Indigenous Peoples in Canada

In 2004, settler scholar Emanuelle Dufour became aware of a “silence” with regard to residential schools and ongoing colonialism, systemic racism, inadequate curricular material in schools, and sought to find answers by meeting with community members, Elders, spokespeople, students, professionals, families, and many others.

Dufour is an artist at heart, and the product of her findings became a “carnet de rencontres,” a notebook of coming-togethers, in which her fifty+ interlocutors are rendered “speaking,” quite literally, on and within the pages, while advocating for the importance of Indigenous cultural security within the education system. Their presence is undeniable, and their voices carry the narrative.

Originally published as C'est le Québec qui est né dans mon pays!, this translation creates a bridge, from one colonial language to another, that will enable conversations across and beyond spaces and languages. It aims to shed light on colonial mainstream narratives in Canada and, more precisely, in Québec, by considering the politics of linguistic hegemony and the double exiguity that Indigenous peoples often find themselves in, calling for a better understanding of how the province’s specific colonial history has had a profound and continued impact on its 11 Indigenous Nations. This book’s unusual (academically-speaking) form as a “carnet”, or diary, becomes an anthology of statements of witnessing, which, coupled with the illustrative narrative, bears its decolonizing mission. Quebec Was Born in My Country! ultimately is about foregrounding common and collective experiences, with the crucial goal of furthering education.

Educator & Series Information
This graphic novel that explores colonial history in Québec is part of the Indigenous Imaginings series.

Translated by Sarah Henzi.

Additional Information
216 pages | 9.00" x 12.00" | Paperback 

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

From bestselling author of the Misewa Saga series David A. Robertson, this is the essential guide for all Canadians to understand how small and attainable acts towards reconciliation can make an enormous difference in our collective efforts to build a reconciled country.

52 Ways to Reconcile is an accessible, friendly guide for non-Indigenous people eager to learn, or Indigenous people eager to do more in our collective effort towards reconciliation, as people, and as a country. As much as non-Indigenous people want to walk the path of reconciliation, they often aren’t quite sure what to do, and they’re afraid of making mistakes. This book is the answer and the long overdue guide.

The idea of this book is simple: 52 small acts of reconciliation to consider, one per week, for an entire year. They’re all doable, and they’re all meaningful. All 52 steps take readers in the right direction, towards a healthier relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and a time when we are past trauma. By following these steps, we can live in stronger and healthier communities equally, and respectfully, together.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.00" x 8.00" | Hardcover 

Ferocious and vulnerable poems about redefining acts of creation, destruction, deconstruction, and recreation, from a singular Indigiqueer point of view

a body more tolerable is a collection of powerful and haunting poems combining faerie tales, mythology, and a self-divinized female rage. Divided into three parts, the book examines Indigenous grief, trans identity, and frustrated desires in ways that reject perception. Gone is the soft, kind, gentle girl that author jaye simpson once thought she would become. Instead, she unravels the sticky threads of colonialism with poems that exact lyrical acts of self-surgery.

In these visceral poems, teeth gleam, graze skin, and sink into flesh, becoming bloodied and exposing the animalistic hunger that lies within. Pulsating with yearning and possibility, a body more tolerable is a book that resists typical notions of physicality and sex to dream of a world more divine. It is a call-out into the canon for a new age, one filled with retribution and recompense.

Reviews
"jaye simpson's a body more tolerable is a singular achievement. Her poetic project, at once forward-dawning and ancestral, both revolutionary and decolonizing, is given total expression in this book. These poems moved me immensely; there is so much beauty and feeling power in all of them. No one is writing like jaye simpson." -Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of A Minor Chorus and Coexistenc

"a body more tolerable is a work at once open and lyric, fearless and tender. Expanding grief's territory into moments of relation and desire, simpson also challenges "home, as a wayward theory" into a poetics of self-mothering, of being beyond becoming. This collection is a fierce and resistant nurturing." -Liz Howard, author of Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent and Letters in a Bruised Cosmo

"jaye simpson is one of the most compelling and incisive voices of their generation. In a body more tolerable, they seize the English language and command it into an instrument that meticulously sings the realities of their present moment. I found solace, fire, and a relentless love for living and loving in these poetic offerings. a body more tolerable is a wayward map, and it is gorgeous. I'll carry it close to my heart." -Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies

"i can't retire this tongue," jaye simpson writes in a sophomore collection that creeps, howls, floats, shatters. an Indigenous speaker grapples with survival, the foster care system, the body, conceptions of motherhood, and trans girlhood in this heart-wrenching leap that returns what is most precious to us through lush language and keen lyricism. each poem is a portal of longing, ferocity, softness. i can't recommend it enough." -Kinsale Drake, National Poetry Series-winning author of The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket

Additional Information
88 pages | 6.00" x 8.00" | Paperback 

A Bow Forged from Ash is a journey of Indigenous reclamation. In poems that explore identity, belonging, responsibility and wholeness, Melissa Powless Day navigates her ties to the landscapes of Southwestern Ontario and the nations to which she belongs. Traversing lived experience, ancestral memory, family stories, and critical engagements with the Land, Powless Day pulls back the bow of language: her poems are poised, unyielding in their nanda-gikendang, their seeking, to voice complex stories about the messiness of returning home, a restoration of familial and community bonds generations in the making. Ultimately, A Bow Forged from Ash is a book that proves reclamation and resistance are inseparable: one cannot walk with pride in their Indigeneity without choosing to resist the colonial status quo.

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

Bringing together voices from across Turtle Island, a groundbreaking collection of letters from Indigenous writers, activists, and thinkers—to their ancestors, to future generations, and to themselves.

Drawing on the wisdom and personal experience of its esteemed contributors, this first-of-its-kind anthology tackles complex questions of our times to provide a rich tapestry of Indigenous life, past, present, and future. The letters explore the histories that have brought us to this moment, the challenges and crises faced by present-day communities, and the visions that will lead us to a new architecture for thinking about Indigeneity. Taking its structure from the medicine bundle—tobacco, sage, cedar, and sweetgrass—it will stir and empower readers, as well as enrich an essential and ongoing conversation about what reconciliation looks like and what it means to be Indigenous today.

Contributors: Billy-Ray Belcourt, Cindy Blackstock, Cody Caetano, Warren Cariou, Norma Dunning, Kyle Edwards, Jennifer Grenz, Jon Hickey, Jessica Johns, Wab Kinew, Terese Marie Mailhot, Kent Monkman, Simon Moya-Smith, Pamela Palmater, Tamara Podemski, Waubgeshig Rice, David A. Robertson, Niigaan Sinclair, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Zoe Todd, David Treuer, Richard Van Camp, katherena vermette, Jesse Wente, Joshua Whitehead.

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Hardcover

From the #1 bestselling and award-winning author of Indians on Vacation, a witty and wry novel set in a small Ontario town where all is seemingly ordinary except for one thing—aliens have landed on the moon

In Thomas King’s new novel, the citizens of a small Ontario town face life-changing decisions. Bria’s grandmother asks her to take her great-grandmother’s rosary to Edmonton and return it in person to the pope. When she flings it into the lake, the rosary somehow hits the pope on the cheek, thousands of kilometres away. It is the same rosary. How is this possible? Thea is furious at her son for putting her in an old-age home. She should have had a daughter. A daughter would never have forced her from her home. Darlene is mixed up with the no-good petty thief Billy. When she ends up in the hospital, she finds Thea’s fanny pack on the floor. Darlene needs the $265 tucked inside, but she also wants a reward for returning the fanny pack. Herb has bought the drive-in movie theatre on the edge of town and has turned it into his home. He watches movies on the big screen while treating the parking lot as his personal driving range. Should he travel west to see his family on the reserve? Nico has a Subaru whose battery keeps failing, but there are no replacements in North America. Gary and Brenda from the dealership are having an affair. Richard wants to set up a dating profile but has no cell phone.

Just the stuff of ordinary life except for one thing: Aliens have landed on the moon. They are watching Earth and earthlings. What is their plan? With the arrival of the aliens, ordinary life is upended in ways that are both hilarious and revealing. While some people fear the aliens’ three-part mandate to save the planet (which might have been written by a grade 9 student in the US), others think the arrival of the aliens is a golden opportunity for a deep discount weekend at Costco that could possibly rival Amazon’s Black Friday.

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

With humour, warmth and heartbreaking honesty, award-winning author David A. Roberston explores the struggles and small victories of living with chronic anxiety and depression, and shares his hard-earned wisdom in the hope of making other people’s mental health journeys a little less lonely

From the outside, David A. Robertson looks as if he has it all together—a loving family, a successful career as an author, and a platform to promote Indigenous perspectives, cultures and concerns. But what we see on the outside rarely reveals what is happening inside. Robertson lives with “little monsters”: chronic, debilitating health anxiety and panic attacks accompanied, at times, by depression. During the worst periods, he finds getting out of bed to walk down the hall an insurmountable task. During the better times, he wrestles with the compulsion to scan his body for that sure sign of a dire health crisis.

In All the Little Monsters, Robertson reveals what it’s like to live inside his mind and his body and describes the toll his mental health challenges have taken on him and his family, and how he has learned to put one foot in front of the other as well as to get back up when he stumbles. He also writes about the tools that have helped him carry on, including community, therapy, medication and the simple question he asks himself on repeat: what if everything will be okay?

In candidly sharing his personal story and showing that he can be well even if he can’t be “cured,” Robertson hopes to help others on their own mental health journeys.

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

A captivating search through one family’s history, All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is a stunning examination of intergenerational trauma and its effect on Indigenous voices. Aftershocks and fragmented memories ricochet through this collection, bringing with them strength, intensity and uninhibited beauty. Recalling pivotal work by Billy-Ray Belcourt, jaye simpson, Joshua Whitehead and Emily Riddle, Sarain Frank Soonias makes his poetic debut with a splash that ripples far outside his own work, and marks the entrance of a new, important voice in contemporary poetry.

Reviews
“Sarain Frank Soonias introduces us to himself and his craft with this strong, stunning debut. Language woven together with skillful storytelling and metaphor reminds us that our people will always create beautiful art, even in what feels like an abyss. This book is about the responsibility we have to heal ourselves while collectively working for a better world for future generations.” — Emily Riddle, award-winning author of The Big Melt

Additional Information
132 pages | 9.00" x 5.50" | 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

Amaruq: The Wolf was one of the first full-length novels ever written in Inuktitut. Out of print for over twenty years, this groundbreaking novel has been re-transcribed, translated, and meticulously edited to produce a commercially available bilingual version for the first time.

Written by Inuit Elder Uvinik Qamaniq, this sweeping novel oscillates between time and place. Alternating between a modern Arctic community, where a teen lives with his family and navigates the challenges of family life, to the world of Inuit stories woven by the teen's grandfather, who tells the boy of the epic coming-of-age journey of Amaruq, a young shaman, this book highlights the power of stories to teach and inform everyday experiences. With a cover illustrated by renowned Inuit artist Germaine Arnattaujuq

Educator Information
Bilingual: English and Inuktitut.

Additional Information
208 pages | 7.00" x 9.00" | 11 b&w line drawings | Paperback

This thrilling romantasy about king’s Blade, Keera, and her epic quest to avenge her lover, save her people, and bring down a tyrant king is the final installment of Melissa Blair’s highly acclaimed series. The Halfling Saga showcases BIPOC and queer representation, love, passion, betrayal, magic, and great battles of the sword and the soul.

“Your land is not the one you take; it is the one you die for.”

Keera has tried to keep her final promise to Brenna, the partner she was forced to kill to save a kingdom—but that promise has led to the most difficult struggles of her life. She’s been at war with her worst self while battling King Damien for the freedom of the Halflings, and she’s lost too many along the way. But when she finally breaks the last seal, unleashing the Fae magic that’s been hidden away for hundreds of years, the conflict seems to be turning in the Halflings’ favor.

Meanwhile, Keera’s discovery of a staggering secret about her lover and the kidnapping of one of her closest allies threatens to tip her back into darkness, but she has no time to rest. Opening the kingdom’s magical seals has transformed Keera in ways even the wisest Fae elders could not have anticipated, and the return of an evil thought long vanquished throws their rescue plans into chaos. And with the kingdom’s Halfling population suddenly posing a risk to the crown, the land is plunged into violence as the king begins a new blood purge. Keera and her allies must gather an army to meet Damien’s forces in a final confrontation of epic—and tragic—proportions.

The stunning conclusion of BookTok sensation Melissa Blair’s epically romantic series will leave readers breathless as Keera fights for her land, her people, and the promise of a better world.

Reviews
"[F]illed with high-stakes action, choices, and consequences... Romantasy fans should add this series to their reading list." —Library Journal

Educator & Series Information
Young adult/new adult fantasy series recommended for ages 18+.

This is the final book in The Halfing Saga.

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

Utilizing intricately blended visual and written imagery, Arctic Dreams and Nightmares takes the reader on an Arctic journey interpreted through the mythological and contemporary world of an Inuit artist and author. Containing twenty short stories with accompanying pen ink drawings, it is the first publication to exclusively feature the writing and artwork of Alootook Ipellie. At the time of its original publication in 1993, Arctic Dreams and Nightmares was one of the few books to be written by an Inuk in Canada, and became a landmark in the emerging discipline of Inuit literature.

Additional Information
160 pages | 8.75" x 9.25" | 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

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