Coast Salish

In myriad ways, each narrator's life has been shaped by loss, injustice, and resilience--and by the struggle of how to share space with settler nations whose essential aim is to take all that is Indigenous.

Hear from Jasilyn Charger, one of the first five people to set up camp at Standing Rock, which kickstarted a movement of Water Protectors that roused the world; Gladys Radek, a survivor of sexual violence whose niece disappeared along Canada's Highway of Tears, who became a family advocate for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls; and Marian Naranjo, herself the subject of a secret radiation test while in high school, who went on to drive Santa Clara Pueblo toward compiling an environmental impact statement on the consequences of living next to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Theirs are stories among many of the ongoing contemporary struggles to preserve Indigenous lands and lives--and of how we go home.

Reviews
“How We Go Home is a testament to modern-day Indigenous revitalization, often in the face of the direst of circumstances. Told as firsthand accounts on the frontlines of resistance and resurgence, these life stories inspire and remind that Indigenous life is all about building a community through the gifts we offer and the stories we tell.”— Niigaan Sinclair, associate professor, Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba and columnist, Winnipeg Free Press

“The voices of How We Go Home are singing a chorus of love and belonging alongside the heat of resistance, and the sound of Indigenous life joyfully dances off these pages.”—Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of As We Have Always Done

“How We Go Home confirms that we all have stories. These stories teach us history, morality, identity, connection, empathy, understanding, and self-awareness. We hear the stories of our ancestors and they tell us who we are. We hear the stories of our heroes and they tell us what we can be." —Honourable Senator Murray Sinclair

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Editor’s Notes
Introduction (Sara Sinclair)
Executive Director’s Note (Mimi Lok)
Map
Gladys Radek, Terrace, Gitxsan / Wet’suwet’en First Nations—“When Tamara went missing, it took the breath out of me.”
Jasilyn Charger, Cheyenne River Sioux—“My son’s buried by the river. . . . I vowed to him that he’s gonna be safe, that no oil was gonna touch him.”
Wizipan Little Elk, Rosebud Lakota Tribe—“On the reservation, you have the beauty of the culture and our traditional knowledge contrasted with the reality of poverty.”
Geraldine Manson, Snuneymuxw First Nation—The nurse was trying to get me to sign a paper to put our baby, Derrick, up for adoption.”
Robert Ornelas, New York City, Lipan Apache / Ysleta del Sur Pueblo—“A part of the soul sickness for me was being ashamed . . . what we were being taught about Indians was so minimal and so negative.”
Ashley Hemmers, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe—“I didn’t work my ass off to get to Yale to be called a squaw.”
Ervin Chartrand, Selkirk, Métís/Salteaux—“They said I fit the description because I looked like six other kids with leather vests and long hair who looked Indian.”
James Favel, Winnipeg, Peguis First Nation “You’re a stakeholder because you’ve got to walk these streets every day.”
Marian Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo—“Indigenous peoples’ reason for being is to be the caretakers of Creator’s gifts—of the air, the water, the land.”
Blaine Wilson, Tsartlip First Nation “When I was twenty-five, thirty, there was more salmon and I was fishing every other day. Now I’m lucky to go once a week.”
Althea Guiboche, Winnipeg, Métis/Ojibwe/Salteaux “I had three babies under three years old and I was homeless.”
Vera Styres, Six Nations of the Grand River, Mohawk/Tuscarora“I was a ‘scabby, dirty little Indian.’”
Glossary
Historical Timeline of Indigenous North America
Essay: 1. The Trail of Broken Promises: US and Canadian Treaties with First Nations
Essay 2: “Indigenous Perspectives on Intergenerational Trauma”: An Interview with Johnna James
Essay 3: Indigenous Resurgence
Ten Things You Can Do
Further Reading
Acknowledgements

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

The East Side of It All draws on Joseph Dandurand’s first-hand experiences of life as a drug user and single-room occupant in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and of the ongoing process of healing through reconnection with family, the natural world and traditional Indigenous (Kwantlen) storytelling. His voice is lyrical yet intimate, obscured yet sitting with you at the kitchen table having a cigarette. The East Side of It All is the journey of a broken man who finally accepts his storytelling gift and shares with the world his misery, joy and laughter. 

Additional Information
96 pages | 5.50" x 8.00"

Hope Matters, written by multiple award-winner Lee Maracle, in collaboration with her daughters Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter, focuses on the journey of Indigenous people from colonial beginnings to reconciliation.

Maracle states that the book, "is also about the journey of myself and my two daughters." During their youth, Bobb and Carter wrote poetry with their mother, and eventually they all decided that one day they would write a book together. This book is the result of that dream. Written collaboratively by all three women, the poems in Hope Matters blend their voices together into a shared song of hope and reconciliation.

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades 10 to 12 in the areas of Creative Writing, English Language Arts, Media Studies, and Social Studies.

This poetry contains some mature language/subject matter.

Additional Information
104 pages | 5.25" x 8.00"

“I feel that it is important to re-establish our Salish footprint upon our lands, to create a visual expression of the link between the past and present that is both accessible and people-friendly. . . . I create unique, ‘original’ artwork that honours both my people and the diverse group of peoples from around the world who have come to live upon our lands on the Northwest Coast. My hope is that my art leaves a lasting impression on visitors, locals, and the surrounding communities.” — Susan Point

This beautifully designed book is the first to explore Susan Point's publicly commissioned artworks from coast to coast.

Susan Point’s unique artworks have been credited with almost single-handedly reviving the traditional Coast Salish art style. Once nearly lost to the effects of colonization, the crescents, wedges, and human and animal forms characteristic of the art of First Nations peoples living around the Salish Sea can now be seen around the world, reinvigorated with modern materials and techniques, in her serigraphs and public art installations—and in the works of a new generation of artists that she’s inspired.

People Among the People beautifully displays the breadth of Susan Point’s public art, from cast-iron manhole covers to massive carved cedar spindle whorls, installed in locations from Vancouver to Zurich. Through extensive interviews and access to her archives, Robert D. Watt tells the story of each piece, whether it’s the evolution from sketch to carving to casting, or the significance of the images and symbolism, which is informed by surviving traditional Salish works Point has studied and the Oral Traditions of her Musqueam family and elders.

In her long quest to re-establish a Coast Salish footprint in Southwest British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the US, Point has received many honours, including the Order of Canada and the Audain Lifetime Achievement Award. This gorgeous and illuminating book makes it clear they are all richly deserved.

Additional Information
208 pages | 10.17" x 12.39" | Colour photographs throughout | Hardcover 

Petite femme montagne est un cri du coeur qui prend le lecteur à témoin et l'oblige à examiner sa propre vie. C'est livre vérité, un livre boussole qui explique comment survivre aux relations mère-fille, à la maternité, au désir, à la trahison, aux amours déçus, à la dépendance, à l'abus et à l'injustice. Terese Marie Mailhot illumine avec finesse son enfance dans une maison infestée de coccinelles sur la réserve de Seabird Island. Son père, un artiste qu'a rencontré sa mère alors qu'il était en prison est décédé dans une chambre de motel après une altercation avec un ami. Elle montre comment pour quelqu'un qui a vécu la faim, l'abus et les familles déchirées le simple confort de la vie domestique peut ressembler au paradis. Petite femme montagne est un livre nécessaire.

Educator Information
This book is available in English: Heart Berries: A Memoir

Additional Information
204 Pages 

Every object tells a story.

Picking Up the Pieces tells the story of the making of the Witness Blanket, a living work of art conceived and created by Indigenous artist Carey Newman. It includes hundreds of items collected from residential schools across Canada, everything from bricks, photos and letters to hockey skates, dolls and braids. Every object tells a story.

Carey takes the reader on a journey from the initial idea behind the Witness Blanket to the challenges in making it work to its completion. The story is told through the objects and the Survivors who donated them to the project. At every step in this important journey for children and adults alike, Carey is a guide, sharing his process and motivation behind the art. It's a very personal project. Carey's father is a residential school Survivor. Like the Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces calls on readers of all ages to bear witness to the residential school experience, a tragic piece of Canada’s history.

"In the traditions of my Salish ancestors, a blanket is gifted to uplight the spirit, protect the vulnerable or honour the strong. I made this blanket for the Survivors, and for the children who never came home; for the dispossessed, the displaced and the forgotten. I made this blanket so that I will never forget -- so that we will never forget." - Carey Newman

Reviews
"Picking Up the Pieces is both a crucial record of history and an outstanding assertion of love and community. The story behind the creation of the powerful Witness Blanket project is one of great care and consideration, with residential school Survivors and their families at the centre. By sharing his own family's connection to a brutal and shameful part of Canadian history, renowned artist Carey Newman brilliantly guides us through the meticulous and thoughtful process of creating one of the most important pieces of art to exist in this country. I had the privilege of experiencing the Witness Blanket on its tour, and it was a poignant moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Reading how it all came together is yet another vital experience. Like the Witness Blanket itself, Picking Up the Pieces will educate and enlighten Canadians for generations to come. It's a must-read for anyone seeking to understand Canada's residential-school saga. Most importantly, it's a touchstone of community for those survivors and their families still on the path to healing." — Waubgeshig Rice, journalist and author of Moon of the Crusted Snow, March 2019

Educator Information
Themes: Indigenous Art, Reconciliation, Residential Schools, Survivor Stories, Intergenerational Trauma

Suitable for most ages (about 12 years+).  Useful social studies or Indigenous studies resource for pre-teens and teens; however, it does make reference to sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and trauma.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 11 and 12 and as a teacher resource.  Useful for these subjects: English Language Arts, Media Studies, Social Studies.

Additional Information
180 pages | 10.75" x 10.00"

Meditations upon the decimation of the Kwantlen people of western Canada.

This powerful collection, all too relevant today, tells a story that needs to be told. The author writes, "This is the truth of what has happened to my people. The Kwantlen people used to number in the thousands but like all river tribes, eighty percent of our people were wiped out by smallpox and now there are only 200 of us. As a Kwantlen man, father, fisherman, poet and playwright I believe the gift of words was given to me so I can retell our stories?"

These poems tell the story of a Kwantlen man who has been given the gift of healing but is also is a heroin addict.

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for Grades 11 and 12 for English Language Arts.

Caution: Mature subject matter.

Additional Information
96 pages | 5.50" x 8.25"

“Our stories identify for us the land which surrounds us and tie us to our ancestors. We find ourselves inextricably linked to the past, to the land, to the river, to each other, to the future.” —Shirley Hardman, contributor

This impressive volume tells of the First Peoples of the area through vivid narratives from the past and present.

The traditional territory of the Ts’elxwéyeqw First Peoples covers over 95,000 hectares of land in Southwestern BC. It extends throughout the central Fraser Valley, encompassing the entire Chilliwack River Valley (including Chilliwack Lake, Chilliwack River, Cultus Lake and areas, and parts of the Chilliwack municipal areas). In addition to being an area of natural beauty and abundant resources, it also has a rich cultural history. The Chilliwack region gets its name from the Ts’elxwéyeqw tribe, and this volume delves into what this name means—and also what it means to be Ts’elxwéyeqw. Being Ts’elxwéyeqw portrays the people, artifacts and landscapes that are central to the Ts’elxwéyeqw people, and represents a rich oral record of an aboriginal heritage that has been kept alive—even through adversity—for thousands of years.

Lavishly illustrated with over seven hundred historic and current photos and maps, this book amalgamates a variety of voices and personal histories from elders, while providing background into eighty-five place names within the region. The book’s unique composition—with an emphasis on visual storytelling—showcases a culture with a deep connection to the surrounding land and the watershed.

Educator Information
Recommended for Grades 5-12 for the following subject areas: Geography, Social Studies, Science.  Also a useful Teacher Resource.

Note: Educators should pre-read sections of this book that they are considering using from this reference book, as reading levels vary greatly.

Additional Information
304 pages | 11.00" x 14.00"

Snuneymuxw Elder and storyteller Ellen White shares four stories handed down to her from her grandparents and their ancestors.

Legends and Teachings of Xeel’s, the Creator contains four short stories centering around themes such as communication, connection, teaching and respect. The stories featured include: “The Creator and the Flea Lady, The Boys Who Became a Killer Whale, The Sockeye That Became a Rainbow, and The Marriage of the Seagull and the Crow.” Each story is accompanied by a companion piece developed by the storyteller Ellen Rice White (Kwulasulwut) which provides cultural context and an explanation of some of the lessons found in each story.

In the story “The Creator and the Flea Lady”, a Flea mother asks for help saving her premature infant. The Flea woman is reminded of her connection to the many energies surrounding her by Xeel’s and the energies themselves.

In “Boys Who Became a Killer Whale”, eager learners frustrated with the pace and demeanour of their traditional teachers reach beyond what they know and encounter tragedy.

In both the “Sockeye That Became a Rainbow” and “The Marriage of the Seagull and the Crow”, respect and acceptance of the differences of others are central components of the stories. The protagonists struggle with their relationships and the differences they have with their partners.

Educator Information
Please Note: These are a set of uncensored, traditional stories.  The content is meant to provide traditional teachings. 

Each of the four stories in the book is accompanied by a discussion piece that provides cultural context and questions for the reader to consider.  Huĺq̓ umín̓ um̓ language is used throughout.  A glossary can be found at the back of the book.

Some subject matter may not be suitable for some readers.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts.

Additional Information
112 pages | 6.75" x 9.75"

The two one-act plays in Talker’s Town and The Girl Who Swam Forever are set in a small northern B.C. mill town in the 1960s. They portray identical characters and action from entirely different gender and cultural perspectives. In many ways, the two separate works are inter-related coming-of-age stories, with transformation as a key theme.

The central action in both plays involves an Aboriginal girl, Roberta Bob, who escapes from a residential school and hides out by the river. In Nelson Gray’s Talker’s Town, the story is conveyed by a teenage non-Indigenous boy whose friend has had a relationship with the girl and whose attempts to hush up the affair lead to disastrous consequences.

In Marie Clements’s The Girl Who Swam Forever, the action unfolds from the perspective of the girl, who – to claim her past and secure her future – must undergo a shape-shifting transformation and meet her grandmother’s ancestral spirit in the form of a hundred-year-old sturgeon.

Employing a single setting and working with the same set of characters, the playwrights have created two radically different fictional worlds, one Aboriginal and one non-Aboriginal. Published together, the plays form a fascinating diptych that reveals rifts between Indigenous and colonial/settler histories and provides a vehicle for cultural exchange. As a starting point for trans-cultural dialogue, this set of plays will be of interest to educators, theatre directors, and the general reader interested in the current discourse arising from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Idle No More, and the Indigenous Rights Movement happening throughout North America. Read as a set, these two plays also invite conversations about negotiating creative boundaries, particularly with respect to eco-centric politics and cultural appropriation.

Talker’s Town: cast of 5 men and 1 woman.

The Girl Who Swam Forever: cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list for grades 11 and 12 for Drama and English Language Arts.

Additional Information
160 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

The Rumour is a collection of poetry that exposes many important issues of Indigenous discrimination, poverty, drug abuse, brutal violence, love, family, and complex human relationships. As a skilled painter, Joseph A. Dandurand portrays the essence of strong connections with rich Indigenous history, culture, traditions, and family values with broad but precise strokes. The poems come from author's lifetime experience living on the Kwantlen First Nation reserve and give a true picture of the resilience and the struggles Indigenous people experience in everyday life.

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

Additional Information
96 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Towards a New Ethnohistory engages respectfully in cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary methods to co-create with Indigenous people a new, decolonized ethnohistory. This new ethnohistory reflects Indigenous ways of knowing and is a direct response to critiques of scholars who have for too long foisted their own research agendas onto Indigenous communities. Community-engaged scholarship invites members of the Indigenous community themselves to identify the research questions, host the researchers while they conduct the research, and participate meaningfully in the analysis of the researchers’ findings.

The historical research topics chosen by the Stó:lō community leaders and knowledge keepers for the contributors to this collection range from the intimate and personal, to the broad and collective. But what principally distinguishes the analyses is the way settler colonialism is positioned as something that unfolds in sometimes unexpected ways within Stó:lō history, as opposed to the other way around.

This collection presents the best work to come out of the world’s only graduate-level humanities-based ethnohistory fieldschool. The blending of methodologies and approaches from the humanities and social sciences is a model of twenty-first century interdisciplinarity.

Reviews
“At a time when Indigenous sovereignty has come to the fore, this volume sets the ‘gold standard’ for ethical scholarship and provides a roadmap and manifesto for sensible and sensitive decolonization.”– Chris Friday, Professor of History, Western Washington University

“The strength of the collection is its appreciation for and attention to interpreting history with reference to Stó:lō interpretative frames.” – Tyler McCreary, BC Booklook 

“In a time when many scholars are looking to decolonize their approaches to research—especially when working with Indigenous communities—this book stands as a clear exemplar of community-engaged research and demonstrates how it can be done well.”– Jennifer Megan Markides, University of Calgary, Qualitative Research in Education

“Exemplifies a new, transdisciplinary approach to ethnohistory, in which the researcher recognizes not only the legacy of settler colonialism in Canada, but also the subjectivity and relativity of their own views and western knowledge as a whole. This new ethnohistory aims to work with the community at all levels of research and form and sustain relationships that last long after fieldwork is conducted. Its hope is to produce scholarship that is cutting edge, complex, accessible and relevant to members of the community.”– Daniel Sims, NICHE 

“Settler scholars concerned with disciplinary crises need look no further than this excellent anthology for models of respectful intercommunity engagement, radical methodology and pedagogy, and a paradigm for solidarity work that chooses to develop respectful relationships over moribund agonizing.”– Madeleine Reddon, Canadian Literature 

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction

Ch. 1—Kinship Obligations to the Environment

Ch. 2—Relationships

Ch. 3—Crossing Paths

Ch. 4—Stó:lō Ancestral Names, Identity and the Politics of History

Ch. 5—Disturbing the Dead

Ch. 6—Food as a Window into Stó:lō Tradition and Stó:lō-Newcomer Relation

Ch. 7—’Bringing Home all That Has Left’

Ch. 8—Totem Tigers and Salish Sluggers

Ch. 9—’I Was Born a Logger’

Ch. 10—’They Are Always Looking for the Bad Stuff’

Ch. 11—Next Steps in Indigenous Community-Engaged Research

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Memory Serves gathers together the oratories award-winning author Lee Maracle has delivered and performed over a twenty-year period. Revised for publication, the lectures hold the features and style of oratory intrinsic to the Salish people in general and the Sto: lo in particular. From her Coast Salish perspective and with great eloquence, Maracle shares her knowledge of Sto: lo history, memory, philosophy, law, spirituality, feminism and the colonial condition of her people.

Powerful and inspiring, Memory Serves is an extremely timely book, not only because it is the first collection of oratories by one of the most important Indigenous authors in Canada, but also because it offers all Canadians, in Maracle's own words, "another way to be, to think, to know," a way that holds the promise of a "journey toward a common consciousness."

Reviews
"Lee Maracle has provided a clear and eloquent voice of power that speaks of, speaks to and speaks with Indigenous peoples and indigenous women around the world. Her writing always provokes, awakens, stirs and enlightens our hearts and minds." - Linda Tuhiwai Smith, author of Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples

"[a]t this fertile moment for change in the relationship between Canada's indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, Lee Maracle's new collection of oratories ... takes on even greater significance." - Brian Lynch, The Georgia Straight

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

Long before vacationers discovered British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, the Sliammon, a Coast Salish people, called the region home. Elsie Paul is one of the last surviving mother-tongue speakers of the Sliammon language. In this remarkable book, she collaborates with her granddaughter, Harmony Johnson, and a scholar, Paige Raibmon, to tell her life story and the history of her people, in her own words and storytelling style. Raised by her grandparents who took her on their seasonal travels, Paul spent most of her childhood learning Sliammon ways, teachings, and stories. She shares this traditional knowledge with future generations in Written as I Remember It.

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list as being useful for grades K-12 for the following subject areas: English Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, Teacher Resource.

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

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

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"