histories and private collections. Breaking new ground in both historical narratives and community-guided research in North America, Daughters of Aataentsic offers an alternative narrative by considering the ways in which individual Wendat/Wandat women resisted colonialism, preserved their culture, and acted as matriarchs.

Reviews
"Daughters of Aataentsic makes a significant contribution to the historiography of Indigenous women. Labelle has written an important book and her laudatory and exemplary methodology is a model for all people researching and writing on First Nations and Native Americans." — Clifford Trafzer, University of California, Riverside

"Daughters of Aataentsic enriches our understanding of the everyday lives of real women, their families, and communities across time in Quebec and parts of the southwestern and western United States. This book does not denounce the past, holler, and shout, but rather attends to the range of information and knowledge passed down to draw us into times and places we would otherwise not have the privilege of knowing from an Indigenous perspective. Its insights have stuck with me long after my first reading, as I expect they will for others." — Jean Barman, University of British Columbia

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Figures xv
Map xxvi
Introduction 3
1 Cécile Gannendâris (?-1669) 13
2 Marie Catherine Jean dit Vien (1676-1767) 33
3 Margaret Grey Eyes Solomon (1816-1890) 50
4 Mary McKee (1838-1922) 69
5 Eliza Burton Conley Jr (1869-1946) 90
6 Jane Zane Gordon (1871-1963) 115
7 Dr Éléonore Sioui (1924-2006) 132
Epilogue: The Wendat/Wandat Women’s Advisory Council 154
Notes 169
Index 205

Recommended for these subjects: History, Women's History, North American History, Canadian History, Indigenous History, Indigenous Studies, Women's and Gender Studies.

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 21 Photos, 7 Diagrams 

Stories are medicine. During a time of heightened isolation, bestselling author Richard Van Camp shares what he knows about the power of storytelling—and offers some of his own favourite stories from Elders, friends, and family.

Gathering around a campfire, or the dinner table, we humans have always told stories. Through them, we define our identities and shape our understanding of the world.

Master storyteller and bestselling author Richard Van Camp writes of the power of storytelling and its potential to transform speakers and audiences alike.

In Gather, Van Camp shares what elements make a compelling story and offers insights into basic storytelling techniques, such as how to read a room and how to capture the attention of listeners. And he delves further into the impact storytelling can have, helping readers understand how to create community and how to banish loneliness through their tales. A member of the Tlicho Dene First Nation, Van Camp also includes stories from Elders whose wisdom influenced him.

During a time of uncertainty and disconnection, stories reach across vast distances to offer connection. Gather is a joyful reminder of this for storytellers: all of us.

Reviews
“Stories and storytellers are an important part of what makes us human. Van Camp’s stories, whether they feature light comedy, family discord and reconciliation or his vivid images of the legendary Wheetago monsters, revived by global warming and horrifically hungry for human flesh, are gifts to the reader.” —Vancouver Sun
 
“Van Camp is…a brilliant weaver of tales.” —Quill & Quire

Additional Information
162 pages | 5.00" x 8.50"

Award-winning author Linda LeGarde Grover interweaves family and Ojibwe history with stories from Misaabekong (the place of the giants) on Lake Superior.

Long before there was a Duluth, Minnesota, the massive outcropping that divides the city emerged from the ridge of gabbro rock running along the westward shore of Lake Superior. A great westward migration carried the Ojibwe people to this place, the Point of Rocks. Against this backdrop—Misaabekong, the place of the giants—the lives chronicled in Linda LeGarde Grover’s book unfold, some in myth, some in long-ago times, some in an imagined present, and some in the author’s family history, all with a deep and tenacious bond to the land, one another, and the Ojibwe culture.

Within the larger history, Grover tells the story of her ancestors’ arrival at the American Fur Post in far western Duluth more than two hundred years ago. Their fortunes and the family’s future are inextricably entwined with tales of marriages to voyageurs, relocations to reservation lands, encounters with the spirits of the lake and wood creatures, the renewal of life—in myth and in art, the search for meaning in the transformations of our day is always vital. Finally, in one man’s struggles, age-old tribulations, the intergenerational traumas of extended families and communities, and a uniquely Ojibwe appreciation for the natural and spiritual worlds converge, forging the Ojibwe worldview and will to survive as his legacy to his descendants.

Blending the seen and unseen, the old and the new, the amusing and the tragic and the hauntingly familiar, this lyrical work encapsulates a way of life forever vibrant at the Point of Rocks.

Reviews
"With compelling stories of sacred places, beloved people, myths, legends, and treasured memories, Gichigami Hearts is a moving tribute to the Ojibwe past."— Carolyn Holbrook, author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify

"With stories of the essence of land and people, Linda LeGarde Grover weaves a generational history of a sacredness inseparable from place, of the unbroken chain of Anishinaabe existence in Missabekong. Her powerful prose and ethereal poetry wash over the pages like waves along the shore of Lake Superior, revealing a strength of survival that goes beyond memory and reminding us to watch, listen, and breathe."—Gwen Westerman, Minnesota State University, Mankato

"In Linda LeGarde Grover’s Gichigami Hearts, we are given the gift of an intensely personal, and at the same time brilliant, walkthrough of Grover’s part of the Anishinaabe universe. Just a tremendously lovely and unique book."—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

Educator Information
Contents

Part I. Point of Rocks

Gabbro

An Old Story

Bimosewin: From the Bethel to the Union Gospel Mission

From the Rocks to the Docks

Anishinaabe Relatives and Holy Places

Grandparents

Life Among the Italians

The Beanbag

Rain, Fog, Ghost, Spider

Part II. Gichigami Hearts

Waawaashkeshi

Mooz

Lake Hearts

Lake Spirits

Sea Smoke on Gichigami

Barney-enjiss

The Stone Tomahawk

Part III. Rabbits in Wintertime

Listening and Remembering By Heart

Rabbits in the Snow

Niizh Odain: The Wolf and the Rabbit

The Harbor: Nanaboozhoo’s Brothers of the Heart

Woods Lovely, Dark, and Deep

Rabbits Watching Over Onigamiising

Part IV. Traveling Song

The End and Renewal of the Earth

Redemption

Mishomis

Grandfather-iban Gi-bimose

Places Remembered, Though Some Have Changed

Homeland

Traveling Song

Acknowledgments

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 8 Black and white illustrations | Paperback

A collection of perspectives by and about Indigenous Toronto, past, present, and future.

Beneath every major city in North America lies a deep and rich Indigenous history that has been colonized, paved over, and ignored. Few of its current inhabitants know that Toronto has seen 12,000 years of different peoples, including the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit, and a vibrant culture and history that thrives to this day.

With original contributions by Indigenous elders, scholars, journalists, artists, activists, and historians about art, food, health, and more, this unique anthology explores the poles of erasure and cultural continuity that have come to define a crossroads city-region that was known as a meeting place long before the arrival of European settlers.

Contributors include political scientist Hayden King, historian Alan Corbiere, musician Elaine Bomberry, artist Duke Redbird, playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, educator Kerry Potts, writer/journalist Paul Seesequasis and former Mississaugas of the New Credit chief Carolyn King.

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

A collection of narratives as told in the nêhiyawêwin (Cree) language by Elder Mary Louise Rockthunder, spanning her rich life and extensive knowledge of her traditions and culture.

Mary Louise (née Bangs) Rockthunder, wêpanâkit, was an Elder of Cree, Saulteaux, and Nakoda descent. Born in 1913, raised and married at nēhiyawipwātināhk / Piapot First Nation, Mary Louise, a much-loved storyteller, speaks of her memories, stories, and knowledge, revealing her personal humility and her deep love and respect for her family and her nêhiyawêwin language and culture. 
 
The recordings that are transcribed, edited, and translated for this book are presented in three forms: Cree syllabics, standard roman orthography (SRO) for Cree, and English. A full Cree-English glossary concludes the book, providing an additional resource for those learning the nêhiyawêwin language.

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Our Own Words series. Our Own Words is a new Indigenous language series that seeks to present longer, more extensive Indigenous texts for both intermediate and advanced learners of the language.

Additional Information
264 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Translated by Jean L. Okimasis and Arok Wolvengrey | Paperback

Pawaminikititicikiw, Wilfred Buck, is an Ininew / Cree, Knowledge and Dream Keeper of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation of Northern Manitoba. He is the author of Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star stories, and I Have Lived Four Lives, a memoir. Kitcikisik (Great Sky) features Indigenous Star Knowledge and is the second edition of Tipiskawi Kisik.

Educator Information
Recommended by the publisher for grades 7+

Additional Information
86 Pages

First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists, activists, educators and writers, youth and elders come together to envision Indigenous futures in Canada and around the world.

Discussing everything from language renewal to sci-fi, this collection is a powerful and important expression of imagination rooted in social critique, cultural experience, traditional knowledge, activism and the multifaceted experiences of Indigenous people on Turtle Island.

In Me Tomorrow: 
Darrel J. McLeod, Cree author from Treaty-8 territory in Northern Alberta, blends the four elements of the Indigenous cosmovision with the four directions of the medicine wheel to create a prayer for the power, strength and resilience of Indigenous peoples.

Autumn Peltier, Anishinaabe water-rights activist, tells the origin story of her present and future career in advocacy—and how the nine months she spent in her mother’s womb formed her first water teaching. When the water breaks, like snow melting in the spring, new life comes.

Lee Maracle, acclaimed Stó:lō Nation author and educator, reflects on cultural revival—imagining a future a century from now in which Indigenous people are more united than ever before.

Other essayists include Cyndy and Makwa Baskin, Norma Dunning, Shalan Joudry, Shelley Knott-Fife, Tracie Léost, Stephanie Peltier, Romeo Saganash, Drew Hayden Taylor and Raymond Yakeleya.

For readers who want to imagine the future, and to cultivate a better one, Me Tomorrow is a journey through the visions generously offered by a diverse group of Indigenous thinkers.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Paperback

Strong women dominate these reminiscences: the grandmother taught the girl whose mother refused to let her go to school, and the life-changing events they witnessed range from the ravages of the influenza epidemic of 1918–20 and murder committed in a jealous rage to the abduction of a young woman by underground spirits who on her release grant her healing powers.

A highly personal document, these memoirs are altogether exceptional in recounting the thoughts and feelings of a Cree woman as she copes with the challenges of reserve life but also, in a key chapter, with her loneliness while tending a relative’s children in a place far away from home – and, apparently just as debilitating, away from the company of other women. Her experiences and reactions throw fresh light on the lives lived by Plains Cree women on the Canadian prairies over much of the twentieth century.

The late Sarah Whitecalf (1919–1991) spoke Cree exclusively, spending most of her life at Nakiwacîhk / Sweetgrass Reserve on the North Saskatchewan River. This is where Leonard Bloomfield was told his Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree in 1925 and where a decade later David Mandelbaum apprenticed himself to Kâ-miyokîsihkwêw / Fineday, the step-grandfather in whose family Sarah Whitecalf grew up.

In presenting a Cree woman’s view of her world, the texts in this volume directly reflect the spoken word: Sarah Whitecalf’s memoirs are here printed in Cree exactly as she recorded them, with a close English translation on the facing page. They constitute an autobiography of great personal authority and rare authenticity.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
PART I Becoming a Cree woman

Ch. 1—êkosi nikî-pê-ay-itâcihonân / This has been our way of life

Ch. 2—êkosi nikî-tâs-ôy-ohpikihikawin / This is the way I was raised

Ch. 3—mêh-mêskoc nikî-pimohtahikawin / I was taken back and forth

Ch. 4—miton ê-kî-pê-na-nêhiyaw-ôhpikihikawiyân / I was truly raised as a Cree woman

PART II Being a Cree woman

Ch. 5—êwak ôm ê-kî-ay-itâcimisot awa nikâwiy / This is my mother’s own story

Ch. 6—iyikohk ê-kî-sôhkêpayik anima nipahtâkêwin / So horrible was that murder

Ch. 7—ê-nipahi-kâh-kaskêyihtamân / I was desperately lonesome

Ch. 8—pikw êkwa niya / Now I had to take charge

PART III The spiritual life

Ch. 9—ê-sîkâwîhcikêhk / Observing the mourning ritual

Ch. 10—manitow kâ-matwêhikêt / Where the spirits drum (I)

Ch. 11—manitow kâ-matwêhikêt / Where the spirits drum (II)

Ch. 12—manitow kâ-matwêhikêt / Where the spirits drum (III)

Additional Information
366 pages | 6.50" x 9.75"

The writing and relations between Syilx women and settler women, largely of European descent, who came to inhabit the British Columbia southern interior from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Educator Information
Okanagan Women’s Voices features the writing and stories of seven women: Susan Moir Allison (1845-1937), Josephine Shuttleworth (1866-1950), Eliza Jane Swalwell (1868-1944), Marie Houghton Brent (1870-1968), Hester Emily White (1877-1963), Mourning Dove (1886-1936) and Isabel Christie MacNaughton (1915-2003).

Additional Information
6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

The exhaustive, definitive history and stories of the Cega‘ K´i na Nakoda Oyáté (Carry The Kettle Nakoda First Nation), told by the people themselves.

Born out of a meticulous, well-researched historical and current traditional land-use study led by Cega̔ K´iɳna Nakoda Oyáté (Carry the Kettle Nakoda First Nation), Owóknage is the first book to tell the definitive, comprehensive story of the Nakoda people (formerly known as the Assiniboine), in their own words. From pre-contact to current-day life, from thriving on the Great Plains to forced removal from their traditional, sacred lands in the Cypress Hills via a Canadian “Trail of Tears” starvation march to where they now currently reside south of Sintaluta, Saskatchewan, this is their story of resilience and resurgence.

Educator Information
Based on a comprehensive traditional and current land-use study and history of the Carry The Kettle First Nation, combining oral history from Nation Elders and historical/anthropological research.

The destruction of the bison on the Canadian plains, disease, and Canada’s various damaging colonial policies brought profound changes and hardships to the Nakoda; this book chronicles the changes they faced and illustrates their endurance throughout history.

Most of the victims of the Cypress Hill Massacre were ancestors of the Carry The Kettle Nakoda First Nation, and many were forced out of their traditional lands on a Canadian Trail of Tears in 1882–83.

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

In this extraordinary memoir, best-selling author Nicola I. Campbell deftly weaves rich poetry and vivid prose into a story basket of memories orating what it means to be an intergenerational survivor of Indian Residential Schools.

If the hurt and grief we carry is a woven blanket, it is time to weave ourselves anew. We can’t quit. Instead, we must untangle ourselves from the negative forces that have impacted our existence as Indigenous people.

Similar to the “moccasin telegraph,” Spíləxm are the remembered stories, also “events or news” in the Nłeʔkepmx language. These stories were often shared over tea, in the quiet hours between Elders. Rooted within the British Columbia landscape, and with an almost tactile representation of being on the land and water, Spíləxm explores resilience, reconnection, and narrative memory through stories.

Captivating and deeply moving, this exceptional memoir tells of one Indigenous woman’s journey of overcoming adversity and colonial trauma to find strength and resilience through creative works and traditional perspectives of healing, transformation, and resurgence.

Reviews

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.50" x 8.50" | Hardcover

This book, and accompanying Vimeo documentary link, is a collection of stories about culture, history, and nationhood as told by Métis women. The Métis are known by many names — Otipemisiwak, “the people who own ourselves;” Bois Brules, “Burnt Wood;” Apeetogosan, “half brother” by the Cree; “half-breed,” historically; and are also known as “rebels” and “traitors to Canada.” They are also known as the “Forgotten People.” Few really know their story.

Many people may also think that Métis simply means “mixed,” but it does not. They are a people with a unique and proud history and Nation. In this era of reconciliation, Stories of Métis Women explains the story of the Métis Nation from their own perspective. The UN has declared this “The Decade of Indigenous Languages” and Stories of Métis Women is one of the few books available in English and Michif, which is an endangered language.

Reviews
"With this book, some of these important and unique perspectives and worldviews about who we are as a people, how we have survived as people and how we will carry on and thrive as a people are shared through the writings of the daughters, mothers, aunties and grandmothers of the Métis Nation. I congratulate the Métis women who have taken the time to share and write down some of this knowledge for generations to come." —­Jason Madden, Métis rights lawyer and citizen of the Métis Nation

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 50 black and white illustrations | Paperback

"I hear so much power in these pages. I also feel it." —Richard Van Camp

We Remember the Coming of the White Man chronicles the history of the Sahtú (Mountain Dene) and Gwinch’in People in the extraordinary time of the early 20th century. This 2021 Special Edition of the book recognizes the anniversary of the signing of Treaty 11, which is greatly controversial due to the emotional and economic fallout for the People.

The remastered film “We Remember,” is included with the book, on DVD and as digital Vimeo links. As well as poignant essays on Treaty 11, the book includes transcripts of oral histories by Elders. They talk about the early days of fur trading and guns; the flu pandemic; and dismay about the way oil and uranium discoveries and pipelines were handled on their land. A new section of stories is included as well — stories by Leanne Goose, Antoine Mountain, Raymond Yakeleya, and George Blondin.

Dene Elders in the book (now all deceased) are Joe Blondin, John Blondin, Elizabeth Yakeleya, Mary Wilson, Isadore Yukon, Peter Thompson, Jim Sittichinli, Sarah Simon, Johnny Kay, and Andrew Kunnizzi. Dene translation is by Bella Ross.

Reviews
"We Remember The Coming of the White Man should be crucial reading for anyone in Canada because it speaks to the resiliency of the Dene and Metis people of Denendeh. It's also a testament to the power of memory carried in the oral tradition. To think what our ancestors have seen in one lifetime: relations with the Hudon's Bay Company, TB, Influenza, Treaty signings, the first musket loader, Residential Schools, the first radio, the first TV, a man on the moon. It is staggering. I hear so much power in these pages. I also feel it. I am grateful to everyone involved in this project because it is a life's work honouring the witnessing of so much change in so little time. Mahsi cho, everyone. I am grateful. We will have and celebrate this book and the DVD that accompanies it forever."— Richard Van Camp, Author

"Our traditional knowledge is recorded in the stories of our ancestors since time immemorial. In this book, you will read our oral history and traditions that are our Dene parables, used to guide ourselves and our People.” — Norman Yakeleya, Dene National Chief

“All Canadians are enriched by the stories in this collection. By listening to these stories, we take a step together towards reconciliation. We are learning the truth and building an understanding. We are nurturing respect and reciprocity. We are honouring our relations in a good way.”—­Colette Poitras, Chair of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations Indigenous Matters Committee

Educator Information
Author royalties for this edition are being used to create a scholarship for an emerging Indigenous writer in conjunction with Northwords Writers Festival.

Keywords: Indigenous, Dene Nation, Elders, Treaty 11, Hudson Bay Company, Missionaries, Northwest Territories.

Contains DVD of film We Remember.

Editors: Sarah Stewart & Raymond Yakeleya
Foreword : Walter Blondin,
Elders: Elizabeth Yakeleya, Sarah Simon, Mary Wilson, Joe Blondin, John Blondin, Isadore Yukon, Johnny Kaye, Jim Edwards Sittichinli, Peter Thompson, Andrew Kunnizzi
Storytellers and Authors: Colette Poitras, Leanne Goose, George Blondin, Raymond Yakeleya, Antoine Mountain
Artists: Antoine Mountain, Ruth Schefter, Deborah Desmarais

This book is part of the Indigenous Spirit of Nature series.

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 100 b&w photographs, 10 b&w line drawings