History

An unflinching examination of the impacts of settler colonialism from first contact to the contemporary nation state.

On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples is the first installment in a comprehensive collection investigating settler colonialism as a state mandate, a structuring logic of institutions, and an alibi for violence and death. The book examines how settler identities are fashioned in opposition to nature and how eras of settler colonialism have come to be defined. Scholars and thinkers explore how settlers understood themselves as servants of empire, how settler identities came to be predicated on racialization and white supremacy, and more recently, how they have been constructed in relation to multiculturalism.

Featuring perspectives from Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, and other racialized, queer, and white European-descended thinkers from across a range of disciplines, On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples addresses the fundamental truths of this country. Essays engage contemporary questions on the legacy of displacement that settler colonialism has wrought for Indigenous people and racialized settlers caught up in the global implications of empire.

Asserting that reconciliation is a shared endeavor, the collection’s final section exposes the myth at the heart of Canada’s constitutional legitimacy and describes the importance of affirming Indigenous rights, protecting Indigenous people (especially women) from systemic violence, and holding the Canadian settler nation state—which has benefited from the creation and maintenance of genocidal institutions for generations—accountable.

Reviews
“Remarkable...likely to become a landmark reference work for scholars and interested individuals alike.” — Lorenzo Veracini, author of Colonialism: A Global History

“Positive shared futures with all our relations depend on perpetual truth-telling and (re)conciliation. This book guides us through the dark and toward the light.”— David Garneau, author of Dark Chapters

"A thought-provoking and insightful ‘must read’ for all those seeking reconciliation based on truth, justice, and accountability.” — Paulette Regan, author of Unsettling the Settler Within and former research director for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off! That observation best describes the power of this fabulous book that every Canadian should read.”— Val Napoleon, Professor and Law Foundation Chair of Indigenous Justice and Governance, University of Victoria

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the On Settler Colonialism in Canada series.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 
Contributor Biographies

David B MacDonald and Emily Grafton, “Introduction: Critical Engagements with Canadian Settler Colonialism: Colonization, Land Theft, Gender Violence, Imperialism, and Genocide” 

Section 1: Considering Violence and Genocide in the Canadian Settler State

Karine Duhamel, “I feel like my spirit knows violence: interrogating the language of temporality and crisis for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and LGBTQ people.”

James Daschuck, “The Battleford hangings and the rise of the settler colonial state.”

David B MacDonald, “Match and Exceed: Why Recognizing Genocide in Canada is Only the First Step in Promoting Indigenous Self-Determination.”

Malissa Bryan, “Unsettled Arrivants: Imagining Black & Indigenous Solidarity Under Settler Colonialism.”

Angie Wong, “Labouring and Living in Canada: Early Chinese Arrivants and Making Settler Colonial Canada.” 

Section 2: Logics of Empire, Colonialism, and Unsettlement

Liam Midzain-Gobin, “Imperial circulation, implicatedness and co-conspiracy, racialized interruptions of settler colonialism in Canada.”

Peter Kulchyski, “A Contribution to Periodizing Settler Colonial History in Canada”

Ajay Parasram, “Learning Settler Colonialism: Double Diaspora and Transnational Imperial Refraction.”

Andrew Woolford, “Settler natures: becoming settler against water.” 

Section 3: Settler colonial society: Relating, Reckoning, and Unreconciliation

Chris Lindgren and Michelle Stewart, “Reckoning and Unreconciled: Neil Stonechild, Starlight Tours, and Racialized Policing in the Settler State.”

Fazeela Jiwa, “On shitheads and revolutionaries: claiming my displaced kin.”

Jerome Melancon, “Relying upon the Colonial Project: Francophone Communities in Minority Settings within the Bilingual Settler Colonial State.”

Desmond McAllister, “Straddling Different Worlds.”

Bernie Farber and Len Rudner, “B’Chol Dor v’Dor: In each and Every Generation.” 

Section 4: Asserting Indigenous Knowledges in settler colonial Canada

Solomon Ratt (poetry) “stolen childhood” and “asastîwa – They pile up”

Joyce Green, “Being and Knowing Home.”

Rebecca Major, “Surviving Institutions in Canada’s Polite Society.”

Paul Simard Smith, “On the Illegitimacy of the Canadian Constitutional Order.”

Emily Grafton, “Resistance and Resurgence: Asserting Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Settler Colonial Canada.” 

“Afterword,” Jeremy Patzer

Additional Information
384 pages | 6.02" x 9.01" | Paperback

This book invites readers to step into a space of reflection on your personal relationship with truth, reconciliation, and Orange Shirt Day.

Written in response to the increase of residential school denialism, Phyllis Webstad and Kristy McLeod have collaborated to create a book that encourages readers to face their own biases. This book challenges readers through a series of sensitive conversations that explore decolonization, Indigenization, healing, and every person’s individual responsibility to truth and reconciliation. Centered around the Orange Shirt Day movement, and a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, these conversations encourage readers to unpack and reckon with denialism, biases, privilege, and the journey forward, on both a personal and national level.

Within each chapter, Phyllis Webstad draws on her decade of experience (sharing her Orange Shirt Story on a global level and advocating for the rights of Indigenous Peoples) to offer insights on these topics and stories from her personal journey, which co-author and Métis scholar, Kristy McLeod, helps readers to further navigate. Each section includes real denialist comments taken from social media and Kristy's analysis and response to them. Through empathy-driven truth-telling, this book offers an opportunity to witness, reflect, heal, and be intentional about the seeds we hope to plant for the future, together.

Additional Information
350 pages | 5.70" x 8.25" | Hardcover

"John Macfie's vivid and stirring photographs show a way of life on full display - the world my ancestors inhabited and that my mom fondly described to me. It is a world that, shortly after these pictures were taken, ended. So distant and yet achingly familiar, these pictures feel like a visit home."- Jesse Wente, Anishinaabe broadcaster, arts leader, and author of Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance

While working as a trapline manager in Northern Ontario during the 1950s and 1960s, John Macfie, a Canadian of Scottish heritage, formed deep and lasting relationships with the people of the Indigenous communities in the region. As he travelled the vast expanse of the Hudson Bay watershed, from Sandy Lake to Fort Severn to Moose Lake and as far south as Mattagami, he photographed the daily lives of Anishinaabe, Cree, and Anisininew communities, bearing witness to their adaptability and resilience during a time of tremendous change.

Macfie's photos, curated both in this volume and for an accompanying exhibition by the nipisihkopawiyiniw (Willow Cree) writer and journalist Paul Seesequasis, document ways of life firmly rooted in the pleasures of the land and the changing seasons. People of the Watershed builds on Seesequasis's visual reclamation work with his online Indigenous Archival Photo Project and his previous book, Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun, serving to centre the stories and lives of the people featured in these compelling archival images.

Reviews
"The images reflect a sensitive eye and respectful approach to a solid documentary project." - The Globe and Mail

"Shines a light on the overlooked histories of Indigenous communities in northern Ontario." - APTN

Additional Information
192 pages | 8.01" x 9.99" | 100 colour and black and white photos | Paperback

The Education of Augie Merasty offers a courageous and intimate chronicle of life in a residential school.

Now a retired fisherman and trapper, Joseph A. (Augie) Merasty was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of "aggressive assimiliation."As Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse.Even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty’s generous and authentic voice shines through.

Awards

• 2016 Burt Award Second Place Winner

Reviews
"At 86, Augie Merasty has been a lot of things: Father. Son. Outdoorsman. Homeless. But now he is a first-time author, and the voice of a generation of residential-school survivors.... The Education of Augie Merasty is the tale of a man not only haunted by his past, but haunted by the fundamental need to tell his own story... one of the most important titles to be published this spring." —Globe and Mail

"[Augie] wrote his memoir to show people the unbelievable atrocities suffered by so many Indigenous people and in the hope that others would come forward to tell their stories of what happened in the residential schools." —Eagle Feather News

"This book is so much bigger than its small size. It is a path to healing. We cannot change history, but we can acknowledge it, learn about it, and remember it." —Prairies North
​
"The Education of Augie Merasty might be a small book, but it carries a punch to it that all Canadian need to read and understand." —Rabble

"A truly extraordinary memoir by a truly extraordinary man." —Midwest Book Review
​
"Carpenter's introduction and afterword... allow us to come to better understand Augie's 'sometimes chaotic, sometimes heroic aftermath of his life,' as Carpenter describes his last decade. Where Augie focuses on physical scars, Carpenter's experiences with Augie illustrate the long-term impacts on his residential school experience. And with The Education of Augie Merasty, he helps Merasty--who could be any number of individuals we each pass on the street--find his voice." —Active History

"Unsettling and profound, and good." —Blacklock's Reporter

"In this book I have seen horror through eyes of a child." —James Daschuk, author of Clearing the Plains

"A story in which our entire nation has an obscure and dark complicity." —David Carpenter, co-author of The Education of Augie Merasty and author of The Gold and other books

Educator Information
The Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools list recommends this resource for Grades 9-12 English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Caution: Mature subject matter and descriptions of discrimination, sexual/physical violence, and substance abuse.

Additional Information
105 pages | 4.25" x 6.53" | Hardcover 

Discover the rich tapestry of human emotion and divine wisdom with the First Nations Version Psalms and Proverbs. The latest volume from the critically acclaimed First Nations Version translation brings the ancient Sacred Songs and Wise Sayings of the Hebrew Scriptures to life through the vibrant, poetic imagery of Native American oral storytelling.

Discover Psalms and Proverbs Reimagined Through the Poetic Language of Native Storytellers:

Father Sky is telling us the story of the shining-greatness of the One Above Us All. The starry tent above us shows the beauty that Creator’s hands have made. Day after day, the story is told, and night after night, their wisdom fills the sky. Even though the skies above have no spoken words, all creation has heard their message.Psalm 19:1-3

From the strength of your heart, put all your trust in Grandfather, and do not hold yourself up with weak human thinking. As you walk the road of life, make every step a prayer. Grandfather will then make your eyes straight and your paths safe.Proverbs 3:5-6

Whether you're seeking solace, strength, or spiritual insight, the First Nations Version Psalms and Proverbs will guide you with its profound expressions of praise and trust in the Creator. Step into the harmonious blend of ancient wisdom and indigenous tradition to discover a spiritual experience that speaks directly to your heart.

Reviews
"The First Nations Version is far and away the most creative Bible translation I've ever read. It's an exciting alternative to the boring, stodgy renderings that have dominated the English market for centuries. All readers can open the FNV and experience old passages in new lights. Talk about it with your kids. Study it in churches and classrooms. Use it in worship. The Bible becomes alive!"— Matthew Schlimm, professor of Old Testament at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary

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

Indigenous Spiritualities and Religious Freedom investigates the complex relationship between Indigenous legal orders and Canadian law, emphasizing the richness of Indigenous spiritual practices alongside their historical and ongoing suppression by the Canadian state. It critically examines the role and limitations of the Canadian Charter of Right’s section 2(a), which guarantees freedom of religion, in protecting the spiritual lives of Indigenous communities.

The book highlights the holistic nature of Indigenous spiritual beliefs, which view the spiritual as immanent and closely tied to land and specific locations. The book reveals how, by contrast, the Anglo-American conception of religious freedom often separates spiritual and religious matters from civic and political concerns, and so fails to provide meaningful protection for Indigenous cultural and spiritual practices.

Many essays in this collection propose alternative approaches to the relationship between Canadian law and Indigenous legal orders, particularly regarding Indigenous spiritual practices. Ultimately, Indigenous Spiritualities and Religious Freedom reveals the challenges – and perhaps the futility – of seeking significant protection for Indigenous spiritual practices within the existing framework of religious freedom.

Educator Information
Chapters
Introduction
Jeffery Hewitt, Beverly Jacobs, and Richard Moon
1. Water Is Life: Haudenosaunee Responses to Climate Change and Water Security - Dawn Martin-Hill
2. The Gaya’shra’gowa’ in the Twenty-First Century: Traditional Indigenous Governance and the Problem of Canadian Settler Colonial Law - Theresa McCarthy
3. An Imaginary for Our Sisters: Spirits and Indigenous Law - Val Napoleon
4. Indigenous Religious Rights: Reconciling Religious Views and Decolonizing Section 2(a) of the Charter - Natasha Bakht
5. Is State Neutrality Bad for Indigenous Religious Freedom? - Benjamin L. Berger
6. Ktunaxa and the Shape of Religious Freedom - Richard Moon
7. Beyond Experience? Objectivity, Indigeneity, and Freedom of Religion - John Borrows
8. Ancestors in the Land: Indigenous Burial Sites and Religious Freedom - Senwung Luk and Howard Kislowicz
9. Posing the Land Question: An Analysis of Servatius v. Alberni School District No. 70 - Ardith Walkem
10. The Perils of Rights and Reconciliation for Indigenous Peoples - Karen Drake
Contributors

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

In this powerful reframing of the stories that make us, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec leads us into the borderlands to ask: What worlds do books written by marginalized people describe and invite us to inhabit?

Patty Krawec doesn’t want to be a “Good Indian.” When a friend asked what books could help them understand Indigenous lives, Patty Krawec gave them a list. This list then exploded into a book club, then into a podcast about a year of Indigenous reading, and then, ultimately, into this book.

Drawing on conversations with readers and authors, Bad Indians Book Club delves into writing about history, science, and gender, and into memoirs and fiction, all by “Bad Indians” and those like them, whose refusal of the dominant narrative of the wemitigoozhiwag (European settlers) opens up new possibilities for identity and existence.

Introducing each chapter with flash fiction about a shapeshifting Deer Woman, who is on her own journey to decide who she is, Krawec leads us into a place of wisdom and medicine where stories of and by marginalized writers help us imagine a thousand worlds waiting to be born.

Reviews
“Bad Indians Book Club is a compendium of worlds. From a lifetime of reading, there emerges a marriage of tapestry and map, a vision of the literary canon not as some secret handshake of the correctly educated but as a living, growing organism. . . There’s a dangerousness to a book like this. It’s not enough to define the Good Indian, the Grateful Immigrant, the Untroublesome Minority. Nor is it enough to simply reject these designations. One must interrogate how they came to hold so much power, how they offer the willing participant so many crumbs of reward from colonialism’s table.”— Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, September 2025

“Bad Indians Book Club is like a kind and protective auntie guiding you through a sometimes hostile world with sheer wisdom and wit. It’s a resounding rallying cry for our stories and our peoples. There’s no other book club I’d want to be in!”— Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Turning Leaves, September 2025

“This genre-crossing, shape-shifting, imagination-expanding book is for all who love to, and also need to, read. We tell stories to live, and this enlivening book reflects on all kinds of stories, each page suffused with Patty Krawec’s unmistakable voice and generous, timeless wisdom.”— Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, September 2025

“I didn’t want the Bad Indians Book Club to end. I read it at the perfect time, when snow was on the ground, in a period of rest and renewal. Patty Krawec made me wonder and made me ponder. Her book is a call to action to be curious, vigilant, to listen to and receive the inner strength of the land, to create and recreate community, to agitate, to investigate, to take story into ourselves and to hold the teachings sacred. As she guides us, throughout the book she tells us a new, sustaining, serial story about Kwe, Deer Woman. Such a gift. There is so much goodness in The Bad Indians Book Club!”— Shelagh Rogers, Shelagh Rogers, Truth and Reconciliaton Commission Honorary Witness, recovering broadcast journalist, September 2025

“Bad Indians Book Club is full of good medicine — challenging us to ask questions and bringing us home to ourselves. As Patty Krawec guides us into the deep wisdom wells of many people who journey in kinship, we consider how to hold the curiosity of care and stories, and what it means to imagine and create a future that integrates all our stories into a web of healing. Please buy this book, and celebrate the power of story in a weary yet flourishing world.”— Kaitlin B. Curtice, author of Living Resistance, September 2025

“In Bad Indians Book Club, Patty Krawec provides critical space for the ne'er-do-wells, disrupters, red sheep, box-busters, tricksters, and all us rowdy relatives defying expectations. Indigenous people have always been proverbial thorns in the sides of colonizers, and this piercing book does an incredible job of letting the air out of today’s imperialist narratives.”— Taté Walker, Two Spirit Lakota storyteller and community-builder, September 2025

“With Bad Indians Book Club, Patty Krawec gifts us a compelling investigation into the power of not just reading books but also doing so in community. Krawec makes the case for building your circle through reading, as a way of being in better relations with all our kin, including the land. Thinking deeply alongside other books, Bad Indians Book Club is a needed guide at a moment when books are under attack. Books are not just written culture, they are also oral culture, and Krawec illuminates this beautifully.”— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, author of The Disordered Cosmo, September 2025

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

An essential and easy-to-read guide to treaties, Indigenous sovereignty, and land for all Canadians

Treaties cover much of Canada. Some were established thousands of years ago, with land and animals, and others date back to the time when Europeans first arrived in North America. These agreements make it possible for all of us to live, work, play, and profit on these lands. Additionally, treaties have profoundly shaped the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. In Talk Treaty to Me, Crystal Gail Fraser and Sara Komarnisky untangle the complexities of treaties and set a path forward for greater understanding of all our roles, rights, and responsibilities. In this accessible, clear, and concise book, they discuss:

· Treaties among and between Indigenous Peoples

· The history of treaty-making between Indigenous Peoples and Britain, then Canada, from the very beginning to the present day

· Concepts like Métis scrip, modern land claims, Indigenous sovereignty, and unceded territory

· The (dis)honouring of treaties and the role of Canadian settler colonialism

· How the creation of Canadian borders interrupts Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood

· Important insights from gendered and queer perspectives on treaty and land

· The politics of land acknowledgements

· Reconciliation and Land Back movements

And more.

With a quick-reference timeline, maps, and black-and-white photographs throughout, Talk Treaty to Me concludes with a call to action and specific, tangible steps that all of us can take every day to support reconciliation.

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.25" x 8.00" | 40 b&w photos, spot illustrations & maps | Paperback 

For thousands of years, Inuit practiced the traditional art of tattooing. Created the ancient way, with bone needles and caribou sinew soaked in seal oil, sod, or soot, these tattoos were an important tradition for many Inuit women, symbols etched on their skin that connected them to their families and communities. But with the rise of missionaries and residential schools in the North, the tradition of tattooing was almost lost. In 2005, when Angela Hovak Johnston heard that the last Inuk woman tattooed in the old way had died, she set out to tattoo herself in tribute to this ancient custom and learn how to tattoo others. What was at first a personal quest became a project to bring the art of traditional tattooing back to Inuit women across Nunavut, starting with Johnston’s home community of Kugluktuk. Collected in this beautiful book are moving photos and stories from more than two dozen women who participated in Johnston’s project. Together, these women have united to bring to life an ancient tradition, reawakening their ancestors’ lines and sharing this knowledge with future generations.

Awards

• 2018 NorthWords Book Prize Winner 

Reviews
"This gorgeous photographic essay on the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project is a deeply personal and affirming work about learning and preserving traditions-and reclaiming what residential schools tried to destroy."-School Library Journal

Additional Information
72 pages | 10.00" x 10.00" | Paperback 

From ground zero of this country's most important project: reconciliation

Niigaan Sinclair has been called provocative, revolutionary, and one of this country's most influential thinkers on the issues impacting Indigenous cultures, communities, and reconciliation in Canada. In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls "ground zero" of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity. It is here, in the place where Canada began—where the land, water, people, and animals meet— that a path "from the centre" is happening for all to see.

At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance.

Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.

Sinclair uses the story of Winnipeg to illuminate the reality of Indigenous life all over what is called Canada. This is a book that demands change and celebrates those fighting for it, that reminds us of what must be reconciled and holds accountable those who must do the work. It's a book that reminds us of the power that comes from loving a place, even as that place is violently taken away from you, and the magic of fighting your way back to it.

Awards

•  Winner of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Additional Information
384 pages | 5.14" x 7.92" | b&w photos throughout | Paperback

For more than three decades, bestselling author Louise Erdrich has enthralled readers with dazzling novels that paint an evocative portrait of Native American life. From her dazzling first novel, Love Medicine, to the National Book Award-winning The Round House, Erdrich’s lyrical skill and emotional assurance have earned her a place alongside William Faulkner and Willa Cather as an author deeply rooted in the American landscape.

In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Erdrich takes us on an illuminating tour through the terrain her ancestors have inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario. Summoning to life the Ojibwe's sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, she considers the many ways in which her tribe—whose name derives from the word ozhibii'ige, "to write"—have influenced her. Her journey links ancient stone paintings with a magical island where a bookish recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her.

A blend of history, mythology, and memoir, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country is an enchanting meditation on modern life, natural splendor, and the ancient spirituality and creativity of Erdrich's native homeland—a long, elemental tradition of storytelling that is in her blood.

Additional Information
160 pages | 5.31" x 8.00" | 15 Illustrations, 1 Map | Paperback

This meditation on the poetics of re-worlding follows the threads of Spiderwoman Theater’s Storyweaving practice back to its Guna and Rappahannock sources to illuminate its history, mechanics, and development for coming generations.

The Spiderwoman Theatre, the longest-running Indigenous theatre company in North America has heralded the revolutionary methodology of Storyweaving for generations of Indigenous artists. Storyweaving is a distinct methodology that governs the dramaturgical structure and performed transmission of the company’s plays on the contemporary stage. The practice of Storyweaving predates written history. It has been (and remains) specific to tribal storytellers across the continent.

The reclamation, then, of this aesthetic legacy by contemporary Indigenous storytellers is a crucial act of recovery. Jill Carter, an Anishinaabe-Ashkenazi theatre-worker and scholar, examines the process and development of Storyweaving. She studies how Storyweaving imagines and architects a functional framework that is being adopted and adapted by artists from myriad nations to create works (on the page and stage) that facilitate the healing, transformation, and survivance of their communities. Between the Layers pays respects to the teachers and visionaries that moulded this practice and encourages future generations to continue its legacy, while making a much-needed contribution to the study of Indigenous theatre and performance.

In its painstaking documentation of the Storyweaving artform, Between the Layers refuses the devaluation, erasure, and suppression of Indigenous culture, while contributing to the dissemination and celebration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems.

Educator Information

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Spiderwoman Theater: A Performance History

Introduction: Between the Layers

Chapter One:
Persistence of Violent Delights:
“It’s All the Same Bullshit Again”

Chapter Two:
“An Indian is an Idea a Man Has of Himself”

Chapter Three:
An Indian is More than Just an “Idea”:
By Their Acts Ye Shall Know Them

Chapter Four:
Towards a Poetics of Re-Worlding:
Becoming (and then Staging) the New Human Being

Chapter Five:
The Published Texts

Chapter Six:
The Three Sisters from There to Here:
Spiderwoman’s Issue and the Project of Re-worlding

Appendices

Works Cited

Additional Information
376 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 8 illustrations | Hardcover

The pelt of a dog named “Mutton” languished in a drawer at the Smithsonian for 150 years until it was discovered, almost accidentally, by an amateur archivist. This book tells Mutton's story and explores what it can teach us about Coast Salish Woolly Dogs and their cultural significance.

Until now, there has been very little written about the enigmatic Coast Salish Woolly Dog, or sqʷəmey̓ in the Hul'q'umi'num language. According to Indigenous Oral Histories of the Pacific Northwest, this small dog was bred for thousands of years for its woolly fibres, which were woven into traditional blankets, robes and regalia. Although the dogs were carefully protected by Coast Salish peoples, by the 1900s, the Woolly Dog had become so rare it is now considered extinct.

Co-authored with weavers, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders, The Teachings of Mutton interweaves perspectives from Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō, Suquamish, Cowichan, Katzie, Snuneymuxw, and Skokomish cultures with narratives of science, post-contact history, and the lasting and devastating impacts of colonization. Binding it all together is Mutton's story—a tale of research, reawakening, and resurgence.

Reviews
“What a compelling story, reflecting a way of life, practical knowledge, artistry and change in the Pacific Northwest! Mutton, the domesticated woolly dog, represents so much more than a museum collection or a source of weaving material. Generations of breeding, learning and sharing, caring and trading are mirrored in the discovery of his pelt in a drawer at the Smithsonian. Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa and her respected Salishan co-authors and Knowledge Keepers have brought Mutton into the present, and in doing so, have given us a new and unique perspective on the complex history of this region and on the meaning of Truth and Reconciliation. The book is clearly and thoughtfully written, and supplemented with excellent illustrations. It is a ‘must read’ for anyone wishing to know more about weaving arts, dog breeds, Indigenous cultures and/or history in northwestern North America.” — Nancy J. Turner, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of Victoria

“Conscientious and accessible, The Teachings of Mutton weaves a charming and informative history, walking through the discovery of his pelt in a museum drawer to the modern science that reveals the shape of this dog’s life. Highlighting and correcting generations of non-Indigenous misinterpretation, the intertwined histories provided by Salish knowledge keepers reveal the nuanced Indigenous sciences of dog husbandry, spinning, weaving, and the cultural significance of Woolly Dogs while telling a lively story.” — Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, PhD, curator of Northwest Native art and director of the Bill Holm Center for

Additional Information
264 pages | 8.00" x 10.00"

From the bestselling author of 21 Things™ You May Not Know About the Indian Act comes a powerful new book on dismantling the Indian Act and advancing Indigenous self-governance.

Bob Joseph’s 21 Things™You May Not Know About the Indian Act captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of Canadians by shining a light on the Indian Act and the problems associated with it. In that book, readers learned that the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876 has controlled the lives of Indigenous Peoples in Canada for generations, and despite its objective to assimilate Indians into the economic and political mainstream, it has had the opposite effect: segregation. They live under different laws and on different lands.

People came away from that book with questions such as "Can we get rid of the Indian Act?" and "What would that look like? Would self-government work?" These are timely questions, given that 2026 will mark 150 years since the Consolidated Indian Act of 1876. The short answer to these questions is, yes, we can dismantle the Act, and there are current examples of self-government arrangements that are working.

With his trademark wisdom, humility, and deep understanding, Bob Joseph shows us the path forward in 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act, in which Indigenous self-governance is already happening and not to be feared—and negotiating more such arrangements, sooner rather than later, is an absolute necessity.

21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act is a call to action. Join the conversation now.

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.00" x 8.00" | Paperback

A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.

From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.

Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.

Reviews
“A devastating history. . . . Weaving into her narrative her own mother’s experiences . . . Pember explores the psychological ramifications the schools had on subsequent generations. She comes to many quietly ruinous insights about the emotional neglect she herself suffered at the hands of her wounded mother. . . . Concluding with a searing call for accountability, this strikes a chord.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[Pember’s] extensive research illuminates the attempted cultural erasure by government and religious institutions. Her mother’s story provides a heartbreaking, personal focus.” —Booklist

“Elegantly weaving together her mother’s stories, those of other boarding school students, and concise accounts of federal assimilationist policies and common institutional practices, [Pember] provides an informed and unsettling perspective on the schools’ individual and collective impact. . . . A gripping, often harrowing account of the personal and communal toll of cultural genocide.”—Kirkus

"Mary Annette Pember has left it all on the line. Through her, her Ojibwe ancestors speak boldly about how the US government has treated them and every Indigenous nation in these so-called-United States. I have never read a book that has changed me so profoundly. Pember not only points to what has been done, but also offers a way forward. Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read this book." —Javier Zamora, author of Solito

“So much writing about historical trauma casts a vague, impenetrable cloud over its subjects’ lives. But with electric precision and rigorous care, Mary Annette Pember pierces through, illuminating the real mechanisms by which pain has accumulated and reverberated through generations of boarding school survivors and their descendants, as well all the beauty, love, and humor these same lives contain. In showing us how trauma is made, Pember helps us see that it can be unmade. ‘History flows through us,’ she writes, and nowhere has this idea been so well rendered as here, in this stunning, essential book.”—Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country

“Pember has written a searing exploration of the multi-generational trauma visited upon Native people by the boarding school experience, as well as a brilliant account of Indigenous survivance.” —Michael Witgen, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, author of Seeing Red

"I have a shelf full of books on the Indian boarding schools, but nothing quite like this one. Anyone who questions why the U.S. government has finally apologized for these schools and for its brutal assaults on Native children and their families should read Medicine River." —Colin G. Calloway, Professor of History and Native American Studies, Dartmouth College

"Mary Annette Pember reveals that the trauma and rage of surviving the St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School permeates through the generations. Pember has chronicled a deeply personal and first-person account of the dark legacy of incarceration at a ‘civilized’ boarding school and how the trauma of those youngsters impact their living descendants. Pember tells us that resistance and accountability is attainable, and I believe her. This is an essential read."—Devon Mihesuah, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, author of The Bone Picker

"A dauntless and visceral excavation of one family’s residential boarding school legacy. In Medicine River, we can see pain ripple through generations, eclipsed only by Mary Annette Pember's courage and her conviction that, in the search for answers, we can heal."—Anton Treuer, author of Where Wolves Don't Die

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.42" x 9.55" | Hardcover

Teachings from the stars

Much more than stories about the sky, Indigenous astronomies provide powerful, centuries-old models of knowing, being, and relating to the world. Through collaboration with more than sixty-five Dene Elders and culture bearers across thirty-four communities in Alaska and Canada, In the Footsteps of the Traveller reveals the significance of the stars to Northern Dene life, language, and culture.

At the centre of these knowledge systems is the Traveller, a being who journeyed around the world in Ancient Time before incarnating among the stars. The Traveller constellation is a teacher, a gamekeeper, a guardian, and a practical guide for wayfinding. The Traveller, together with a host of other celestial and atmospheric phenomena like thunder and the northern lights, bridges the divide between earth and sky, instilling balance and instructing people on how to live with each other and their environments.

This study combines interviews, stunning photographs and detailed illustrations of the northern night sky, author Chris M. Cannon's own experiential learning, and a foreword from Chief Fred Sangris of Yellowknives Dene First Nation. Rooted in years of collaborative fieldwork, In the Footsteps of the Traveller leads the way to deeper understandings of Northern Dene astronomical knowledge.

Reviews
"In the Footsteps of the Traveller is a ground-breaking book. Cannon's authoritative treatise of Dene knowledge of the stars is unique and exemplary, redefining the field by linking the basic ethos of Dene life to a meticulously documented body of shared but threatened knowledge. Detailed and precise, the book innovates by showing how knowledge-of how to live with other people, with animals, with nature-is encoded in astronomical and aerial phenomena."— Guy Lanoue

"Chris Cannon's contribution to the subject of Dene astronomy stands alone. Many authors have referred to Dene knowledge of the stars but no one has gone into such detail or pulled the topic together in such a comprehensive manner."— William Simeone

"Impressive and thorough in both its astronomical and linguistic dimensions, Cannon's solid scholarship illuminates Northern Dene cosmology while promoting a greater appreciation of Dene history, traditions, and knowledge systems. Germinal studies of this breadth are only made possible through lengthy and respectful cooperation between the researcher and Indigenous knowledge holders. The author's engaging story of his travels and collaborations with his Dene teachers-an immersive process lasting some fourteen years-convincingly demonstrates this point, infusing the narrative with a vital personal component."— John MacDonald

Educator Information
Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Foreword by Chief Fred Sangris
Acknowledgements

Introduction
The Northern Dene
A Note on Dene Orthographies

1. The Traveller Constellation Part I
The Gwich’in Constellation Yahdii
The Ahtna Constellation Nek'eltaeni
The Lower Tanana Constellation Nogheyoli
The Sahtúot’ı̨nę Constellation Yíhda or Yámǫréya

2. The Traveller Constellation Part II
The Tanacross Constellation Neek'e'elteen
The Upper Tanana Constellation Yihda or Nek'e'eltiin
The Yellowknives Dene Constellation Yèhdaa or Yı̀da
The Koyukon Constellation Ghededzuyhdle or Naagheltaale
The Upper Kuskokwim Constellation Noghiltale
The Dëne Sułiné Constellation Yéhda or Yeda
The Dena’ina Constellation Yuq'eltaeni or Naq'eltaeni
Supporting Evidence from the Literature

3. Stellar Time-Reckoning, Weather Forecasting, and Wayfinding
Divisions of Time
Stellar Time-Reckoning
Introduction to Northern Dene Stellar Wayfinding
Yellowknives Dene Stellar Wayfinding
Gwich'in Stellar Wayfinding
Stellar Wayfinding Discussion
Stars and Planets in Weather Forecasting

4. The Sun, Moon, and Eclipses
The Sun
The Moon
Eclipses

5. Beings of the Atmosphere Part I
Northern Lights
Meteors
Halo Phenomena

6. Beings of the Atmosphere Part II
Rainbows
Thunderbirds
Deterring Unfavourable Weather
Colours of the Sky

7. Knowing, Being, and Relating

Appendix A: Northern Dene Names for the Traveller
Appendix B: The Cosmic Hunt in Northern Dene Cultures
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Additional Information
448 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 57 colour illustrations, 4 maps, index, bibliography | Paperback 

How Indigenous currencies—including wampum and dentalium shells, beads, and the cryptocurrency MazaCoin—have long constituted a form of resistance to settler colonialism.

Indigenous Currencies follows dynamic stories of currency as a meaning-making communication technology. Settler economies regard currency as their own invention, casting Indigenous systems of value, exchange, and data stewardship as incompatible with contemporary markets. In this book, Ashley Cordes refutes such claims and describes a long history of Indigenous innovation in currencies, including wampum, dentalium, beads, and, more recently, the cryptocurrency MazaCoin. By looking closely at how currencies developed over time through intercultural communication, Cordes argues that Indigenous currencies transcend the scope of economic value, revealing the cultural, social, and political context of what it means to exchange.

The book’s two main case studies, the gold rush and the code rush, frame a deep dive into how Indigenous ways of being have shaped the use and significance of currency and vice versa. Settler currencies, which have developed in the wake of wars and through massively scaled forms of material extraction, offer a very different story of the place of currencies within settler economies of dispossession. The second part of the study asks how contemporary cryptocurrencies may play a critical role in cultivating Tribal sovereignty. The author analyzes structural properties of the polymorphic blockchain to provide key insights into how emergent digital spaces, with their attendant forms of meaning and value represented by code, NFTs, and Web 3.0, are inextricably connected to Indigenous knowledges. The book cultivates a vision of currency in which the principle of leaving some for the rest establishes a way of imagining relationships of exchange beyond their enclosure within settler-capitalist parameters of extraction and into currents of deep reciprocity.

Reviews
"Brilliantly written in the best of Coquille Nation practices, wisdom of ancestors, and traditional technologies, Indigenous Currencies is a gift guiding us through deep insights for the digital realm."—Tiara R. Na’puti, University of California, Irvine

"Indigenous Currencies is an unparalleled study of cryptocurrency's colonialism and Indigenous decolonial possibilities in this powerful space. Cordes takes Indigenous epistemologies to places previously unexamined, and she does so by grounding case studies in practices of Indigenous digital agency."—Jason Edward Black, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; author of Mascot Nation

Educator Information
226 pages | 6.06" x 9.00" | 22 b&w illustrations | Paperback

From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, a sweeping, personal exploration of Indigenous identity and the challenges facing Indigenous people around the world.

Before Martha’s Vineyard became one of the most iconic vacation destinations in the country, it was home to the Wampanoag people. Today, as tourists flock to the idyllic beaches, the island has become increasingly unaffordable for tribal members, with nearly three-quarters now living off-island. Growing up Aquinnah Wampanoag, journalist Joseph Lee grappled with what this situation meant for his tribe, how the community can continue to grow, and more broadly, what it means to be Indigenous.

In Nothing More of This Land, Lee weaves his own story and that of his family into a panoramic narrative of Indigenous life around the world. He takes us from the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard to the icy Alaskan tundra, the smoky forests of Northern California to the halls of the United Nations, and beyond. Along the way he meets activists fighting to protect their land, families clashing with their own tribal leaders, and communities working to reclaim tradition.

Together, these stories reject stereotypes to show the diversity of Indigenous people today and chart a way past the stubborn legacy of colonialism.

Reviews
"Nothing More Of This Land is a stark, beautifully rendered reminder of all that had to occur for the happening of our existences to take place, and all who lived and fought against their own erasure to maintain a semblance of a legacy. This is a profound, and moving book, a powerful indictment of the colonial mindset that firmly balances an ode to people, to place, to remaining."—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year

"A forcefully illuminating and utterly compelling blend of personal narrative and vivid reportage, Joseph Lee’s Nothing More of this Land is a triumph of complexity and insight. We follow Lee from the red clay cliffs of Aquinnah to the halls of the UN, from the Klamath River basin to a feast of muktuk and tundra greens in Bethel, Alaska; and very early on I realized I’d follow him anywhere. Lee has given us a timely reckoning with Native sovereignty and community that is adroitly committed to the mess and nuance of lived experience, rather than sentimentalized accounts of victimhood or resilience. Nothing More of this Land is tender, ferocious, surprising, and tenaciously thoughtful; its existence makes the world a bigger and truer place."—Leslie Jamison, bestselling author of The Empathy Exams

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover 

Internationally renowned as an expert in Aboriginal law and an advocate for Indigenous rights, Bruce McIvor delivers concise, essential information for Canadians committed to truth and reconciliation.

A shortage of trustworthy information continues to frustrate Canadians with best intentions to fulfill Canada’s commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. To meet this demand, lawyer and historian Bruce McIvor provides concise, plain answers to 100 essential questions being asked by Canadians across the country.

During his nearly three decades advocating for Indigenous rights and teaching Aboriginal law, McIvor has recorded the fundamental questions that Canadians from all corners of society have asked to advance reconciliation: Why do Indigenous people have special rights? What is the Doctrine of Discovery? Who are the Métis? Why was the Calder decision important? What is reconciliation? McIvor supplies the answers Canadians are looking for by scrapping the technical language that confuses the issues, and speaks directly to everyone looking for straight answers. Throughout, McIvor shares his perspective on why reconciliation as envisioned by the courts and Canadian governments frustrates Indigenous people and what needs to change to overcome the impasse. McIvor’s explanations of complex legal issues demonstrate a unique mix of a deep knowledge of the law, the ability to write clearly and concisely, practical experience from the frontlines of advocating for First Nations in courtrooms and at negotiation tables across the country, and a profound passion for justice rooted in his work and personal history.

To ensure the country’s reconciliation project progresses from rhetoric to reality, ordinary Canadians need straightforward answers to fundamental questions. McIvor provides the answers and context to support a thoughtful and respectful national conversation about reconciliation and the fulfillment of Canada’s commitment to a better future for Indigenous people.

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 25 colour and b&w photographs | Paperback

Teammates, champions, Survivors

In 1951, after winning the Thunder Bay district championship, the Sioux Lookout Black Hawks hockey team from Pelican Lake Indian Residential School embarked on a whirlwind promotional tour through Ottawa and Toronto. They were accompanied by a professional photographer from the National Film Board who documented the experience. The tour was intended to demonstrate the success of the residential school system and introduce the Black Hawks to "civilizing" activities and the "benefits" of assimilating into Canadian society. For some of the boys, it was the beginning of a lifelong love of hockey; for others, it was an escape from the brutal living conditions and abuse at the residential school. 

In Beyond the Rink, Alexandra Giancarlo, Janice Forsyth, and Braden Te Hiwi collaborate with three surviving team members-Kelly Bull, Chris Cromarty, and David Wesley-to share the complex legacy behind the 1951 tour photos. This book reveals the complicated role of sports in residential school histories, commemorating the team's stellar hockey record and athletic prowess while exposing important truths about "Canada's Game" and how it shaped ideas about the nation. By considering their past, these Survivors imagine a better way forward not just for themselves, their families, and their communities, but for Canada as a whole.

Reviews
"These three survivors-Kelly, David, and Chris-inspire us not only for what they have done for their communities in the aftermath of the residential school system but also for how crucial hockey and sports are in bringing Indigenous communities together, like we see in the Little NHL Tournament. Our history and the lessons we've learned are vital, and Beyond the Rink does an excellent job of highlighting this." — Ted Nolan, former NHL Player & Coach, Olympic Coach, and author of Life in Two Worlds: A Coach's Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back

"On its face, Beyond the Rink is a compelling story of a residential school hockey team from northern Ontario touring Ottawa and Toronto in the 1950s. But it is much more than that: with a National Film Board photographer accompanying them every step of the way, the players are props in a public relations exercise meant to obscure the true conditions in residential schools.

This is an unflinching and nuanced look behind the PR veil, a story of loss, triumph, perseverance, tragedy, and memory. It is also a detailed account of the machinery of residential schools and the trauma they inflicted. And it is a revealing look at the power of photographs, which can be used to both illuminate and mislead.

At its heart, Beyond the Rink is the story of twelve Indigenous hockey players, who, like their white counterparts, loved the game for the thrill of competition, but also as an escape from the relentless control and exploitation they faced on a daily basis, even if they were being exploited while doing it. This is the story of twelve boys, told through the lens of three of them, trapped in a world they barely understood, a world that was not the least bit interested in understanding them, and in many ways still isn't." — Gord Miller

"The authors have spent decades working with the Survivors whose stories they share and centre in this book. Beyond the Rink, Behind the Image does not simply tell the story of a hockey team; it demonstrates how sport within the context of residential schools was a tool of colonization." — Karen Froman

"It is difficult to overstate the significance of this book. The scholarship is sound as well as original in context and content, and Survivor testimony is respected and communicated in a theoretically sophisticated way." — Travis Hay

Additional Information
184 pages | 6.00" x 8.50" | 36 b&w illustrations, bibliography | Paperback 

Bebías Into Ǫhndaa Ke: Queer Indigenous Knowledge for Land and Community is a powerful collection of essays, stories and conversations that provide us with a diverse roadmap for navigating and overcoming hate, supporting queer Indigenous kin, and revitalizing radical ethics of care for building healthy, inclusive, and self-determining lands and communities. A celebration of trans, queer, and Two-Spirit Indigenous brilliance, with an intentional inclusion of voices from the North (the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Inuvialuit and Nunatsiavut), the essays in this collection offer a wealth of queer Indigenous theory, experience, and practices, with a unique emphasis on the critical role of land in these conversations.

The contributors, who range from young activists, artists, families, and both emerging and established scholars, provide insightful and transformative queer perspectives on a number of pertinent topics, including: knowledge reclamation, resurgence, nation-building, community life and governance, cultural revitalization, belonging, family relationships, creative practice, environmental degradation, mental health and wellbeing, youth empowerment, and Indigenous pedagogy. Amidst the ongoing violence of settler colonization, and its legacies of exclusion and erasure that continue to target queer, gender-diverse and Two-Spirit Indigenous people, this collection is an invaluable gift and resource for our communities, showing us that a different world is possible, and reminding us that queer Indigenous people have always belonged on the land and in community.

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

With more than fifty contributors, Indigenous Critical Reflections on Traditional Ecological Knowledge offers important perspectives by Indigenous Peoples on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous value systems. The book aims to educate and inspire readers about the importance of decolonizing how Indigenous Knowledges are considered and used outside of Native communities.

By including the work of Indigenous storytellers, poets, and scholars from around the globe, editor Lara Jacobs and chapter authors effectively explore the Indigenous value systems—relationships, reciprocity, and responsibility—that are fundamental to Indigenous Knowledge systems and cultures. Indigenous languages and positionality statements are featured for each of the contributors to frame their cultural and geographical background and to allow each Indigenous voice to lead discussions and contribute critical discourse to the literature on Indigenous Knowledges and value systems. By creating space for each of these individual voices, this volume challenges colonial extraction norms and highlights the importance of decolonial methods in understanding and protecting Indigenous Knowledges.

Indigenous Critical Reflections on Traditional Ecological Knowledge is an essential resource for students, academics, members of Tribal, state, and federal governments, Indigenous communities, and non-Indigenous allies as well as a valuable addition to environmental and Indigenous studies collections.

Reviews
“Indigenous Peoples have shared values, but we live them out in ways that reflect the places where our Tribes emerged as People and the communities in which we live. Lara Jacobs has created a touchstone in these collected essays and reflections from Indigenous Peoples throughout the so-called Americas and beyond, giving voice to the various ways we live out relationships, reciprocity, and responsibility. I will return to these words again and again, and so will you.” —Patty Krawec, author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

Educator Information
Contributors include: Melinda M. Adams, Joe Anderson, Coral Avery, Andrew Kalani Carlson, Kathryn Champagne, Brandie Makeba Cross, Joanna M. DeMeyer, Jonathan James Fisk, Pat Gonzales-Rogers, Celina Gray, Rhode Grayson, Zena Greenawald, Jennifer Grenz, Joy Harjo, Mandi Harris, Jessica Hernandez, Victor Hernandez, David Iniguez, Michelle M. Jacob, Lara A. Jacobs, Lydia L. Jennings, Eileen Jimenez, Stephanie Kelley, David G. Lewis, Tomás A. Madrigal, Tara McAllister, Lauren Wendelle Yowelunh McLester-Davis, Angeles Mendoza, Kat Milligan-McClellan, Todd A. Mitchell swəlítub, Don Motanic, ‘Alohi Nakachi, Kaikea Nakachi, Kobe , Natachu, Ululani Kekahiliokalani Brigitte Russo Oana, Jennifer R. O’Neal, Lily Painter, Britt Postoak, Leasi Vanessa Lee Raymond, Anamaq Margaret H. C. Rudolf, Oral Saulters, Sam Schimmel, Paulette Steeves, Joni Tobacco, Angelo Villagomez, Vivi Vold, Margaret Palaghicon Von Rotz, Luhui Whitebear, Joseph Gazing Wolf, Monique Wynecoop, and Cherry YEW Yamane.

Additional Information
464 pages | 10.00" x 9.00" | 21 b&w photos, 6 charts, 7 tables | Paperback 

Culinary Claims explores the complex relationships between wild plants and introduced animals, Indigenous foodways, and Canadian regulations. Blending food studies with environmental history, the book examines how cuisines reflect social and political issues related to cultural representation, restaurants, and food sovereignty.

L. Sasha Gora chronicles the rise of Indigenous restaurants and their influence on Canadian food culture, engaging with questions about how shifts in appetite reflect broader shifts in imaginations of local environments and identities. Drawing on a diverse range of sources – from recipes and menus to artworks and television shows – the book discusses both historical and contemporary representations of Indigenous foodways and how they are changing amid the relocalization of food systems.

Culinary Claims tells a new story of settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance, emphasizing the critical role that restaurants play in Canada’s cultural landscape. It investigates how food shapes our understanding of place and the politics that underpin this relationship. Ultimately, the book asks, What insights can historians gain from restaurants – and their legacies – as reflections of Indigenous and settler negotiations over cultural claims to land?

Educator Information
Subjects: Business; History / Canadian History; History / Business & Economic History; Food Studies / Food in History; Indigenous Studies / Indigenous History

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface

Introduction: You Are Welcome
1. Agricultural Flagpoles
2. From Trains to Tundra
3. Restaurants and Representation
4. An Edible Exhibition
5. One Address, Three Restaurants
6. A Meal for a Chief
7. Culinary Resurgence
8. Seal Tartare
9. Where the Beaver and Buffalo Roam
10. Salmon and the F-Word
Conclusion: The North

Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Additional Information
392 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 34 illustrations | Paperback

The history and ecology of the Skeena River region in the Pacific Northwest is characterized by a complex landscape of interwoven phenomena, driven by biophysical and cultural changes over millennia. Combining archaeological, botanical, and historical research, together with first-hand accounts provided by Gitselasu knowledge holders, this book critically assesses and debunks settler colonial narratives of a wild and untouched landscape in northwestern British Columbia. By focusing on people-plant interactions and landscape changes through time, Silm Da’axk offers insights into the diverse and bustling territories of Gitselasu Ts’msyen. Augmenting these discussions is a vividly illustrated guide to the plants that grow in the region.

From the middle Skeena River to the coast, along creek beds and into alpine meadows, Gitselasu continue to thrive, representing one of the oldest and longest enduring Ts’msyen Nations. Tapping into historical knowledge of the laws (adawx) surrounding plant use and territory ownership, this book highlights the intricate relationships that exist among people, places, and plants.

Educator Information
Gitselasu Knowledge Holders include the many teachers and Elders who contributed to this book, including Wilfred Bennett, Amy Bevan, Mel Bevan, Geneva Mason, Alfie McDames, Isabelle McKee, CJ Nabess, Pat Squires, and countless others. This collaboration was guided by the Kitselas Lands and Resource Department, stewards of Gitselasu lands and waters.

Subjects: Archaeology, Canadian History, Indigenous History, Geography and Landscape, Indigenous Studies.

Additional Information
376 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | 80 colour illustrations | Paperback 

This community history chronicles the processes that led to the founding of the Fort McKay Métis Nation in northern Alberta.

This is the definitive history of the Fort McKay Métis Nation. It traces the evolution of the community from the mid-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, paying special attention to genealogy, land-use, land-tenure, and responses to mass oil sands development.

The Fort McKay Métis Nation carefully considers the community’s unique historical context, drawing on a broad range of sources including archival research, oral histories, grey literature, and community literature. It examines the complex interrelations between the Fort McKay Metis Nation and their neighbors, the Fort McKay First Nation, and their ways they have connected with each other.

Completed in partnership with the community, The Fort McKay Métis Nation provides perspectives which have never before been shared. It is an important, unique history of a community in the heart of the oil sands.

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

With Indigenous Métis herbalist LoriAnn Bird as your guide, connect with the ancestral wisdom of over 90 wild edible and medicinal plants from across North America.

A purposeful and powerful reference to the lessons, nourishment, healing, and history of our “plant teachers,” Revered Roots shares guidance on exploring, gathering, and reclaiming these long-revered plants as food and medicine. Separated into two sections, LoriAnn first reveals her own journey to understanding and respecting our plant elders. She offers teachings and lessons about remembering our relationship to the plants around us and our responsibility to the earth that sustains us.

The second part of the book is filled with insightful illustrated plant profiles detailing the identification, uses, and Indigenous folklore of some of the continent’s most treasured ancestral plants. Included are edible and medicinal bark, berries, and buds from trees and shrubs, as well as foliage, flowers, and fronds from herbs, “weeds,” and wildflowers; some native to the continent, others introduced generations ago.

Learn about the gifts our Rooted Nation of plants has to offer, including:

• Evergreen tips from spruces, pines, and firs
• Hawthorn berries, leaves, and flowers
• Plantain seeds and foliage
• Oswego tea leaves and blooms
• Slippery elm bark
• Motherwort flowers, stems, and leaves
• Black cohosh roots and rhizomes
• Marshmallow root
• Cottonwood buds and bark
• Plus dozens more

Reclaiming our natural rhythms and connections to the earth we walk on is essential to our health and well-being, both as individuals and as a community. One simple way to do that is by appreciating, respecting, and seeking to understand the plants around us.

Reviews
“With elegant reverence, LoriAnn Bird weaves connections among ancestral herbalist teachings from several lineages. She invites us into our own personal journey with plant medicine, giving us lessons on how to respect and honor the power of plants and their human knowledge keepers. She carefully and lovingly attributes each piece of teaching to its source. This book is a powerful legacy that we need more than ever at this time of healing and reconciliation. May its words fly into the world and land softly in the hearts of all who need them.”—Lori Weidenhammer, author of Victory Gardens for Bees: A DIY Guide to Saving the Bees

“Revered Roots is truly an essential work of art that imparts the sacredness of each plant, in each harvesting step and in the interspecies relationships with all of life. The authentic and grounded nature of LoriAnn Bird comes through the pages to connect us with a sense of belonging and reverence.”—Katrina Blair, founder of Turtle Lake Refuge; author of The Wild Wisdom of Weeds

“LoriAnn Bird, in her book Revered Roots, creates a beautiful story about our plant relatives with our history woven between the leaves of each page. She highlights each being and allows them to tell their story, including who they are, their benefits, uses, ways to eat, look-alikes, and what makes them unique. It's like looking at an old family album and finally knowing who each person is and what their spirit has to offer the world. The book, complete with information about our relatives, wrapped its warm arms around me as I nestled in to read each page, excited to learn more about family. LoriAnn’s voice provides a continuous honoring of our ancestors, our brilliance, and our resilience.”—Jenna Jasek, Shuswap (Kenpesq't) Band member, Director of Indigenous Learning, The Outdoor Learning School

“LoriAnn Bird weaves stories of plants into a tapestry of vivid imagery and teachings, allowing us to experience earth medicine in a way we never have before. Like a family gathered around the table exchanging stories of cherished ones, Lori Ann’s plant musings draw us into an intimate connection with our More-Than-Human Kin. From a small moment in a back alley in East Vancouver to hundreds of years of history from around the world, Revered Roots feels like an equal blend of encyclopedia, history book, and love letter. Get to know plants in a truly profound way through the words of a master storyteller, sister, friend, mother, and plant protector.”—Stephanie Rose, founder of Garden Therapy; author of Garden Alchemy and The Regenerative Garden

“This is a beautiful book on every level; the gorgeous drawings and painting of plants, the photography and images throughout, but also the words and the feelings on each page. Intensely moving and remarkably practical, deeply personal and filled with worldly wisdom, this book offers the reader a glimpse into a whole new way of seeing the nature. With a plant centered focus, through a biophilia lens, the author invites us to re-evaluate and re-vision our own relationships with plants and the natural world. This book is destined to be a classic.”—Chanchal Cabrera MSc, FNIMH, Medical Herbalist; Horticulture Therapist; author of Holistic Cancer Care

“LoriAnn has put a lifetime of collected knowledge into a work that connects people to plants in ways both honorable and honest. Revered Roots extols both the practical and sacred uses of the plants we see around us, while also nurturing our respect for our More-Than-Human Kin and our responsibility to the greater world. It has been a pleasure to be a teacher and herbal mentor to LoriAnn for many years.”—Don Ollsin, Master Herbalist; Conscious Spiritual Elder, Alchemy of Aging; author of Pathways to Healing

Additional Information
240 pages | 8.00" x 9.55" | Hardcover 

Indigenomics in action-moving beyond Indian Act economics towards Indigenous economic sovereignty

In this groundbreaking new work, Carol Anne Hilton, author of the bestselling Indigenomics, explores the phenomenon of growing Indigenous economic power and sovereignty, achieved despite monumental historic injustices.

The Indigenous economy in Canada is on track to exceed $100 billion. Yet full Indigenous participation at the economic table is still fundamentally lacking, due in large part to the inherently colonial and racist policies of the Indian Act. Hilton deconstructs these systemic barriers and maps an ethical way forward based on radical inclusion and Indigenomics in action.

Coverage includes:

• The far-reaching social and moral consequences of Indian Act economics-a tool used to legislate away Indigenous rights and jurisdiction with the express purpose of erasing First Nations
• The true cost of maintaining the status quo, from perpetuating inequality and cycles of Indigenous poverty, to lost opportunities for value-creation in Indigenous and settler economies
• Twenty-five transformative trends driving Indigenous economic growth.

Required reading for Indigenous organizations, Nations, and allies; business leaders and investors; lawyers and policymakers; governments at all levels; and everyone interested in reconciliation, decolonization, and building a just, prosperous, and inclusive society.

Reviews
"Hilton's work reaffirms the significance of relationship economics. Her words clearly illustrate that Indigenomics is the path for the future. As we move through the portal of this time, knowing that pandemics change our world, let's walk through to a path of restorative economics, founded on land, spirit, and the reality of Mother Earth's wealth, which is our responsibility to acknowledge and respect. The time of Keynesian economic analysis has passed, along with the empire. The time of cooperation is here." -Winona LaDuke, executive director, Honor the Earth Carol Anne

"Hilton mounts a convincing case that the rigidity of the Indian Act has put the rest of Canada in a static status-quo headspace that sees Indigenous Peoples as taken care of; meaning they don't see how adept they are in their economic empowerment as they consistently score in the open net." -Bill Gallagher, resource strategist

"A dynamic pathway to equitable Indigenous economic liberation and advancement." -Ruth Mojeed Ramirez, Chief Equity Officer, The Inclusion Project

"A comprehensively insightful guide for advancing Indigenous economic growth and inclusion." -Vinod Rajasekaran, CEO, Future of Good

"An essential primer for those seeking to understand and celebrate the economic rebirth of Indigenous communities." -Ken Coates, professor emeritus, University of Saskatchewan

Educator Information
The Indigenous economy is surging, but full Indigenous economic participation is still lacking, thwarted by the colonial and racist policies of Canada’s Indian Act. The Rise of Indigenous Economic Power deconstructs these historic and systemic barriers and presents an ethical response based on Indigenomics in action.

Additional Information
264 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 5 b&w illustrations | Paperback 

The shocking crimes of a trusted teacher wrought lasting damage on Inuit communities in Canada's Arctic.

In the 1970s, a young schoolteacher from British Columbia was becoming the darling of the Northwest Territories education department with his dynamic teaching style. He was learning to speak the local language, Inuktitut, something few outsiders did. He also claimed to be Indigenous - a claim that would later prove to be false. In truth, Edward Horne was a pedophile who sexually abused his male students.

From 1971 to 1985 his predations on Inuit boys would disrupt life in the communities where he worked - towns of close-knit families that would suffer the intergenerational trauma created by his abuse.

Journalist Kathleen Lippa, after years of research, examines the devastating impact the crimes had on individuals, families, and entire communities. Her compelling work lifts the veil of silence surrounding the Horne story once and for all.

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

Your next step on the journey of reconciliation starts here.

What can you do to be a better ally for your Indigenous colleagues, community members, and friends? By actively listening to the history and current lived experiences of Indigenous peoples, you can take steps to address the inequities they continue to face. Author Rose LeMay notes that if you continually educate yourself, you will see many opportunities to be an ally.

This insightful book suggests how to enter the field of reconciliation in a good way, in your community and your workplace. You will learn:

-more about the true history shared by Indigenous peoples and colonial governments
-why reconciliation is mostly the responsibility of non-Indigenous people
-approaches to intervene when you see racism happening
-better ways to respond to emotions that come up when doing the work of an ally
-how to be an active team player for equity and inclusion

LeMay describes key principles to promote reconciliation, deepen your practice of allyship, and contribute to meaningful change.

Additional Information
200 pages | 5.00" x 8.00" | Paperback

An exploration of Indigenous cosmology and history in North America

• Examines the complexities of Indigenous legends and creation myths and reveals common oral traditions across much of North America

• Explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound Builder Empire of 1050-1300 CE, told through the voice of Honga, a Native leader of the time

• Presents an Indigenous revisionist history regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny

While Western accounts of North American history traditionally start with European colonization, Indigenous histories of North America—or Turtle Island—stretch back millennia. Drawing on comparative analysis, firsthand Indigenous accounts, extensive historical writings, and his own experience, Omaha Tribal member, Cherokee citizen, and teacher Taylor Keen presents a comprehensive re-imagining of the ancient and more recent history of this continent’s oldest cultures. Keen reveals shared oral traditions across much of North America, including among the Algonquin, Athabascan, Sioux, Omaha, Ponca, Osage, Quapaw, and Kaw tribes. He explores the history of Cahokia, the Mississippian Mound Builder Empire of 1050–1300 CE. And he examines ancient earthen works and ceremonial sites of Turtle Island, revealing the Indigenous cosmology, sacred mathematics, and archaeoastronomy encoded in these places that artfully blend the movements of the sun, moon, and stars into the physical landscape.

Challenging the mainstream historical consensus, Keen presents an Indigenous revisionist history regarding Thomas Jefferson, expansionist doctrine, and Manifest Destiny. He reveals how, despite being displaced as the United States colonized westward, the Native peoples maintained their vision of an intrinsically shared humanity and the environmental responsibility found at the core of Indigenous mythology.

Building off a deep personal connection to the history and mythology of the First Peoples of the Americas, Taylor Keen gives renewed voice to the cultures of Turtle Island, revealing an alternative vision of the significance of our past and future presence here.

Reviews
“Brother Keen, with his infinite Indigenous and academic knowledge, brings forth amazing truths about ancient North American cultures the modern world was unaware of. Not only are the ancient earthworks extensive and scientifically and astronomically complex but Keen unveils they are all connected across the entire continent, mirroring the heavens. Simply incredible research.” — Scott Wolter, host of History 2 (H2) Channel’s America Unearthed, world-renowned forensic geol

“Careful analysis by Taylor Keen of the placement and designs of earthworks of the Indigenous people of North America reveals far more complex planning and design was involved than just random location selection of mounds for burials, as we were taught to think. His geographical analysis reveals the sacred earthworks designs were far more advanced and esoteric in nature, something he is uniquely qualified to understand as Indigenous himself and a member of several esoteric orders. He proves definitively the intricate level of knowledge of astronomy, heavenly body movements, mathematics, and cosmology involved in the creation of these earthworks, not only at a local level, but incredibly as long-range alignments as well. This revelation, Keen explains, was something that was dismissed and suppressed by early nineteenth-century archaeologists who breached and destroyed the sacred earthworks and burial mounds as part of the promotion of ‘manifest destiny,’ with the intent being justification of taking tribal lands for settlement. Keen’s incredibly important work gives a whole new perspective on the history of North America.” — Janet Wolter, coauthor of America: Nation of the Goddess

“The official history of the United States begins with Spanish contact in the late fifteenth century. The oral traditions and legends of the various Native peoples of North America, however, stretch back much earlier, into the opaque mists of preliterate times. With a member of the Earthen Bison Clan of the Omaha Tribe to serve as our guide, Rediscovering Turtle Island leads the reader along near-forgotten, overgrown paths that twist and turn throughout a resacralized landscape, decorated with ancient landmarks, populated with whispering ghosts and supernatural beings. The sacred geography of America will never again appear the same.” — P. D. Newman, author of Native American Shamanism and the Afterlife Journey in the Mississippi Valle

“What could be more fascinating than the origin of mankind itself? The premise is staggering and the consequences far-reaching. Keen’s hard work pays off immensely in Rediscovering Turtle Island, and readers will be gripped by that experience on every page.” — Sidian M.S. Jones, coauthor of The Voice of Rolling Thunder

Additional Information
208 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 70 b&w illustrations | Paperback 

How people today create respectful relationships through peace and friendship.

Deyohahá:ge:, “two roads or paths” in Cayuga language, evokes the Covenant Chain-Two Row Wampum, known as the “grandfather of the treaties.” Famously, this Haudenosaunee wampum agreement showed how Indigenous people and newcomers could build peace and friendship by respecting each other’s cultures, beliefs, and laws as they shared the river of life.

Written by members of Six Nations and their neighbours, this book introduces readers not only to the 17th-century history of how the Dutch and British joined the wampum agreement, but also to how it might restore good relations today. Many Canadians and Americans have never heard of the Covenant Chain or Two Row Wampum, but 200 years of disregard have not obliterated the covenant. We all need to learn about this foundational wampum, because it is resurging in our communities, institutions, and courthouses—charting a way to a future.

The writers of Deyohahá:ge delve into the eco-philosophy, legal evolution, and ethical protocols of two-path peace-making. They tend the sacred, ethical space that many of us navigate between these paths. They show how people today create peace, friendship, and respect—literally—on the river of everyday life.

Reviews
"Deyohahá:ge: brilliantly reminds us of our obligations and responsibilities to one another, and the more-than-human world. It shows that pathways can only be forged by respecting the waters, earth, fires, and skies through which all creation travels.” - John Borrows, Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law, University of Toronto

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Indigenous Imaginings series.

Table of Contents
The Words That Come Before All Else
Acknowledgements
Introduction, Daniel Coleman, Ki’en Debicki, and Bonnie Freeman

Section One: Original Instructions
Gä•sweñta’ Reflections. Oren Lyons
Where the Roots Touch: tsi niyothahinen ne Tehontatenentshonteronhtáhkwa, Amber Meadow Adams
Wunnáumwash: Wampum Justice, Kelsey Leonard The Chain, Naturally Understood, Kayanesenh Paul Williams

Section Two: Learning from the River
Guswenta Space: An Invitation to Dialogue, David Newhouse
Navigating the Two Row in the Academy, Vanessa Watts
Two Rows of Reconciliation, Rick Hill
Below Decks in the Covenant: Blackness in the Two Row Tradition, Phanuel Antwi
Towards Peace: Living in the Three White Rows of the Two Row”, Sarah General

Section Three: Living on the River
The Pen Pal Project: Bridging the Divide with the Teachings of the Two Row Wampum Treaty,” Susie Miller and Scot Cooper
Deyohahage Gihe gowa’hneh: Living the Two Row Wampum, on the Grand River, Ellie Joseph and Jay Bailey
The Deep and Rippling Consciousness of Water: The Transition of Youth Experiences with the Two Row on the Grand River Paddle, Bonnie Freeman and Trish van Katwyk
Contributors
Endnotes
Bibliography
Glossary
Index

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

Kunuuksayuukka: The Spirit of Winter Storms is a story of Inuvialuk (Western Arctic Inuk) Elder Rose Kirby's early life, beginning from her vibrant traditional life on the land, to being taken away on a "ship of tears" to residential school in Aktlarvik (Aklavik), before moving around different DEW Line sites following her father Joseph Saraana Thrasher's work. Known for her powerful memory and storytelling skills, Rose vividly recounts stories from her childhood and even infancy.

Kunuuksayuukka: The Spirit of Winter Storms honours the important lessons that Rose has learned from her Elders and family, through watching how they interacted with one another, as well as with the larger natural world. Rose uses Kunuuksayuukka-the spirit of winter storms-and its slow disappearance from her life, to describe her own transition from traditional, nomadic life on the land to moving into housing settlements created by tan'ngit (white people).

Through almost 300 pages, Rose's book weaves through candid stories of human relationships, loss, love and care for one another, humour, pain, strength, and resilience. Most importantly, it is a heartfelt tribute to Inuvialuit culture, language, history, life, and experiences-all through the eyes of an Inuvialuk who has learned to move with the changing world as she grew up. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about how Inuvialuit lived long ago.

Additional Information
6.00" x 9.00" | 25 b&w photographs | Paperback 

Mapping Métis history and cultural heritage through women's work.

Centring kinship and the strength of women, Putting Down Roots reframes Métis road allowance communities as sites of profound resistance and resilience, restoring Métis life in places, times, and scholarship where it has been obscured by settler narratives. These communities were not peripheral spaces where Métis lived as squatters, but places where families culturally thrived by visiting each other, telling stories, sharing food, and providing mutual aid. With stories of Métis li vyeu (Elders) as its foundation, this innovative study reveals the agency embedded in the everyday actions of women's work, which sustained Métis identity, family systems, and relationships to land.

Cheryl Troupe charts a century of Métis presence and persistence in the Qu'Appelle Valley, from the end of the buffalo hunt in the 1850s, through displacement following the northwest resistances, resettlement on fringe Crown lands, ongoing political activism and opposition to Canadian land-use practices, and finally the dissolution of the road allowance community along Katepwa Lake in the 1950s. Focusing on female kinship relationships and food production, Putting Down Roots illuminates the ways women created the stability necessary to adapt to the rapidly changing economic, social, and political conditions that defined this period of Canadian history.

Troupe's sophisticated use of oral histories, archival sources, genealogies, photographs, and deep mapping links people and their stories to the spaces that are important to them. Adding a new dimension to the study of Métis history, Putting Down Roots brings to life the tremendous cultural strength that characterized Métis road allowance communities.

Reviews
"Engaging and well-documented, Putting Down Roots details the economic production of Métis women and should serve to permanently dispel the trope that Métis men were the dominant breadwinners in their society. Compelling anecdotes provided through the collected oral histories clearly delineate the major role of Métis women in family and community formation."— Heather Devine

Educator Information
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. “Down there in the Valley”: Introducing Bob and Margaret
Chapter 2. Daughters of the Country: Women’s Labour in the Métis World
Chapter 3. Petitioning for Rights and Taking up Agriculture
Chapter 4. Asserting Sovereignty to Secure Land
Chapter 5. Securing Land Tenure: The North-West Half-Breed Scrip Commission and Homesteading
Chapter 6. “We Got Our House Built by Seneca Roots”: Life on the Road Allowance
Chapter 7. Going Hunting Rabbits: Women’s Labour in Feeding the Family
Chapter 8. Contesting Government Intervention into Harvesting Spaces
Chapter 9. “This is a Michif Road”: Métis Labour and Relief
Conclusion
Bibliography
Notes

Additional Information
408 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 29 b&w illustrations, 10 b&w tables, 14 maps, index, bibliography | Paperback

The first comprehensive study of Indian residential schools in the North.

In this ground-breaking book, Crystal Gail Fraser draws on Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich'in) concepts of individual and collective strength to illuminate student experiences in northern residential schools, revealing the many ways Indigenous communities resisted the institutionalization of their children.

After 1945, federal bureaucrats and politicians increasingly sought to assimilate Indigenous northerners--who had remained comparatively outside of their control--into broader Canadian society through policies that were designed to destroy Indigenous ways of life. Foremost among these was an aggressive new schooling policy that mandated the construction of Grollier and Stringer Halls: massive residential schools that opened in Inuvik in 1959, eleven years after a special joint committee of the House of Commons and the Senate recommended that all residential schools in Canada be closed.

By Strength, We Are Still Here shares the lived experiences of Indigenous northerners from 1959 until 1982, when the territorial government published a comprehensive plan for educational reform. Led by Survivor testimony, Fraser shows the roles both students and their families played in disrupting state agendas, including questioning and changing the system to protect their cultures and communities.

Centring the expertise of Knowledge Keepers, By Strength, We Are Still Here makes a crucial contribution to Indigenous research methodologies and to understandings of Canadian and Indigenous histories during the second half of the twentieth century.

Reviews
"By Strength, We Are Still Here demonstrates an intergenerational process of love and strength. Fraser's methodology, theory work, and incredibly thorough research are in and of themselves lifegiving, vital, and serve as an example to all other scholars." — Omeasoo Wahpasiw

"By integrating survivor testimony with archives, Fraser points towards the Indigenous resistance revealed in the ellipses and gaps in the colonial record. This is very important work." — Chris Trott

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Glossary

A Note on Region and Terminology

Introduction—By Strength, We Are Still Here.

Chapter One—“If anyone is going to jail for this, I’m taking it”: Our Relatives Speak

• Education in Nanhkak Thak Before the Arrival of Settlers
• Indian Day and Residential Schools
• The Construction of Inuvik

Chapter Two—Calls Grow. “Listen! It’s louder now. From here, from there. Indian voices, Métis voices, demanding attention, demanding equality!"

Chapter Three—“The long process of tearing our family apart”

Chapter Four—“Making us into nice white kids.”

Chapter Five—“The hazards that can result from too permissive or undisciplined sexual behaviour.”

Chapter Six—“To find that inner peace, it was so important for us all.”

Chapter Seven—“These are our children and they are very precious to us.”

Conclusion—“We knew the value of strength.”

Appendix A

Endnotes

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 69 b&w illustrations, index, bibliography | Paperback 

The political life of Dene leader Georges Erasmus - a radical Native rights crusader widely regarded as one of the most important Indigenous leaders of the past fifty years.

For decades, Georges Erasmus led the fight for Indigenous rights. From the Berger Inquiry to the Canadian constitutional talks to the Oka Crisis, Georges was a significant figure in Canada's political landscape. In the 1990s, he led the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and afterward was chair and president of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, around the time that Canada's residential school system became an ongoing frontpage story.

Georges's five-decade battle for Indigenous rights took him around the world and saw him sitting across the table from prime ministers and premiers. In the 1980s, when Georges was the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, he was referred to as the "Thirteenth Premier." This book tells the personal story of his life as a leading Indigenous figure, taking the reader inside some of Canada's biggest crises and challenges.

Awards

• 2025 Indigenous Voices Awards - Prose in English Award

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 57 b&w illustrations | Paperback 

Dene Elder George Blondin creates a spiritual guidebook that weaves together oral stories with the recounting of how the northern Canadian Dene came to depend on the European fur traders. The result is a magical journey for readers of any heritage.

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

In this philosophical exploration, Mi’kmaq Elder George Paul shares his traditional knowledge with those on a quest to better understand themselves and the world around them. Practiced and maintained by North American Indigenous tribes since time immemorial, this search for spirituality is informed by traditional knowledge, oral tradition and the use of symbols relating to our environment and to our universe. From the ceremonial to the sacred, George Paul meditates on the Indigenous legends, stories and designs of his ancient ancestors that offer new prospects to a modern population all across Turtle Island who are hungry to look inward.

With creation stories, buffalo sage and tapping into our spirit guides, Sacred Thought: Mi’kmaq Meditations for our Times is a book for those who are looking for balance and peace of mind in the chaos and confusion that govern the world today.

Reviews
“Elder George Paul, has dedicated more than four decades of his life to supporting the revitalization of our nation’s culture. In many ways, his tireless efforts have led a resurgence in our culture’s beautiful tapestry of language, spirit, and tradition — a colourful Mi'kmaw tapestry made all the more powerful when celebrated through the performance arts — and in particular, as we come together as a community to join in traditional song and dance.” - Julie Pellissier-Lush, Atlantic Books

Additional Information
120 pages | 5.00" x 7.40" | Paperback

An eighty-year overview of wood and argillite carving by Indigenous women artists on the Northwest Coast.

Though women of the Northwest Coast have long carved poles, canoes, panels, and masks, many of these artists have not become as well known outside their communities as their male counterparts. These artists are cherished within their communities for helping to keep traditional carving practices alive, and for maintaining the dances, songs, and ceremonies that are intertwined with visual art production. This book, and an associated exhibition at the Audain Art Museum, gathers a range of sculptural formats by Indigenous women in order to expand the discourse of carving in the region.

Both the exhibition and publication are co-curated by Dana Claxton, artist, filmmaker and head of the University of British Columbia's Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory; and Dr. Curtis Collins, the AAM's Director & Chief Curator. Commentaries by Skeena Reece, Claxton, and Marika Swan, and interviews with artists Dale Campbell and Mary Anne Barkhouse are presented alongside more than one hundred artworks from public and private collections across North America, including several newly commissioned pieces.

Featured artists include:
- Ellen Neel (Kwakwaka'wakw, 1916-1966) - Freda Diesing (Haida, 1925-2002) - Doreen Jensen (Gitxsan, 1933-2009) - Susan Point (Musqueam, b. 1952) - Dale Campbell (Tahltan, b. 1954) - Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka'wakw, b. 1969) - Arlene Ness (Gitxsan, b. 1970s) - Melanie Russ (Haida, b. 1977) - Marika Swan (Nuu-chah-nulth, b. 1982) - Morgan Asoyuf (Ts'msyen, b. 1984) - Cori Savard (Haida, b. 1985) - Cherish Alexander (Gitwangak, b. 1987) - Stephanie Anderson (Wetsuwet'en, b. 1991) - Veronica Waechter (Gitxsan, b. 1995)

Additional Information
160 pages | 9.20" x 1.10" | 120 colour photos | Hardcover 

A groundbreaking and deeply personal exploration of Tribal enrollment, and what it means to be Native American in the United States

Who is Indian enough?

To be Native American is to live in a world of contradictions. At the same time that the number of people in the US who claim Native identity has exploded—increasing 85 percent in just ten years—the number of people formally enrolled in Tribes has not. While the federal government recognizes Tribal sovereignty, being a member of a Tribe requires navigating blood quantum laws and rolls that the federal government created with the intention of wiping out Native people altogether. Over two million Native people are tribally enrolled, yet there are Native people who will never be. Native people who, for a variety of reasons ranging from displacement to disconnection, cannot be card-carrying members of their Tribe.

In The Indian Card, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz grapples with these contradictions. Through in-depth interviews, she shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation, trying to define themselves outside of bureaucratic processes. With archival research, she pieces together the history of blood quantum and tribal rolls and federal government intrusion on Native identity-making. Reckoning with her own identity—the story of her enrollment and the enrollment of her children—she investigates the cultural, racial, and political dynamics of today’s Tribal identity policing. With this intimate perspective of the ongoing fight for Native sovereignty, The Indian Card sheds light on what it looks like to find a deeper sense of belonging.

Reviews
“The Indian Card is a candid, unflinching look at the sometimes subtle, sometimes ruthless ways federal policies undermine Indigenous culture and society. Carrie Schuettpelz understands first-hand how official tribal membership rations not only access to benefits such as healthcare and housing stipends, but also an ineffable sense of belonging. Her thorough excavation of the painful history that gave rise to rigid enrollment policies is a courageous gift to our understanding of contemporary Native life.”– The Whiting Foundation Jury's Note

"The Indian Card is all at once an intimate portrait, a sweeping history and a thoughtful examination of tribal identity, Native sovereignty and the quest for belonging."—WBUR

"Carrie’s book is so dang good you need to get two copies: one for you and then the other for a friend. Schuettpelz, with so much research and interviews, shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation with such ease. The voice is pitch perfect, there is not one wrong word and the content is written with so much grace and elegance and honesty you can’t help but finish Schuettpelz’s work knowing it will live on for as long as it takes to unravel the many, many contradictions surrounding what it means to Native American today." - Morgan Talty, author of Fire Exit

"A well researched book for readers who are curious or confused about complex kinship relationships in Native America. Armed with personal experience, interviews, and scholarly data, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz tackles the political nature of Indigenous identity with clarity and concision."—Deborah Taffa, author of Whiskey Tender

"Illuminating...An innovative exploration of a thorny issue." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A clear and frank analysis of the challenges that define Native selfhood." —Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.12" x 9.25" | includes 10-12 charts/figures and captions throughout | Hardcover 

Debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants, and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United States

Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US’s history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today.

She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity—founded and built by immigrants—was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good—but inaccurate—story promotes a benign narrative of progress, obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state, and imperialist since its inception.

While some of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, others are descendants of white settlers who arrived as colonizers to displace those who were here since time immemorial, and still others are descendants of those who were kidnapped and forced here against their will. This paradigm shifting new book from the highly acclaimed author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States charges that we need to stop believing and perpetuating this simplistic and a historical idea and embrace the real (and often horrific) history of the United States.

Additional Information
392 pages | 5.56" x 8.58" | Paperback 

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples—perfect for readers of all ages

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s influential New York Times bestseller exposed the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them.

Recognized for his adaptation of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk and his extensive expertise in the comics industry, Peart-Smith collaborates with experienced graphic novel editor Paul Buhle to provide an accessible introduction to a complex history that will attract new generations of readers of all ages. This striking graphic adaptation will rekindle crucial conversations about the centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regime that has largely been omitted from history.

Reviews
“Adapting a work of history as dense and as vital as Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) to comics form is no easy feat, but Peart-Smith is up for the task . . . A thoughtful, radically hopeful work that is sure to resonate with readers of all ages.” - Booklist

Educator Information
The publisher does not provide a recommended age range, but notes in the description that this graphic interpretation "will attract new generations of readers of all ages".

Table of Contents 

Additional Information
120 pages | 8.22" x 10.28" | Hardcover 

Delores Churchill, Haida weaver, shares the stories of her life, her culture and the importance of passing cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. Told with humility, humour and deep respect, From a Square to a Circle is a testament to the values of her people, a technical guide to her masterful weaving skills and a gift to the reader at every point along her journey.

Part memoir, part how-to guide, this book shines light on Delores’s weaving teachers, including her strong-minded mother Selina (Ilst’ayaa), whose teachings Delores once resisted as a child. The Haida are connected to weaving through their history, which goes back thousands of years ago as shown through discoveries like the 4,000-year-old baskets at south Baranof.

Walk with Delores as she harvests cedar bark for baskets, Selina teaching “by modelling and then leaving the learner to imitate.” Learn the weaving harvest and preparation terminology. Follow the steps of how to prepare cedar bark, harvest spruce roots, and learn natural dye recipes. Photos and diagrams are visual aids that accompany the steps to Haida weaving techniques and instructions.

Having passed her skills on to hundreds of people, believing that “weaving belongs to all of us,” Delores wishes to share the knowledge of basketweaving where beginners and skilled weavers are able to express their distinct selves, just as every coastal Indigenous weaving style is unique. The love for basketweaving displayed in Delores’s writing is sure to make readers yearn to try their own hand at the craft.

Additional Information
256 pages | 8.00" x 10.00" | 240 Photographs | Paperback 

Original People, Original Television is the behind-the-scenes account of a little known revolution in Canadian broadcasting—a journey begun in 1922 with Nanook of the North, wending its way across generations and the width and breadth of the traditional territories of the Inuit, First Nations and Métis; culminating in the 1999 launch of the world’s inaugural Indigenous led broadcast, the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Network.

Additional Information
282 pages | 9.00" x 6.00" | b&w photos, index, bibliography | Special Edition | Paperback 

The Art of Making: Rediscovering the Blackfoot Legacy is a captivating entry into Jared Tailfeathers’ quest of cultural reclamation. Accompanied by his family and loyal dogs, Tailfeathers delves into his Indigenous heritage through hands-on, land-based exploration. The book traces the evolution of the Blackfoot Confederacy, examining its trade routes, resources, and interactions pre- and post-1800s. It provides intricate details of Blackfoot connections with nature, neighbouring First Nations Peoples, and their rich legacy in tool-making, spiritual knowledge seeking, and artistic expression. Tailfeathers’ research began in 2019, driven by a deep desire to reacquaint himself with his cultural and historical identity as a Blackfoot man navigating a post-colonial world. This book is a journey into the heart of Blackfoot culture, told by a man who walks the ancestral trails with his dogs.

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Indigenous Spirit of Nature series.

Additional Information
208 pages | 7.25" x 9.25" | Colour Illustrations | Paperback 

For over twenty years, Mi’kmaw Elder Ellen Hunt has been identifying, researching and fighting to protect Mi’kmaw burial sites in Nova Scotia which have long been forgotten, neglected and destroyed.

Moved by a powerful call from her ancestors, Ellen Hunt’s work has taken her to burial sites ranging from Nova Scotia’s South Shore to Cape Breton. This memoir chronicles her childhood growing up in a Mi’kmaw community in Newfoundland and her activist work through to the present day. Ellen also shares the many challenges she has faced – from indifferent politicians to antagonistic locals.

This memoir incorporates stories about the long Mi’kmaw history of the sites Ellen has identified and the teachings of her Mi’kmaw ancestors which have shaped her life and her work.

Additional Information
6.02" x 9.01" | 20+ colour and black and white images | Paperback

There have been many things written about Canada’s violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in the summer of 1990, but When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance is the first book from the perspective of Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, who was the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) spokesperson during the siege. When the Pine Needles Fall, written in a conversational style by Gabriel with historian Sean Carleton, offers an intimate look at Gabriel’s life leading up to the 1990 siege, her experiences as spokesperson for her community, and her work since then as an Indigenous land defender, human rights activist, and feminist leader.

More than just the memoir of an extraordinary individual, When the Pine Needles Fall offers insight into Indigenous language, history, and philosophy, reflections on our relationship with the land, and calls to action against both colonialism and capitalism as we face the climate crisis. Gabriel’s hopes for a decolonial future make clear why protecting Indigenous homelands is vital not only for the survival of Indigenous peoples, but for all who live on this planet.

Awards

• 2025 Canadian Historical Association Indigenous History Book Prize
• 2025  Errol Sharpe Book Prize
• 2025 Wilson Institute Book Prize 

Reviews
“When the Pine Needles Fall is a profound treatise and manifesto chronicling Haudenosaunee resistance to land theft by one of the most important Land Defenders of our time. Gabriel’s work is the book on Indigenous resistance I’ve been waiting for my whole life. It is a must-read for anyone concerned with the continuation of life on this planet.”  — Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, co-author of “Rehearsals for Living”

“Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel’s words in When the Pine Needles Fall are gifts that serve as a beacon of light by igniting our hearts, minds, and spirits. Through her boundless wisdom grounded in healing work as a Land Defender on Turtle Island, she calls for fierce Indigenous resistance and radical global solidarity to put an end to root causes of oppression worldwide: capitalism, patriarchy, and settler colonialism. Gabriel reminds us that a more just, kind, and caring world—where all life is precious—is possible for the next seven generations, but only if we fight for it.” — Samir Shaheen-Hussain, MD, author of “Fighting for A Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism against Indigenous Children in Canada”

“When the Pine Needles Fall is a remarkable and revelatory account of the 1990 siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke, when provincial, municipal, and national armed forces targeted these Mohawk communities. It is also one of the best first-hand accounts of Indigenous activism that I have ever read, relayed in moving and extraordinary form. An essential addition to contemporary First Nations history and the growing field of Indigenous Studies.” — Ned Blackhawk, Western Shoshone, author of “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History”

“As a treatise on women and culture-based governance from a remarkable Haudenosaunee leader, When the Pine Needles Fall offers me hope and renewed energy. Through her life work, Ellen Gabriel demonstrates how to persevere, remain optimistic, and continue with creative and activist endeavours. The book effectively situates the ‘crisis’ within its centuries-long context, marking a tipping point for Canada while highlighting ongoing challenges. It also examines how mainstream narratives are constructed around Indigenous struggles, providing a comprehensive profile of Gabriel’s diverse contributions to Indigenous resistance and resurgence.” — Kim Anderson, author of“ Life Stages and Native Women: Memory, Teachings, and Story Medicine”

“Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel’s personal account of the 1990 siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke is a crucial contribution to our understanding of these dramatic events and of the political context of the time. Her lifetime dedication to the defence of Indigenous peoples and women’s rights is truly exemplary and constitutes an inspiration for generations to come.” — Bernard Duhaime, professor, Faculty of Political Science and Law, Université du Québec à Montréal

“In When the Pine Needles Fall, celebrated activist Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel gifts us with an expansive account of the 1990 siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke. This alone provides a captivating analysis of this seminal moment and its legacy within larger movements for Indigenous sovereignty on Turtle Island. But Gabriel, an artist, also paints the negative space, braiding her relationship to the land, Kanien’kehá:ka teachings, and the language with her tireless work against settler colonialism, extractive capitalism, and patriarchy. This essential book is an inspiring conversation reminding us that decolonization is world-building rooted in an ethics of relationality and care.” — Nazila Bettache, MD, MPH; assistant professor of medicine, Université de Montréal; social justice organizer and co-editor of “Reflections on Illness”

“I honour my sister whose words speak the truth. One of the most powerful quotes by Katsi’tsakwas is: ‘I’m a Kanien’kehá:ka woman who cares deeply about our land and I want a better future for the generations to come.’  Everything she speaks about in this book is directly connected to these words.” — Beverley Jacobs, CM, LLB, LLM, PhD; Kanien’kehá:ka, Bear Clan, Six Nations Grand River Territory; associate professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor

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

A provocative, historical investigation into the displacement of the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First People of British Columbia’s West Kootenays.

This compact book records a quest for understanding, to find the story behind the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First Nation. Known in the United States as the Arrow Lakes Indians of the Colville Confederated Tribes, the tribe lived along the upper Columbia River and its tributaries for thousands of years. In a story unique to First Nations in Canada, the Canadian federal government declared them “extinct” in 1956, eliminating with the stroke of a pen this tribe’s ability to legally access 80 per cent of their trans-boundary traditional territory.

Part travelogue, part cultural history, the book details the culture, place names, practices, and landscape features of this lost tribe of British Columbia, through a contemporary lens that presents all readers with an opportunity to participate in reconciliation.

Educator Information
Please note that the author of this work is not Indigenous, but the text content is about the Snayackstx (Sinixt) First People. Shelly Boyd, Sinixt/Arrow Lakes Cultural Facilitator provides a Foreword.

In an Introduction to the work, the author notes: "First and foremost, every word of the story of their culture as presented here has been confirmed and accepted as true by the contemporary Sinixt.... Second, because the story also exists within a colonial context, it refers to written materials, published history and textual memories, information that was often recorded by the hand of non-Indigenous People but nonetheless reflects the knowledge of Indigenous generations.... The result is a tapestry, combining threads of history, ethnography, science and personal essays on the natural word.... Sinixit leaders, local historians, and academic experts review[ed] the text prior to publication.... Some non-Indigenous people criticized me for writing about Indigenous People at all, telling me it was not 'my story to tell.' This was, I realize now, a subtle form of silencing. While racism toward Indigenous People still exists across this culture, a groundswell of recognition has begun. In working alongside the Sinixt all these years, I have come to understand that integrating Indigenous perspectives into contemporary culture is not exclusively the responsibility of Indigenous People. As Shelly Boyd so aptly reminds all of us, we, the settlers, need to listen well and with respect. We need to pick up our pens or cameras or drawing pencils, and dig in to help."  

It is up to readers to determine if this resource will be useful for their purposes.

Additional Information
280 pages | 6.00" x 8.90" | Paperback 

A personal account of one man’s confrontation with colonization that illuminates the philosophy and values of a First Nation on the front lines of the fight against an extractive industry, colonial government, and threats to the life-giving Salish Sea.

It Stops Here is the profound story of the spiritual, cultural, and political resurgence of a nation taking action to reclaim their lands, waters, law, and food systems in the face of colonization. In deeply moving testimony, it recounts the intergenerational struggle of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation to overcome colonial harms and the powerful stance they have taken alongside allies and other Indigenous nations across Turtle Island against the development of the Trans Mountain Pipeline—a fossil fuel megaproject on their unceded territories.

In a firsthand account of the resurgence told by Rueben George, one of the most prominent leaders of the widespread opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, It Stops Here reveals extraordinary insights and revelations from someone who has devoted more than a decade of his life to fighting the project. Rueben shares stories about his family’s deep ancestral connections to their unceded lands and waters, which are today more commonly known as Vancouver, British Columbia and the Burrard Inlet. He discloses how, following the systematic cultural genocide enacted by the colonial state, key leaders of his community, such as his grandfather, Chief Dan George, always taught the younger generations to be proud of who they were and to remember the importance of their connection to the inlet.

Part memoir, part call to action, It Stops Here is a compelling appeal to prioritize the sacred over oil and extractive industries, while insisting that settler society honour Indigenous law and jurisdiction over unceded territories rather than exploiting lands and reducing them to their natural resources.

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288 pages | 5.13" x 7.98" | 31 b+w images throughout | Paperback

Judge, senator, and activist. Father, grandfather, and friend. This is Murray Sinclair’s story—and the story of a nation—in his own words, an oral history that forgoes the trappings of the traditional written memoir to center Indigenous ways of knowledge and storytelling. As Canada moves forward into the future of reconciliation, one of its greatest leaders guides us to ask the most important and difficult question we can ask of ourselves: Who are we?

For decades, Senator Sinclair has fearlessly educated Canadians about the painful truths of our history. He was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba, and only the second Indigenous judge in Canadian history. He was the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and remains one of the foremost voices on Reconciliation. And now, for the first time, he will share his full story—and his full vision for our nation—with readers across Canada.

Drawing on Senator Sinclair’s unique experiences, and his perspectives regarding Indigenous identity, human rights, and justice in Canada, Who We Are will examine the roles of history, resistance, and resilience in the pursuit of finding that path forward, and healing the damaged relationship between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. And in doing so, it will reveal Senator Sinclair’s life in a new and direct way, exploring how all of these experiences shaped him as an Anishinaabe man, father, and grandfather.

Structured around the four questions that have long shaped Senator Sinclair’s thinking and worldview—Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I?—Who We Are will take readers into the story of his remarkable life as never before, while challenging them to embrace an inclusive vision for our shared future.

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480 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover 

A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the ‘90s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land over a century later.

Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. That changed on July 9, 2020, when a high-profile Supreme Court case—which originated with a small-town murder two decades earlier—affirmed the reservation of Muscogee Nation. The ruling resulted in the largest restoration of tribal land in U.S. history, merely because the Court chose to follow the law.

In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was create on top of their land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, when a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen, his defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma argued that reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court said: no more; a ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.

Here Rebecca Nagle tells the story of the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in Eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed in its long history of greed, corruption and lawlessness, and the Native battle for the right to be here that has shaped our country.

Educator Information
By the Fire We Carry is hard-hitting American history that expands on the nation's story. It tells of the treatment of Native Americans, their removal and displacement, and the genocide committed against them by the US government from their viewpoint. 

Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 23 b/w photographs and maps | Hardcover