Indigenous History

An investigation into how Native American identity became a commodity, from cultural appropriation to ethnic fraud to disenrollment

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States.

As an entry point to the seemingly intractable problem of ethnic fraud, Gilio-Whitaker critically looks to the film industry, including a case study of Sacheen Littlefeather, who is most known as the Native American woman that rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973—though later revealed, she was not who she said she was. Gilio-Whitaker argues that this pretendian phenomenon originated in Southern California when the United States was forcing assimilation of Indians into white America culturally, but also into its capitalist economic system. With Indianness becoming a marketized commodity in the Hollywood film business, the field became open to anyone who could convincingly adopt an Indian persona.

Deeply researched using socio-historical analysis, Gilio-Whitaker offers insights from her own experiences grappling with identity to provide clarity and help readers understand how the commodification of Indianness have ultimately left many people of legitimate American Indian heritage to be disconnected from their tribes. Personal and compelling, Gilio-Whitaker takes settler capitalism to task and helps us better understand how we got here in order to counteract the abuses of pretendianism and disenrollment.

Reviews
“This incendiary j’accuse isn’t afraid to name names.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“With clarity and conviction, Dina Gilio-Whitaker exposes what’s at stake for Native people when Indianness becomes a commodity. A sharp, personal, and urgent look at the high cost for actual Native people in a system built to exploit them at every turn.”—Kim TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science

“Indigeneity is caught between truth tellers and tricksters. With abiding concern for tribal nationhood, Dina Gilio-Whitaker boldly espouses our truths while confronting the tricksters among us. Indigenous America needs more truth tellers like her and books like this.”—Gabe Galanda, Indigenous rights attorney

“Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s Who Gets to Be Indian? tackles the problem of the commodification of Native identity at a crucial moment in American history. With incisive analysis, Gilio-Whitaker reveals how settler capitalism has distorted and exploited Indigenous identities and exposes the roots of folks pretending to be Native and its harms to Native communities. This book is a call to action and a vital tool for understanding how we can protect Indigenous people. A must-read for anyone seeking to confront the complexities of Native identity, sovereignty, and power in America.”—Liza Black, author of Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941–1960

“A fresh and unflinching look into the rise of pretendianism—when it became normalized for Hollywood to grant Native American identities to various grifters. Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s courageous and original analysis will challenge readers, Indigenous or not, to think deeply about the nature of settler colonialism today.”—Darryl Leroux, author of Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity

Additional Information
280 pages | 6.22" x 9.30" | Hardcover 

Offering readers a unique history of an Indian Day School and a profile of Anishinaabe resilience.

The atrocities of the residential school system in Canada are amply documented. Less well-known is the history of day schools, which some two hundred thousand Indigenous youth attended.

The Curve Lake Indian Day School operated for over ninety years, from 1899 to 1978. Implementing Indigenous community research practices, Jackson Pind, alongside the Chief and Council of Curve Lake First Nation, conducted a search of the federal archive on operations at the school. Students by Day presents the findings, revealing that the government failed in its fiduciary duty to protect students. Harmful and discriminatory policies forced children to abandon their language and culture and left them subject to many types of abuse. To supplement this documentation, Pind also interviewed survivors of the school, who shared their often difficult testimony. He situates Curve Lake’s development and operations within the wider context of Canadian assimilation policies, noting the lasting impacts on Anishinaabe identity and culture.

Not only recovering the archive, written and oral, but building on files repatriated to the community, Students by Day is a story of Indigenous resilience, activism, and hope in the face of educational injustice.

Reviews
“An incredible achievement. Students by Day is innovative and collaborative, pushing Indigenous historical research forward in ways that will offer real, tangible improvements to communities and individuals.” - Lianne C. Leddy, author of Serpent River Resurgence: Confronting Uranium Mining at Elliot Lake

“Students by Day is an intricate uncovering of day schools’ history, navigating archives and life stories. It sets a gold standard for community-centred research, reminding us of the centrality of love to culture, people, and politics.” - Niigaan Sinclair, author of Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre

“With care, clarity, and accountability, Jackson Pind’s book listens to Curve Lake First Nation and honours survivors’ experiences. Students by Day is not only powerful history; it’s a model for community-based research that serves Indigenous resurgence.” - Crystal Gail Fraser, author of By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Figures vii
Foreword: Day Schools xi
Drew Hayden Taylor
Acknowledgments xv

1 Introduction to Place: Growing Up in Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg Territory 3

2 Researching Indian Day Schools in Canada 15

3 The New England Company and the Creation of the Indian Day School 30

4 Mismanagement and Mistrust: The Methodist Missionary School in Curve Lake 45

5 A Legacy of Neglect: The United Church of Canada’s Indian Day School 86

6 Beyond the Classroom: Educational Philosophies and Opportunities 122

7 Experiencing Indian Day School: Education and Integration 150

8 A Class in Resistance: Curve Lake First Nation’s Fight for Education 173

Afterword 197
Jack Hoggarth

Appendix: Letter of Support from Curve Lake First Nation 201
Notes 203
Index 255

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 9 photos, 5 drawings | Hardcover 

In British Columbia, land acknowledgements often refer to “unceded territory.” Yet many people remain uncertain about the history behind these words or their implications for the future of the province.

Unceded reveals the BC government’s history of injustice toward First Nations, providing the context for understanding the province’s current reconciliation efforts, including modern treaty negotiations. Treaty commissioner George M. Abbott combines archival research with a former cabinet minister’s insider perspective on government to chronicle over 150 years of BC-Indigenous relations. Abbott’s account details how early government officials refused to negotiate treaties and instead coerced First Nations onto small and scattered reserves while granting settlers access to vast tracts of land. Despite sustained Indigenous resistance, the situation only worsened as non-Indigenous demands for land and natural resources increased in the decades that followed.

It was only after several Supreme Court decisions affirmed Indigenous land rights that BC sat down at the negotiating table. More recently, the province has taken notable steps toward reconciliation, concluding modern treaties and passing legislation that acknowledges Indigenous rights. As Abbott shows, overcoming the legacy of colonialism is no small task, but achieving justice is worth the effort it takes.

This book is for readers of BC history, those who follow provincial politics, or anyone invested in the future of British Columbia. It is essential reading for elected officials and policy makers and will also appeal to scholars and students of Canadian history, political science, and Indigenous-settler relations.

Reviews
"Unceded is an excellent account of the relationship between First Nation groups and the government of British Columbia. It is well-researched and enriched by interesting insights from George Abbott’s own involvement in more recent developments as a member of the provincial cabinet."— Jim Reynolds, author of Canada and Colonialism and former general counsel to the Musqueam First Nation

"I wish to thank George Abbott for his book about our colonial past. It is only with a better understanding of our history that we can have a better chance of creating a brighter future for First Nations in British Columbia."— From the foreword by the Honourable Steven Point, Grand Chief of the Stó:lō and BC’s first Indigenous Lieutenant-Governor

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

Behind the Bricks is the story of the Mohawk Institute, Canada’s first and longest-running residential school and a model for the entire residential school system.

From the outside, the Mohawk Institute looks like a large and welcoming school building. When one looks behind the bricks of the school, however, a much different story becomes apparent. Conceived and overseen by Six Nations community member Richard W. Hill Sr., Behind the Bricks is an important work that provides deep insight into the Mohawk Institute, Canada's first, and longest-running, residential school, operating from 1828 to 1970 in Brantford, Ontario. Many see the Mohawk Institute as a model for the residential school system.

Behind the Bricks brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts. The book begins with an overview that traces the history and context of the school, and the remainder of Behind the Bricks touches on a broad array of topics from the experiences of students, to archaeology and architecture, to the role of religion, and beyond, drawing on a wide variety of sources including government documents, church records, and oral history.

Behind the Bricks examines the policies and motivations that shaped the experiences of all three parties involved with the school, the government, the church, and the students and their communities.

A thorough and thoughtful history that provides deep insight into over a century of institutional operation, Behind the Bricks is an essential work that tells us not only about the Mohawk Institute, but the entire residential school system, providing a window into the past with the goal of working towards a future of truth and reconciliation.

With contributions by: William (Bill) Acres, Diana Castillo, Sarah Clarke, Jimmie Edgar, Wendy L. Fletcher, Bonnie Freeman, Tara Froman, Alexandra Giancarlo, Cody Groat, Evan J. Habkirk, Richard W. Hill Sr., Keith Jamieson, Sandra Juutilainen, Magdalena Miłosz, David Monture, Teri Morrow, John Moses, Alison Norman, Thomas Peace, Jennifer Pettit, Paul Racher, and Bud Whiteye.

Reviews
"As we continue to reckon with the legacy of colonial schooling, this timely collection helps to model how to put truth before reconciliation." — Sean Carleton, University of Manitoba

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Preface
Richard W. Hill, Sr.

Introduction
Jennifer Pettit

The Russ Moses Residential School Memoir
John Moses and Russ Moses

Part One: Historical Overview and Context of the Mohawk Institute

1. “To Shake Off the Rude Habits of Savage Life”: The Foundations of the Mohawk Institute to the Early 1900s
Jennifer Pettit

2. “The Difficulties of Making an Indian into a White Man Were Not Thoroughly Appreciated”: The Mohawk Institute, 1904 to Present
Jennifer Pettit

Part Two: Teachers, Curriculum, and Tools of Control

3. The Indian Normal School: The Role of the Mohawk Institute in the Training of Indigenous Teachers in the Late 19th Century
Alison Norman

4. Teaching Control and Service: The Use of Military Training at the Mohawk Institute
Evan Habkirk

5. “New Weapons”: Race, Indigeneity, and Intelligence Testing a thte Mohawk Institute, 1920-1949
Alexandra Giancarlo

Part Three: The Building, The Grounds, and Commemoration

6. A “Model” School: An Architectural History of the Mohawk Institute
Magdalena Miłosz

7. The Stewardship, Preservation, and Commemoration of the Mohawk Institute
Cody Groat

Part Four: Survival and Resistance

8. Ten Years of Student Resistance at the Mohawk Institute, 1903-1913
Diana Casillo

9. ęhǫwadihsadǫ ne:ˀhniˀ adigyenǫ:gyeˀs ganahaǫgwęˀ ęyagǫnhehgǫhǫ:k/They buried them, but they the seeds floated around what will sustain them.
Teri Lyn Morrow, Bonnie Freeman, and Sandra Juutilainen

Part Five: The New England Company and the Mohawk Institute

10. A Model to Follow?: The Sussex Vale Indian School
Thomas Peace

11. Robert Ashton, The New England Company, and the Mohawk Institute, 1872-1910
Bill Acres

12. The Lands of the Mohawk Institute: Robert Ashton and the Demise of the New England Company’s “Station,” 1891-1922
Bill Acres

Part Six: Student Experiences and Voices

13. Life at the Mohawk Institute During the 1860s
Thomas Peace

14. Collecting the Evidence: Restoration and Archaeology at the Mohawk Institute
Sarah Clarke, Paul Racher, and Tara Froman

15. Collective Trauma and the Role of Religion in the Mohawk Institute Experience
Wendy Fletcher

16. Concluding Voices – Survivor Stories of Life Behind the Bricks
Richard W. Hill, Sr.

Closing Poems
Jimmie Edgar
Bud Whiteye
David Monture

Acknowledgements

Appendix One: History of Six Nations Education by Jamieson
Keith Jamieson
Appendix Two: Mohawk Institute Students Who Became Teachers

Suggested Reading

Additional Information
402 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 89 Illustrations | Paperback 

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

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 

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 

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

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 

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 

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 

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 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.

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

From the #1 national bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet and True Reconciliation, a truly unique history of our land—powerful, devastating, remarkable—as told through the voices of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

The totem pole forms the foundation for this unique and important oral history of Canada. Its goal is both toweringly ambitious and beautifully direct: To tell the story of this country in a way that prompts readers to look from different angles, to see its dimensions, its curves, and its cuts. To see that history has an arc, just as the totem pole rises, but to realize that it is also in the details along the way that important meanings are to be found. To recognize that the story of the past is always there to be retold and recast, and must be conveyed to generations to come. That in the act of re-telling, meaning is found, and strength is built.

When it comes to telling the history of Canada, and in particular the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, we need to accept that the way in which our history has traditionally been told has not been a common or shared enterprise. In many ways, it has been an exclusive and siloed one. Among the countless peoples and groups that make up this vast country, the voices and experiences of a few have too often dominated those of many others.

Reconciling History shares voices that have seldom been heard, and in this ground-breaking book they are telling and re-telling history from their perspectives. Born out of the oral history in True Reconciliation, and complemented throughout with stunning photography and art, Reconciling History takes this approach to telling our collective story to an entirely different level.

Additional Information
304 pages | 6.25" x 8.75" | Hardcover

There is a missing chapter in the narrative of Canada’s Indigenous peoples—the story of the Métis Nation, a new Indigenous people descended from both First Nations and Europeans.

Their story begins in the last decade of the eighteenth century in the Canadian North-West. Within twenty years the Métis proclaimed themselves a nation and won their first battle. Within forty years they were famous throughout North America for their military skills, their nomadic life and their buffalo hunts.

The Métis Nation didn’t just drift slowly into the Canadian consciousness in the early 1800s; it burst onto the scene fully formed. The Métis were flamboyant, defiant, loud and definitely not noble savages. They were nomads with a very different way of being in the world—always on the move, very much in the moment, passionate and fierce. They were romantics and visionaries with big dreams. They battled continuously—for recognition, for their lands and for their rights and freedoms. In 1870 and 1885, led by the iconic Louis Riel, they fought back when Canada took their lands. These acts of resistance became defining moments in Canadian history, with implications that reverberate to this day: Western alienation, Indigenous rights and the French/English divide.

After being defeated at the Battle of Batoche in 1885, the Métis lived in hiding for twenty years. But early in the twentieth century, they determined to hide no more and began a long, successful fight back into the Canadian consciousness. The Métis people are now recognized in Canada as a distinct Indigenous nation. Written by the great-grandniece of Louis Riel, this popular and engaging history of “forgotten people” tells the story up to the present era of national reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

Reviews
"The Northwest is Our Mother is a scholarly, thoroughly researched, historically accurate and completely engaging account of the Metis nation - and this book is also medicine. Reading it feels like healing. Its pages raise the true story above the lies that have been told to us and about our Metis Nation.” — Katherena Vermette, bestselling author of The Break 

"When Jean Teillet talks about The Métis Nation, we all need to listen. She is passionate. She is a great expert. She has a profound understanding of the Métis story. This is a narrative which flows effortlessly and movingly through her book." — John Ralston Saul, author of The Comeback

“A compelling history of the struggle for rights and justice of the citizens of the historic Métis Nation in their traditional homeland in what is now western Canada.” — Clement Chartier, QC, President, Metis National Council

Additional Information
576 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

From Tanya Talaga, the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of Seven Fallen Feathers, comes a riveting exploration of her family’s story and a retelling of the history of the country we now call Canada

For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are. This is one of Canada’s greatest open secrets, an unhealed wound that until recently lay hidden by shame and abandonment.

The Knowing is the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country as only she can—through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

Deeply personal and meticulously researched, The Knowing is a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous People that continues to reverberate in these communities today.

Additional Information
480 pages | 6.12" x 9.25" | Hardcover 

The life and times of the Premier from Red River

John Norquay, orphan and prodigy, was a leader among the Scots Cree peoples of western Canada. Born in the Red River Settlement, he farmed, hunted, traded, and taught school before becoming a legislator, cabinet minister, and, from 1878 to 1887, premier of Manitoba.

Once described as Louis Riel's alter ego, he skirmished with prime minister John A. Macdonald, clashed with railway baron George Stephen, and endured racist taunts while championing the interests of the Prairie West in battles with investment bankers, Ottawa politicians, and the CPR. His contributions to the development of Canada's federal system and his dealings with issues of race and racism deserve attention today.

Recounted here by Canadian historian Gerald Friesen, Norquay's life story ignites contemporary conversations around the nature of empire and Canada's own imperial past. Drawing extensively on recently opened letters and financial papers that offer new insights into his business, family, and political life, Friesen reveals Norquay to be a thoughtful statesman and generous patriarch. This masterful biography of the Premier from Red River sheds welcome light on a neglected historical figure and a tumultuous time for Canada and Manitoba.

Reviews
"The Honourable John Norquay is a magisterial biography that brings Norquay out of the historical shadows to a prominent place among the major figures of nineteenth century Canada. One of the most important historical studies of this decade, Norquay is a model of how superb historical scholarship can make us better understand both past and present."  — John English

"This is a beautifully written, extremely accessible, but obviously meticulous scholarly tome. Friesen wrangles a wide variety of facts into a compelling narrative." — Chris Andersen

"The Honourable John Norquay is a magnificent book. Friesen meticulously documents Norquay's many accomplishments, larger-than-life character, and charisma. He paints a picture of a negotiator and orator who ably uses humour and personal stories to win support, especially in the midst of the racism he faced." — Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, 1999-2009

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Introduction

Ch 1: “A Merry Prankish Youngster,” 1841–58

Ch 2: Red River Family, 1859–70

Ch 3: “The Transfer Made Us Wise,” the 1870s

Ch 4: Public Life: An Introduction, 1871–74

Ch 5: Senior Minister, 1875–78

Ch 6: Premier, 1879

Ch 7: Boom Times and Crash, 1880–January 1883

Ch 8: “Chief,” 1883–February 1885

Ch 9: “An Unfortunate Family Difference,” 1885

Ch 10: Vindication, 1886

Ch 11: Defiance, 1887

Ch 12: Downfall, November–December 1887

Ch 13: Dénouement, 1888–89

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Keywords

A Note on Sources

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Additional Information
619 pages | 6.12" x 9.25" | b&w illustrations, maps, index, bibliography | Hardcover 

Indigenous Peoples have taken physical recreational activity – sport – back from the colonizers. One of very few books to show the two edges of sport: it colonized but is now decolonizing.

Decolonizing Sport tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands — Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya — the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers, including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining a new way forward.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Sport, Colonialism and Decolonization (Janice Forsyth, Christine O’Bonsawin, Murray G. Phillips and Russell Field)

Section 1: Storytelling Beyond Competition: An Indigenous Perspective on Organized Sport (Brian Rice)

More Than a Mascot: How the Mascot Debate Erases Indigenous People in Sport (Natalie Welch)

Section 2: Interrogating the Archive Witnessing Painful Pasts: Understanding Images of Sports at Canadian Indian Residential Schools (Taylor McKee and Janice Forsyth)

On the Absence of Indigenous Moving Bodies: Whiteness, Decolonization and Indigenous/Indigenizing Sport History (Malcolm MacLean)

Section 3: Rights and Reconciliation # 87: Reconciliation, Sport History and Indigenous Peoples in Canada (Victoria Paraschak)

Taken at Face Value: The Legal Feasibility of Indigenous-Led Olympic Games (Christine O’Bonsawin)

Section 4: Settler Colonialism Canoe Races to Fishing Guides: Sport and Settler Colonialism in Mi’kma’ki (John Reid)

Moments of Transcending Colonialism? Rodeos and Races in Lethbridge (Robert Kossuth)

“Men Pride Themselves on Feats of Endurance”: Masculinities and Movement Cultures in Kenyan Running History (Michelle M. Sikes)

Section 5: Resistance and Activism Stealing, Drinking and Non-Cooperation: Sport, Everyday Resistance in Aboriginal Settlements in Australia (Gary Osmond)

Let’s Make Baseball! Practices of Unsettling on the Recreational Ball Diamonds of Tkaronto/Toronto (Craig Fortier and Colin Hastings)

Subjugating and Liberating at Once: Indigenous Sport History as a Double Edged Sword (Brendan Hokowhitu)

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

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

Reviews
“Meticulously documented, this thought-provoking treatise is sure to generate discussion.”—Booklist

“What is fresh about the book is its comprehensiveness. Dunbar-Ortiz brings together every indictment of white Americans that has been cast upon them over time, and she does so by raising intelligent new questions about many of the current trends of academia, such as multiculturalism. Dunbar-Ortiz’s material succeeds, but will be eye-opening to those who have not previously encountered such a perspective.”—Publishers Weekly

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States helped me clarify my place in this country. It confirmed what had been told to me by my ancestors: that Indigenous peoples, from the North Pole to the South, have been here since before the world was known as round. As a conquering nation, the United States has rewritten history to make people of the U.S. forget our past as natives to this land. This is especially apparent in the Mexi-phobic, immigrant-phobic policies of our time.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) helped me clarify my place in this country...This book is necessary reading if we are to move into a more humane future."—Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

“A must-read for anyone interested in the truth behind this nation’s founding.” —Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, PhD, Jicarilla Apache author, historian, and publisher of Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country

“This may well be the most important US history book you will read in your lifetime. . . . Dunbar-Ortiz radically reframes US history, destroying all foundation myths to reveal a brutal settler-colonial structure and ideology designed to cover its bloody tracks. Here, rendered in honest, often poetic words, is the story of those tracks and the people who survived—bloodied but unbowed. Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so are the Indians.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

“Dunbar Ortiz’s . . . assessment and conclusions are necessary tools for all Indigenous peoples seeking to address and remedy the legacy of US colonial domination that continues to subvert Indigenous human rights in today’s globalized world.”—Mililani B. Trask, Native Hawai‘ian international law expert on Indigenous peoples’ rights and former Kia Aina (prime minister) of Ka La Hui Hawai‘i

Additional Information
328 pages | 6.38" x 9.30" | Hardcover

Place names are powerful, and their significance extends far beyond words. Learning and embracing the original Indigenous phrases used to describe the world around us acknowledges the impact of colonization, recognizes First Peoples’ ongoing relationship to the land, and honours their traditional way of being. In Snuneymuxw Mulstimuxw, Traditional Knowledge Keeper and respected Elder Geraldine Manson, C’tasi:a offers an extensive survey of the history and meaning of local Hul’q’umi’num place names and origin stories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

Produced through a partnership between Snuneymuxw First Nation, Vancouver Island University, and New Society Publishers, this beautifully illustrated, full-colour booklet gathers and shares the rich history of the Snuneymuxw’s living landscape as passed down through generations from time immemorial. From how Xw’ulhquyum (Snake Island) and other sites of significance got their names to ancient stories such as the bringing of fire by Qeyux to the Tle:ltxw people, the cultural history chronicled in these pages provides a unique lens through which to view and understand nearby lands and waters.

In addition to the sacred cultural narratives distilled from the teachings of the Ancestors, Snuneymuxw Mulstimuxw delves into more recent historical events, told from the perspective of those who experienced them firsthand or whose families are still experiencing the intergenerational effects. This invaluable work is complemented by a series of maps integrating traditional Hul’q’umi’num place names into their present day context.

Educator Information
In Snuneymuxw Mulstimuxw Elder C’tasi:a offers an extensive survey of Hul’q’umi’num place names, sites of significance, and origin stories of the Snuneymuxw Nation.

Embracing the original Indigenous names for the world around us, this book acknowledges the impact of colonization and honours First Peoples’ ongoing relationship with the land.

Additional Information
42 Pages | 8.5" x 11" | Paperback

All proceeds from the sale of this work are donated to Youth and Elders events and youth who need finances to attend events.

An urgent, informed, intimate condemnation of the Canadian state and its failure to deliver justice to Indigenous people by national bestselling author and former Crown prosecutor Harold R. Johnson. Now with a brand new foreward.

"The night of the decision in the Gerald Stanley trial for the murder of Colten Boushie, I received a text message from a retired provincial court judge. He was feeling ashamed for his time in a system that was so badly tilted. I too feel this way about my time as both defence counsel and as a Crown prosecutor; that I didn't have the courage to stand up in the courtroom and shout 'Enough is enough.' This book is my act of taking responsibility for what I did, for my actions and inactions." -- Harold R. Johnson

In early 2018, the failures of Canada's justice system were sharply and painfully revealed in the verdicts issued in the deaths of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine. The outrage and confusion that followed those verdicts inspired former Crown prosecutor and bestselling author Harold R. Johnson to make the case against Canada for its failure to fulfill its duty under Treaty to effectively deliver justice to Indigenous people, worsening the situation and ensuring long-term damage to Indigenous communities.

In this direct, concise, and essential volume, Harold R. Johnson examines the justice system's failures to deliver "peace and good order" to Indigenous people. He explores the part that he understands himself to have played in that mismanagement, drawing on insights he has gained from the experience; insights into the roots and immediate effects of how the justice system has failed Indigenous people, in all the communities in which they live; and insights into the struggle for peace and good order for Indigenous people now.

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.00" x 7.51" | B&W photo spread in text | Paperback

From the 1960s through the 1980s the Canadian Children's Aid Society engaged in a large-scale program of removing First Nations children from their families and communities and adopting them out to non-Indigenous families. This systemic abduction of untold thousands of children came to be known as the Sixties Scoop. The lasting disruption from the loss of family and culture is only now starting to be spoken of publicly, as are stories of strength and survivance.

In Silence to Strength: Writings and Reflections on the 60s Scoop, editor Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith gathers together contributions from twenty Sixties Scoop survivors from across the territories of Canada. This anthology includes poems, stories and personal essays from contributors such as Alice McKay, D.B. McLeod, David Montgomery, Doreen Parenteau, Tylor Pennock, Terry Swan, Lisa Wilder, and many more. Courageous writings and reflections that prove there is strength in telling a story, and power in ending the silence of the past.

Reviews
"This is an excellent collection and I recommend it to all who are interested in learning the truth about Indigenous Peoples by reading what they have written, not what has been written about them by non-Indigenous writers. The striking cover art is by George Littlechild, also a survivor of the Sixties Scoop." - MariJo Moore

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

One of Canada's longest unresolved issues is the historical and present-day failure of the country's governments to recognize treaties made between Aboriginal peoples and the Crown. Compact, Contract, Covenant is renowned historian of Native-newcomer relations J.R. Miller's exploration and explanation of more than four centuries of treaty-making. The first historical account of treaty-making in Canada, Miller untangles the complicated threads of treaties, pacts, and arrangements with the Hudson's Bay Company and the Crown, as well as modern treaties to provide a remarkably clear and comprehensive overview of this little-understood and vitally important relationship.

Covering everything from pre-contact Aboriginal treaties to contemporary agreements in Nunavut and recent treaties negotiated under the British Columbia Treaty Process, Miller emphasizes both Native and non-Native motivations in negotiating, the impact of treaties on the peoples involved, and the lessons that are relevant to Native-newcomer relations today. Accessible and informative, Compact, Contract, Covenant is a much-needed history of the evolution of treaty-making and will be required reading for decades to come.

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448 pages | 5.80" x 9.00"

We find our way forward by going back.

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to "unforget" our history.

This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.

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224 pages | 5.81" x 8.53" | Hardcover

From the winner of the 2021 Governor General's Award for literature, a revelatory look into an obscured piece of Canadian history: what was then called the Eskimo Identification Tag System

In 2001, Dr. Norma Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary program, requesting enrolment to legally solidify her existence as an Inuk woman. But in the process, she was faced with a question she could not answer, tied to a colonial institution retired decades ago: “What was your disc number?”

Still haunted by this question years later, Dunning took it upon herself to reach out to Inuit community members who experienced the Eskimo Identification Tag System first-hand, providing vital perspective and nuance to the scant records available on the subject. Written with incisive detail and passion, Dunning provides readers with a comprehensive look into a bureaucracy sustained by the Canadian government for over thirty years, neglected by history books but with lasting echoes revealed in Dunning’s intimate interviews with affected community members. Not one government has taken responsibility or apologized for the E-number system to date — a symbol of the blatant dehumanizing treatment of the smallest Indigenous population in Canada.

A necessary and timely offering, Kinauvit? provides a critical record and response to a significant piece of Canadian history, collecting years of research, interviews and personal stories from an important voice in Canadian literature.

Reviews
"‘Mom, what are we’? a question asked by Inuit scholar and writer Norma Dunning, which remains like a floating specter over the course of this highly original and devastating book, vividly recalling the disembodying process of colonization. Much more than this, however, this highly personal, evocative and robustly researched amalgam of wrenching memories, historical records, and testimony, Kinauvit? What’s Your Name?, is a multi-dimensional life’s work that demonstrates the power and will of Indigenous peoples’ reclamation of self."— Brendan Hokowhitu, Professor of Indigenous Research, The University of Queensland, August 2022

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184 pages | 5.50" x 8.50" | Hardcover

Since Native Peoples and Cultures of Canada was first published in 1988, its two editions have sold some 30,000 copies, and it is widely used as the basic text in colleges and universities across the country.

Now retitled, this comprehensive book still provides an overview of all the Aboriginal groups in Canada. Incorporating the latest research in anthropology, archaeology, ethnography and history, this new edition describes traditional ways of life, traces cultural changes that resulted from contacts with the Europeans, and examines the controversial issues of land claims and self-government that now affect Aboriginal societies.

Most importantly, this generously illustrated edition incorporates a Nativist perspective in the analysis of Aboriginal cultures.

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400 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

This book explores the history and meaning behind petroglyphs on Gabriola Island.

From the author: "This booklet is dedicated to the Ancestors, for the legacy they left us, and to our Elders of Elders who continued to pass this knowledge down in the oral tradition."

All proceeds from the sale of this work are donated to youth programs.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Indigenous activism have made many non-Indigenous Canadians uncomfortably aware of how little they know about First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples. In Braided Learning, Susan Dion shares her approach to engaging with Indigenous histories and perspectives. Using the power of stories and artwork, Dion offers respectful ways to learn from and teach about challenging topics including settler-colonialism, treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools, and the Sixties Scoop. Informed by Indigenous pedagogy, Braided Learning draws on Indigenous knowledge to make sense of a difficult past, decode unjust conditions in the present, and work toward a more equitable future.

This book is a must-read for teachers and education students. It should also be read by students and practitioners in social work, child and youth counselling, policing, and nursing, or anyone seeking a foundational understanding of the histories of Indigenous peoples and of settler colonialism in Canada.

Reviews
“This book should be in every educator’s library. It serves as a model for educators to learn and teach about the history of Indigenous peoples and settler colonialism without fear or reservation. It is exactly what has been asked for over and over again.”— Tracey Laverty, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Education, Saskatoon Public Schools

"Braided Learning is a safe learning space for people at the start of their learning journey about Indigenous education and history. Each reader will take away the parts of the stories that are important to them, just like listeners do when we hear stories in the lodge from our elders. Nobody tells you what to do – you figure it out yourself with some subtle guidance." — Deb St. Amant, elder-in-residence, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University

"Understanding how educators can participate in reconciliation means understanding what stands in the way. Susan Dion understands both. Highly readable, engaging, and passionate, this book moves teachers from apprehension to action. Educators of all levels, read this book and take heed of Dion’s question: “So what are you going to do now?” — Amanda Gebhard, co-editor of White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction: Indigenous Presence

1 Requisites for Reconciliation

2 Seeing Yourself in Relationship with Settler Colonialism

3 The Historical Timeline: Refusing Absence, Knowing Presence, and Being Indigenous

4 Learning from Contemporary Indigenous Artists

5 The Braiding Histories Stories / Co-written with Michael R. Dion

Conclusion: Wuleelham – Make Good Tracks

Glossary and Additional Resources: Making Connections, Extending Learning

Notes; Bibliography

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288 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

​Updated and expanded 2nd edition of the national best seller!

First Nations 101 provides a broad overview of the day-to-day lives of Indigenous people, traditional Indigenous communities, colonial interventions used in an attempt to assimilate Indigenous people into mainstream society, the impacts those interventions had on Indigenous families and communities, and how Indigenous people are working towards holistic health and wellness today.

This 2nd edition has over 75 chapters, including new ones on rematriation, water for life, governance ‘options’, Indigenous feminisms, decolonization, (mis)appropriation, Indigenous Knowledge, and how to become a great ally.

Educator Information
Author Lynda Gray’s accessible writing style makes First Nations 101 the perfect primer for all to read. She notes that although governments may encourage and fund reconciliation activities, true reconciliation can only happen through the ongoing commitment and consistent actions of individuals, groups, organizations, governments, and businesses.

$1 from each book sold will be donated to the Ts’msyen Revolution Fund which Lynda Gray and her children, Dr. Robin Gray and artist Phil Gray, started in 2022. The Fund will help support Ts’msyen language and culture revitalization in laxyuubm Ts’msyen (Ts’msyen territory).

Lynda Gray is member of the Ts’msyen Nation from Lax Kw’alaams on the Northwest Coast of B.C. The book’s cover art was created by her son Phil Gray and features a 'neełx (killerwhale) to represent the author and her children’s clan (Gisbutwada).

The 2nd edition has over 75 chapters, with 16 new ones including rematriation, what is reconciliation, traditional economies, water for life, Indigenous feminisms, (mis)appropriation, economic development, Indigenous Knowledge, how to become a great ally, and more.

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336 Pages | Updated and expanded 2nd edition

Serpent River Resurgence tells the story of how the Serpent River Anishinaabek confronted the persistent forces of settler colonialism and the effects of uranium mining at Elliot Lake, Ontario. Drawing on extensive archival sources, oral histories, and newspaper articles, Lianne C. Leddy examines the environmental and political power relationships that affected her homeland in the Cold War period.

Focusing on Indigenous-settler relations, the environmental and health consequences of the uranium industry, and the importance of traditional uses of land and what happens when they are compromised, Serpent River Resurgence explores how settler colonialism and Anishinaabe resistance remained potent forces in Indigenous communities throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

Reviews
"Lianne C. Leddy’s book Serpent River Resurgence is a welcome addition to the conversation on mining and development in and around the Elliot Lake area. This is a must-read for any person wanting to engage in reconciliation and to understand that First Nations people have been on the frontlines of resource development and have suffered the consequences. This is a timely message for all in the era of reconciliation, and a reminder that First Nations communities have not always been properly consulted or made aware of the consequences, and have been at the whim of the Federal government. We must be reminded of our past relationships, and how we got to this point, and we need to hear the truth. This book brings to light some of the truths; it is a welcome addition to the conversation on reconciliation."— Chief Brent (Nodini’inini) Bissaillion, Chief of the Serpent River First Nation

"For anyone seeking to understand twentieth-century colonialism in Canada, this book offers a compelling on-the-ground story of resource extraction in Anishinaabek homelands. Lianne C. Leddy has done a superb job of tying together uranium demands for American weapons of war, mining boomtown development, and the rich history and culture of the Serpent River people. It is an antidote to settler narratives of progress and a vision of resilient people, land, and future."— Kim Anderson, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Relationships and Associate Professor of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, University of Guelph

"Serpent River Resurgence is a powerful community-based history of resilience and reclamation. Filling a critical gap in Indigenous history, Lianne C. Leddy demonstrates the impact of the global dynamics of settler colonialism during the Cold War while centring an impressive story of Indigenous resurgence."— Allan Downey, Nak'azdli Whut’en First Nation and Associate Professor of History and Indigenous Studies, McMaster University

"Of bicultural parentage, Leddy situates herself within this story as a member of both sides – Anishinaabe and Canadian. As an Indigenous environmental historian, Leddy explicates the enduring structures of settler colonialism, demonstrating that they are still in force today. To identify those structures, she adroitly deploys the words of her elders, countering their historic exclusion by inserting storytelling into her analysis, while critically approaching and analyzing bureaucratic reports and newspaper articles. A welcome and timely piece of scholarship."— Alan Ojiig Corbiere, Bne Doodem, Canada Research Chair, Indigenous History of North America, York University

"A brilliant analysis of uranium mining in Ontario which centres the lived experiences of Indigenous communities, particularly the Serpent River First Nation. Leddy explores deep-rooted Anishinaabe connections to a particular place, situating these conflicts within global processes of Cold War colonialism. Leddy argues that stories have been the foundation of Indigenous resurgence, and the stories she tells are compelling indeed."— Nancy Langston, Distinguished Professor of Environmental History, Michigan Technological University

Educator Information
Subjects: History / History of Science & Technology; History / Indigenous History; Indigenous Studies / Indigenous History; History / Canadian History; Environmental Studies

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Serpent River Anishinaabek before 1950

2. Carving a “Jewel in the Wilderness”: The Establishment of Elliot Lake

3. “It took all the trees”: The Cutler Acid Plant and Its Toxic Legacy

4. “We weren’t supposed to use that water at all!”: Uranium Mining and the
Serpent River

5. “Oooh yes, we all went up to Elliot to protest”: Resilience and Resistance at
Serpent River First Nation

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

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

The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in the United States that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America.

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian, Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy.

Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, “sacred” texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity.

Reviews
“Nuanced and illuminating, this book is a worthy addition to a remarkable series.”—Booklist

“This book reveals uncomfortable truths about the dehumanizing legacies of both capitalism and colonialism while forging a path of reconciliation between the Black and Native communities. Mays offers a solid entry point for further study. An enlightening reexamination of American history.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Accessible and informative . . . Mays’s colloquial voice enlivens the often-distressing history . . . This immersive revisionist history sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the American past.”—Publishers Weekly

“This is a bold and original narrative that is required reading to comprehend the deep historical relationship between the Indigenous peoples who were transported from Africa into chattel slavery and the Indigenous peoples who were displaced by European settler colonialism to profit from the land and resources, two parallel realities in search of self-determination and justice.” —Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“A bold, innovative, and astute analysis of how Blackness and Indigeneity have been forged as distinct yet overlapping social locations through the needs of capital, the logic of the nation-state, and the aims of US empire. While we know that slavery and settler colonialism are intricately linked, Kyle Mays uniquely demonstrates that the afterlives of these two institutions are also linked. They provide the land, bodies, and capital for ‘newer’ systems of bondage to flourish, such as mass incarceration. You will never think of the peoples’ history the same way after reading An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

“Dr. Mays brilliantly makes accessible the knowledge of how Native, Black, and Afro-Indigenous communities, under the oppressive projects of settler colonialism and white supremacy, have navigated points of tension and harm, while simultaneously revealing instances when we’ve resisted by way of solidarity and allyship. Ultimately, he reminds us that both the ‘Indian problem’ and the ‘Negro problem’ are, in fact, a white supremacist problem.”—Melanin Mvskoke, Afro-Indigenous (Mvskoke Creek) activist

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272 pages | 6.25" x 9.35" | Hardcover

As the settler state of Canada expanded into Indigenous lands, settlers dispossessed Indigenous people and undermined their sovereignty as nations. One site of invasion was Kahnawà:ke, a Kanien’kehá:ka community and part of the Rotinonhsiónni confederacy.

The Laws and the Land delineates the establishment of a settler-colonial relationship from early contact ways of sharing land; land practices under Kahnawà:ke law; the establishment of modern Kahnawà:ke in the context of French imperial claims; intensifying colonial invasions under British rule; and ultimately the Canadian invasion in the guise of the Indian Act, private property, and coercive pressure to assimilate. Daniel Rück reveals increasingly powerful and aggressive colonial governments interfering with the affairs of one of the most populous and influential Indigenous communities in nineteenth-century Canada. What he describes is an invasion spearheaded by bureaucrats, Indian agents, politicians, surveyors, and entrepreneurs. Although these invasions were often chaotic and poorly planned, Rück shows that despite their apparent weaknesses they tended to benefit settlers while becoming sources of oppression for Indigenous peoples who attempted to navigate colonial realities while defending and building their own nations.

This original, meticulously researched book is deeply connected to larger issues of human relations with environments, communal and individual ways of relating to land, legal pluralism, historical racism and inequality, and Indigenous resurgence. It is one story of the "slow violence" of Canada’s legal and environmental conquest of Indigenous peoples and lands, and the persistence of one Indigenous nation in the face of the onslaught.

This book will appeal to legal historians, historical geographers, and scholars of Quebec history, Canadian history, and Indigenous studies.

Reviews
"In this excellent book, Daniel Rück has woven a seamless web of law, history, geography, and Indigenous knowledge, and has made it all look easy." — Philip Girard, professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

"The Laws and the Land is an account of colonial harm. It is an unprecedented look at the dispossession and oppression of the People of Kahnawà:ke by slowly taking their lands away. This book is a must-read for our People but also for all Indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed by the settler governments, churches, and unscrupulous individuals. And it also shows the perseverance and survival of a Mohawk community." — Kenneth Deer, former secretary of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawà:ke and honorary doctor of laws, Concordia University

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction

1 Kahnawà:ke and Canada: Relationships of Laws and Lands

2 "Whereas the Seigniory of Sault St. Louis Is the Property of the Iroquois Nation": Dissidents, Property, and Power, 1790–1815

3 "Out of the beaten track": Before the Railroad, 1815–50

4 "In What Legal Anarchy Will Questions of Property Soon Find Themselves": The Era of Confederation, 1850–75

5 "The Consequences of This Promiscuous Ownership": Wood and the Indian Act, 1867–1883

6 "Equal to an Ordnance Map of the Old Country": The Walbank Survey, 1880–93

7 "It is Necessary to Follow the Custom of the Reserve Which is Contrary to Law": Rupture and Continuity, 1885–1900

Conclusion

Notes; Bibliography; Index

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 27 b&w photos, 5 maps | Hardcover

A Canadian bestseller and winner of the 2016 Canadian Historical Association Aboriginal History Book Prize, Unsettling Canada is a landmark text built on a unique collaboration between two First Nations leaders.

Arthur Manuel (1951-2017) was one of the most forceful advocates for Indigenous title and rights in Canada; Grand Chief Ron Derrickson, one of the most successful Indigenous businessmen in the country. Together, they bring a fresh perspective and bold new ideas to Canada's most glaring piece of unfinished business: the place of Indigenous peoples within the country's political and economic space.

This vital second edition features a foreword by award-winning activist Naomi Klein and an all-new chapter co-authored by law professor Nicole Schabus and Manuel's son, Ska7cis, honouring the multi-generational legacy of the Manuel family's work.

Reviews
“Pragmatic and helpful, this is a timely book for our fraught and political moment” — Quill & Quire

"Unsettling Canada is a breathtakingly beautiful story of Indigenous resistance, strength, and movement building. Unsettling Canada echoes the power of George Manuel's The Fourth World, centering the heart of the narrative deep inside a kind of Indigenous intelligence rarely shared outside our communities. This is the critical conversation that Canada and Indigenous peoples must have because it is centred on land, and, therefore, it is one of the most important books on Indigenous politics I've ever read." — Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of Dancing on Our Turtle's Back

Educator Information
This resource would be useful for courses in history, social justice, political science, and social studies.  Recommended for students in grades 10 to 12 or those at a college/university level.

Additional Information
320 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

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

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

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

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

Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future looks to both the past and the future as it examines the foundational work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the legacy of its 1996 report. It assesses the Commission’s influence on subsequent milestones in Indigenous-Canada relations and considers our prospects for a constructive future.

RCAP’s five-year examination of the relationships of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples to Canada and to non-Indigenous Canadians resulted in a new vision for Canada and provided 440 specific recommendations, many of which informed the subsequent work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Considered too radical and difficult to implement, RCAP’s recommendations were largely ignored, but the TRC reiterates that longstanding inequalities and imbalances in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples remain and quite literally calls us to action.

With reflections on RCAP’s legacy by its co-chairs, leaders of national Indigenous organizations and the Minister of Indigenous Crown Relations, and leading academics and activists, this collection refocuses our attention on the groundbreaking work already performed by RCAP. Organized thematically, it explores avenues by which we may establish a new relationship, build healthy and powerful communities, engage citizens, and move to action.

Reviews
"Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future provides a critical assessment of the limited progress made in implementing RCAP’s recommendations and consideration of the actions needed to move forward with the TRC’s Calls for Action – that might be a second chance to truly decolonize the situation of Indigenous peoples with homelands in the Canadian territory.” — Peter Russell

“In the current political landscape Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future is an important and necessary work that brings a wealth of scholarship into conversation with post RCAP and TRC realities. By centering the vision of RCAP and asserting decolonial pathways toward Indigenous sovereignty, it will trouble the notion of reconciliation and what that really means in a settler colonial state.” — Jennifer Brant

Educator Information
Other contributors: Marlene Brant Castellano, Frederic Wien, Frances Abele, Erin Alexiuk, Satsan (Herb George), Catherine MacQuarrie, Yvonne Boyer, Josée Lavoie, Derek Kornelson, Jeff Reading, René Dussault, Georges Erasmus, Perry Bellegarde, Natan Obed, Clément Chartier, Robert Bertrand, Carolyn Bennett, Francyne Joe, Jo-ann Archibald (Q’um Q’um Xiiem) Jan Hare, Jennifer S. Dockstator, Jeff S. Denis, Gérard Duhaime, Mark S. Dockstator, Wanda Wuttunee, Charlotte Loppie, John Loxley, Warren Weir, Caroline L. Tait, Devon Napope, Amy Bombay, William Mussell, Carrie Bourassa, Eric Oleson, Sibyl Diver, Janet McElhaney, Cindy Blackstock, Jonathan Dewar, Lynne Davis, Chris Hiller, Aaron Franks, Daniel Salée, Carole Lévesque, Michael Adams

Additional Information
504 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contains DVD of film We Remember.

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

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

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

The Assiniboia school is unique within Canada’s Indian Residential School system. It was the first residential high school in Manitoba and one of the only residential schools in Canada to be located in a large urban setting. Operating between 1958 and 1973 in a period when the residential school system was in decline, it produced several future leaders, artists, educators, knowledge keepers, and other notable figures. It was in many ways an experiment within the broader destructive framework of Canadian residential schools.

Stitching together memories of arrival at, day-to-day life within, and departure from the school with a socio-historical reconstruction of the school and its position in both Winnipeg and the larger residential school system, Did You See Us? offers a glimpse of Assiniboia that is not available in the archival records. It connects readers with a specific residential school and illustrates that residential schools were often complex spaces where forced assimilation and Indigenous resilience co-existed.

These recollections of Assiniboia at times diverge, but together exhibit Survivor resilience and the strength of the relationships that bond them to this day. The volume captures the troubled history of residential schools. At the same time, it invites the reader to join in a reunion of sorts, entered into through memories and images of students, staff, and neighbours. It is a gathering of diverse knowledges juxtaposed to communicate the complexity of the residential school experience.

Reviews
“Remembering Assiniboia is a thoughtful, community based project rooted in the needs of the Assiniboia Residential School community. This book is a must read for those working on the history of Residential Schools and those engaged in community based restorative justice projects.” — Krista McCracken

"Did You See Us? was born out of a reunion, and readers are invited to the reverberations of this coming together. It offers multi-vocal perspectives primarily from survivors but also from non-Indigenous staff, archival documents, and settler community members. As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission begins to accumulate anniversaries, now more than ever the testimonies of residential school survivors are much needed." — Jane Griffith

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Dedication

Land Acknowledgement Statement/ Theodore Fontaine

Preface / Theodore Fontaine

Section One: The Residential Years (1958-1967)

Section Two: The Hostel Years (1967-1973)

Section Three: Assiniboia and the Archives

Section Four: Staff Remembrances

Section Five: Neighbours

Section Six: Winnipeg Remembers

Section Seven: Reunion and Remembrance

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 8.50" | bibliography

An exploration of anti-Indigenous systemic racism in Canadian health care and the medical establishment's role in colonial genocide.

Launched by healthcare providers in January 2018, the #aHand2Hold campaign confronted the Quebec government's practice of separating children from their families during medical evacuation airlifts, which disproportionately affected remote and northern Indigenous communities. Pediatric emergency physician Samir Shaheen-Hussain's captivating narrative of this successful campaign, which garnered unprecedented public attention and media coverage, seeks to answer lingering questions about why such a cruel practice remained in place for so long. In doing so it serves as an indispensable case study of contemporary medical colonialism in Quebec.

Fighting for a Hand to Hold exposes the medical establishment's role in the displacement, colonization, and genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Through meticulously gathered government documentation, historical scholarship, media reports, public inquiries, and personal testimonies, Shaheen-Hussain connects the draconian medevac practice with often-disregarded crimes and medical violence inflicted specifically on Indigenous children. This devastating history and ongoing medical colonialism prevent Indigenous communities from attaining internationally recognized measures of health and social well-being because of the pervasive, systemic anti-Indigenous racism that persists in the Canadian public health care system - and in settler society at large.

Shaheen-Hussain's unique perspective combines his experience as a frontline pediatrician with his long-standing involvement in anti-authoritarian social justice movements. Sparked by the indifference and callousness of those in power, this book draws on the innovative work of Indigenous scholars and activists to conclude that a broader decolonization struggle calling for reparations, land reclamation, and self-determination for Indigenous peoples is critical to achieve reconciliation in Canada.

Reviews
"Fighting for a Hand to Hold denounces with ferocity the utterly inhuman, decades-long practice of separating children from their families during emergency medevacs in northern and remote regions of Quebec. In a precise, compelling, and well-documented narrative, Samir Shaheen-Hussain challenges our collective understanding of systemic racism and social determinants of health applied to Indigenous communities most dependent on medevac airlifts and most impacted by the non-accompaniment rule. An eye-opening, tough, and essential book." — Dr Joanne Liu, pediatric emergency physician and former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières

"In Fighting for a Hand to Hold Samir Shaheen-Hussain exposes the social, cultural, and historical structures that allow medical colonialism to hide in plain sight as it harms generations of Indigenous children and their families. It is an unflinching analysis that should be required reading in every medical school in the country." —Maureen Lux, professor, Brock University and author of Separate Beds: A History of Indian Hospitals in Canada, 1920s-1980s

"The memories of the Inuit children I attended as a young interpreter at the Montreal Children's Hospital came flooding back to me. The sad face of a child looking up at me: nurses informed me that he was not speaking, but I immediately recognized the fear in his face, in his eyes. As soon as I spoke to him in Inuktitut, he looked at me in disbelief, but in the next moment his tears began to roll and I could only sound out the Inuit sound of love, 'mmph,' and tell him it would be all right, that his mom or a relative would be arriving soon. I felt for that child, and as he began to relax and open up, we had a lovely conversation in Inuktitut. He did not feel so alone in this strange place he had just been deposited in, as if he were cargo. To this day, I still feel for him. Throughout all these years, we all have been made to believe that this is how things should work. It was one of those things we stayed quiet about for decades. But no longer. We Inuit, we are a people. We love our children. Fighting for a Hand to Hold helps us understand the issues of colonization in the medical system that have vexed us as Indigenous peoples. Today, we Inuit are working to bring our health back to our communities. Healthy communities and families mean self-governance to us, and the decolonization process will happen." - Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, vice-president of international affairs, Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada

Educator Information
Foreword by Cindy Blackstock, afterword by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel

Table of Contents

Figures | xiii
Foreword Cindy Blackstock | xv
Preface and Acknowledgments | xxi
A Note to Readers | xxix

Part One Above All, Do No Harm

Timeline | 3
Introduction | 7
1 Medevac Airlifts in Quebec and the Non-Accompaniment Rule | 16
2 The #aHand2Hold Campaign: Confronting a System | 27

Part Two Structural Fault Lines in Health Care

3 Social Determinants of Health: Equality, Equity, and Limitations | 47
4 Recognizing Systemic Racism: A Social Justice Approach | 66
5 Medical Culture and the Myth of Meritocracy | 90

Part Three Medical Colonialism and Indigenous Children

6 A Little Matter of Genocide: Canada and the United Nations Convention | 113
7 From the Smallpox War of Extermination to Tuberculosis Deaths in Residential Schools | 122
8 Experimental Laboratories: Malnutrition, Starvation, and the BCG Vaccine | 135
9 Cruel Treatment: Indian Hospitals, Sanatoria, and Skin Grafting | 150
10 Gendered Violence: Forced Sterilization and Coercive Contraception | 165
11 Breaking Up Families: Child Welfare Services, Mass Evacuations, and Medical Disappearances | 179
12 Oral Histories and the Narrative of Genocide | 207

Part Four The Structural Determinants of Health and Decolonizing Our Future

13 Capitalism and the Cost of Caring | 217
14 History Matters: Colonialism, Land, and Indigenous Self-Determination | 236
15 Decolonizing Health Care: Reparations before Reconciliation | 253
Conclusion | 271

Afterword Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel | 277
References | 283
Index | 315

Additional Information
360 pages | 5.98" x 9.01" | 4 maps, 8 illustrations | Hardcover

Charged with fresh material and new perspectives, this updated edition of the groundbreaking biography From Brotherhood to Nationhood brings George Manuel and his fighting tradition into the present.

George Manuel (19201989) was the strategist and visionary behind the modern Indigenous movement in Canada. A three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, he laid the groundwork for what would become the Assembly of First Nations and was the founding president of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. Authors Peter McFarlane and Doreen Manuel follow him on a riveting journey from his childhood on a Shuswap reserve through three decades of fierce and dedicated activism.

In these pages, an all-new foreword by celebrated Mi'kmaq lawyer and activist Pam Palmater is joined by an afterword from Manuel’s granddaughter, land defender Kanahus Manuel. This edition features new photos and previously untold stories of the pivotal roles that the women of the Manuel family played and continue to play in the battle for Indigenous rights.

Reviews
“Brotherhood to Nationhood is more than just a biography of the life of George Manuel; it demonstrates the roots of an Indigenous internationalism and political theory that is grounded in the ethics, knowledge, and practices of the Secwepemc people.” – Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of As We Have Always Done

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Foreword - Dr. Pamela Palmater
Preface - Peter McFarlane
Preface - Doreen Manuel

Part I. The Neck of the Chicken
1. Paradise, Paradise Lost, 1960
2. The Hard-Luck Shuswap Kid, 1920–1932
3. White Plague, Red Victims, 1932–1954
4. Local Agitator to Provincial Leader, 1955–1960
5. A Future for Your Children, 1960–1963

Part II. Building the National Movement
6. Community Development and the Arthur Laing Gang, 1965–1967
7. Down the Garden Path: Chretien Andras Consultations, 1968–1969
8. From White Paper to Red Paper, 1969–1970
9. The National Chief
10. The National Indian Philosophy, 1971–1972

Part III. Indian Shogun
11. International Travels
12. Land Title and the James Bay Battle, 1972–1973
13. Red Power
14. Political Eruptions in British Columbia, 1975
15. A Voice for the Fourth World, 1975–1976
16. Back to British Columbia,1976–1977
17. The Peoples’ Movement, 1977–1979
18. Constitutional Express, 1980

Part IV. Final Days
19. European Express, 1981–1982
20. Passing the Torch, 1982–1989

Epilogue
Afterword - Kanahus Manuel

Additional Information
402 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Revised, 2nd Edition

A detailed transnational history of Indigenous activism in Northwestern Ontario and its global significance.

Indigenous activism put small-town northern Ontario on the map in the 1960s and early 1970s. Kenora, Ontario, was home to a four-hundred-person march, popularly called "Canada's First Civil Rights March," and a two-month-long armed occupation of a small lakefront park. Canada's Other Red Scare shows how important it is to link the local and the global to broaden narratives of resistance in the 1960s; it is a history not of isolated events closed off from the present but of decolonization as a continuing process. Scott Rutherford explores with rigour and sensitivity the Indigenous political protest and social struggle that took place in Northwestern Ontario and Treaty 3 territory from 1965 to 1974. Drawing on archival documents, media coverage, published interviews, memoirs, and social movement literature, as well as his own lived experience as a settler growing up in Kenora, he reconstructs a period of turbulent protest and the responses it provoked, from support to disbelief to outright hostility. Indigenous organizers advocated for a wide range of issues, from better employment opportunities to the recognition of nationhood, by using such tactics as marches, cultural production, community organizing, journalism, and armed occupation. They drew inspiration from global currents - from black American freedom movements to Third World decolonization - to challenge the inequalities and racial logics that shaped settler-colonialism and daily life in Kenora. Accessible and wide-reaching, Canada's Other Red Scare makes the case that Indigenous political protest during this period should be thought of as both local and transnational, an urgent exercise in confronting the experience of settler-colonialism in places and moments of protest, when its logic and acts of dispossession are held up like a mirror.

Reviews
"I was truly impressed with this book. Rutherford provides detailed insights into historical developments in the Kenora region and the post–World War II racism that is so fundamental in shaping current Indigenous realities. The almost seamless integration with global political commentary and international debates is simply superb. There are tough concepts presented here – and folks will find them uncomfortable – but a study like this is much overdue and will attract considerable international attention." - Ken Coates, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments / vii
Figures follow page viii
Introduction: The Town with a Bad Name / 3

1 Canada’s Alabama? Race, Racism, and the Indian Rights March in Kenora / 21

2 “Resolving Conflicts”: Culture, Development, and the Problem of Settlement / 40

3 “The quest for self-determination”: The Third World, Anti-colonialism, and “Red Power” / 62

4 “Nobody seems to listen”: The Violent Death Report and Resistance to Continuing Indifference / 83

5 The Anicinabe Park Occupation: Red Power and the Meaning of Violence in a Settler Society / 104

6 The Native People’s Caravan: Surveillance, Agents Provocateurs, and Multi-racial Coalitions / 124

Conclusion: Dear Louis Cameron / 145

Notes / 153
Bibliography / 187
Index / 203

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.98" x 9.01"

Privileging Indigenous voices and experiences, Intimate Integration documents the rise and fall of North American transracial adoption projects, including the Adopt Indian and Métis Project and the Indian Adoption Project. Allyson D. Stevenson argues that the integration of adopted Indian and Métis children mirrored the new direction in post-war Indian policy and welfare services. She illustrates how the removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities took on increasing political and social urgency, contributing to what we now call the "Sixties Scoop."

Making profound contributions to the history of settler colonialism in Canada, Intimate Integration sheds light on the complex reasons behind persistent social inequalities in child welfare.

Reviews
"While the process of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada has raised awareness about residential schooling, what remains less known is the equally devastating systemic and ongoing assault on Indigenous children through the child welfare system. Allyson D. Stevenson thoroughly maps out this truth, shedding new light on the role of the state in causing multigenerational trauma to Indigenous families." — Kim Anderson, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Relationships, University of Guelph, author of A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood

"Intimate Integration is politically sharp, carefully researched, and intellectually generous. Allyson D. Stevenson transforms how we see modern Canadian colonialism and the range of ways that Indigenous people have resisted and rebuilt in the face of it." — Adele Perry, Department of History and Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Manitoba

"Deftly weaving together academic training in history and lived experience as a Métis adoptee, Allyson D. Stevenson provides a path-breaking, powerful, eye-opening study that is essential reading for Canadians seeking to understand the trauma of child removal on Indigenous families and communities as well as their resistance and resilience." — Sarah Carter, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Prologue

Introduction

1. The Bleeding Heart of Settler Colonialism 

Indigenous Legal Orders and the Indian Act 
From wáhkôhtowin to Transracial Adoption 

2. Adoptive Kinship and Belonging 

Gender and Family Life in Cree Métis Saskatchewan 
The Emergence of the Euro-Canadian Adoption Paradigm 
Indigenous Adoption and Euro-Canadian Law 

3. Rehabilitating the “Subnormal [Métis] Family” in Saskatchewan 

4. The Green Lake Children’s Shelter Experiment: From Institutionalization to Integration in Saskatchewan 

The Social Work Profession and the Rationalized Logics of Indigenous Child Removal in Saskatchewan 

5. Post-War Liberal Citizenship and the Colonization of Indigenous Kinship 

The 1951 Indian Act Revisions and the rise of “Jurisdictional Disputes” 

6. Child Welfare as System and Lived Experience 

Adopting a Solution to the Indian Problem 

7. Saskatchewan’s Indigenous Resurgence and the Restoration of Indigenous Kinship and Caring 

8. Confronting Cultural Genocide in the 1980s

Conclusion: Intimate Indigenization 

Epilogue: Coming Home 

Bibliography 

Primary Sources
Interviews 
Newspapers 

Government Documents 

Statues, Regulations, and Court Cases 
Statutes of Canada 
Saskatchewan Statues 
Statutes of the United States 
Archival Series 
Printed Government Documents 

Canada. Department of Citizenship and Immigration. Indian Affairs Branch. Annual Reports, 1950–1965 

Printed Primary Sources 
Secondary Sources 
Websites

Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 47 illustrations | Paperback

Left out of the national apology and reconciliation process begun in 2008, survivors of residential schools in Labrador and Newfoundland received a formal apology from the Canadian government in 2017. This recognition finally brought them into the circle of residential school survivors across Canada, and acknowledged their experiences as similarly painful and traumatic.

For years, the story of residential schools has been told by the authorities who ran them. A Long Journey helps redress this imbalance by listening closely to the accounts of former students, as well as drawing extensively on government, community, and school archives. The book examines the history of boarding schools in Labrador and St. Anthony, and, in doing so, contextualizes the ongoing determination of Indigenous communities to regain control over their children’s education.

Educator Information
This resource is recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list as being useful for grades 10 to 12 for English Language Arts, Law, and Social Studies.

Caution: contains descriptions of mental, physical, and sexual abuse.

Additional Information
528 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

The Whaling People live along the west coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery in Washington. They comprise more than 20 First Nations, including the Nuu-chah-nulth (formerly called Nootka), Ditidaht, Pacheedaht and Makah. These socially related people enjoyed a highly organized, tradition-based culture for centuries before Europeans arrived. As whaling societies, they had a unique relationship with the sea.

In The Whaling People, Eugene Arima and Alan Hoover give an intimate account of the traditional ways in which these coastal people looked at and understood the world they lived in. They present the activities, technologies, and rituals that the Whaling People used to make a living in their complex coastal environments, and their beliefs about the natural and supernatural forces that affected their lives. The book features 12 narratives collected from First Nations elders, each illustrated with original drawings by the celebrated Hesquiaht artist Tim Paul.

This informative and entertaining book celebrates the still-thriving cultures of the Whaling People, who survived the devastating effects of colonial power and influences. It includes a history of treaty-making in BC, leading up to the just-ratified Maa-nulth Treaty signed by five First Nations of the Whaling People.

Additional Information
272 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Authenticity Note: Because of the artwork and narratives contributed to this work from First Nations elders and Hesquiaht artist Tim Paul, it has received the Authentic Text and Artwork labels. It's up to readers to determine if this work qualifies as authentic for their purposes.

Over the past fifty years, Canada's Indigenous Affairs department (now two departments with more than 30 federal co-delivery partners) has mushroomed into a "super-province" delivering birth-to-death programs and services to First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. This vast entity has jurisdictional reach over 90-percent of Canada's landscape, and an annual budget of some $20-billion. Yet Indigenous people have no means to hold this "super-province" accountable to them. Not a single person in this entity has been elected by Indigenous people to represent their interests. Not one. When it comes to federal Indigenous policy, ordinary Indigenous people in Canada are voiceless and powerless.

In Let the People Speak: Oppression in a Time of Reconciliation, author and journalist Sheilla Jones raises an important question: are the well-documented social inequities in Indigenous communities--high levels of poverty, suicide, incarceration, children in care, family violence--the symptoms of this long-standing, institutionalized powerlessness? If so, the solution lies in empowerment. And the means of empowerment is already embedded in the historic treaties. Jones argues that there can be meaningful reconciliation only when ordinary Indigenous Canadians are finally empowered to make their voices heard, and ordinary non-Indigenous Canadians can join with them to advance a shared future.

Educator Information
Includes a foreword from Sheila North. Sheila is from the Bunibonibee Cree Nation and is the former Grand Chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), and former Chief Communications Officer for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. She is a former Gemini-nominated CBC journalist, former CTV journalist and documentarist.

Additional Information
256 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

"Chapter after chapter, it's like one shattered myth after another." - NPR

A New York Times bestseller: The sweeping history–and counter-narrative–of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present.

The received idea of Native American history–as promulgated by books like Dee Brown’s mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee–has been that it essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative, one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

Melding history with reportage and memoir, Treuer traces the tribes’ distinctive cultures from first contact, exploring how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don’t know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.

Reviews
“An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait of ‘Indian survival, resilience, adaptability, pride and place in modern life.’ Rarely has a single volume in Native American history attempted such comprehensiveness . . . Ultimately, Treuer’s powerful book suggests the need for soul-searching about the meanings of American history and the stories we tell ourselves about this nation’s past.” —New York Times Book Review

“In a marvel of research and storytelling, an Ojibwe writer traces the dawning of a new resistance movement born of deep pride and a reverence for tradition. Treuer’s chronicle of rebellion and resilience is a manifesto and rallying cry.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Treuer is an easy companion: thoughtful, provocative and challenging. He tells a disturbing yet heroic story that may very well be seen as a definition of ‘American exceptionalism.’” —Washington Post

“Sweeping, essential history...Treuer’s storytelling skills shine...[an] elegant handling of [a] complex narrative.” —The Economist

“Treuer provides a sweeping account of how the trope of the vanishing Indian has distorted our current understanding of Native peoples. Instead of seeing Wounded Knee as the final chapter, he recovers the importance of World War II, urban migration, casinos, and the computer age in reshaping the modern Native American experience. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is written with conviction and illuminates the past in a deeply compelling way.” —Nancy Isenberg, author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

“An ambitious, gripping, and elegantly written synthesis that is much more than the sum of its excellent parts—which include a rich array of Native lives, Treuer’s own family and tribe among them--The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee brings a recognition of indigenous vitality and futurity to a century of modern Indian history.” —Philip J. Deloria, Professor of History, Harvard University

Additional Information
528 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | 11 maps and photos throughout 

While cities like Winnipeg, Minneapolis, Saskatoon, Rapid City, Edmonton, Missoula, Regina, and Tulsa are places where Indigenous marginalization has been most acute, they have also long been sites of Indigenous placemaking and resistance to settler colonialism.

Although such cities have been denigrated as “ordinary” or banal in the broader urban literature, they are exceptional sites to study Indigenous resurgence. T​he urban centres of the continental plains have featured Indigenous housing and food co-operatives, social service agencies, and schools. The American Indian Movement initially developed in Minneapolis in 1968, and Idle No More emerged in Saskatoon in 2013.

The editors and authors of Settler City Limits, both Indigenous and settler, address urban struggles involving Anishinaabek, Cree, Creek, Dakota, Flathead, Lakota, and Métis peoples. Collectively, these studies showcase how Indigenous people in the city resist ongoing processes of colonial dispossession and create spaces for themselves and their families.

Working at intersections of Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, urban studies, geography, and sociology, this book examines how the historical and political conditions of settler colonialism have shaped urban development in the Canadian Prairies and American Plains. Settler City Limits frames cities as Indigenous spaces and places, both in terms of the historical geographies of the regions in which they are embedded, and with respect to ongoing struggles for land, life, and self-determination.

Contributors: Chris Andersen, Nicholas Brown, Elizabeth Comack, Heather Dorries, Nick Estes, Adam Gaudry, Robert Henry, David Hugill, Sharmeen Khan, Corey Laberge, Brenda Macdougall, Tyler McCreary, Lindsey Claire Smith, Michelle Stewart, Zoe Todd, Julie Tomiak

Reviews
“Settler City Limits breaks ground, shattering the powerful authoritative structures of racism that have dichotomized rural and urban space, and Indigenous peoples’ relation to these as a central force sustaining and fortifying settler colonialism.” – Heather A. Howard-Bobiwash, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Michigan State University, and Affiliated Faculty Centre for Indigenous Studies, University of Toronto

Educator Information
Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 Land and Politics

Part 2 Contestation, Resistance, Solidarities

Part 3 Policing and Social Control

Part 4 Life and Death

Additional Information
368 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Authenticity Note: Contains contributions from both Indigenous peoples and settlers.

A penetrating and deeply moving account of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.

Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference has created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected. Through interviews with those closest to the victims--mothers and fathers, siblings and friends--McDiarmid provides an intimate, first-hand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada--now estimated to number up to 4,000--contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.

Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.

Additional Information
352 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

An exploration of the historical and future significance of Canada's Native soul.

Eatenonha is the Wendat word for love and respect for the Earth and Mother Nature. For many Native peoples and newcomers to North America, Canada is a motherland, an Eatenonha - a land in which all can and should feel included, valued, and celebrated.

In Eatenonha Georges Sioui presents the history of a group of Wendat known as the Seawi Clan and reveals the deepest, most honoured secrets possessed by his people, by all people who are Indigenous, and by those who understand and respect Indigenous ways of thinking and living. Providing a glimpse into the lives, ideology, and work of his family and ancestors, Sioui weaves a tale of the Wendat's sparsely documented historical trajectory and his family's experiences on a reserve. Through an original retelling of the Indigenous commercial and social networks that existed in the northeast before European contact, the author explains that the Wendat Confederacy was at the geopolitical centre of a commonwealth based on peace, trade, and reciprocity. This network, he argues, was a true democracy, where all beings of all natures were equally valued and respected and where women kept their place at the centre of their families and communities.

Identifying Canada's first civilizations as the originators of modern democracy, Eatenonha represents a continuing quest to heal and educate all peoples through an Indigenous way of comprehending life and the world.

Reviews
"Eatenonha is a unique interweaving of self, family, First Nation, and Indigenous peoples of the Americas and elsewhere." - John Steckley, Humber College

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 10 to 12 for use in these areas: English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Additional Information
200 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Surviving Canada: Indigenous Peoples Celebrate 150 Years of Betrayal is a collection of elegant, thoughtful, and powerful reflections about Indigenous Peoples' complicated, and often frustrating, relationship with Canada, and how--even 150 years after Confederation--the fight for recognition of their treaty and Aboriginal rights continues.

Through essays, art, and literature, Surviving Canada examines the struggle for Indigenous Peoples' to celebrate their cultures and exercise their right to control their own economic development, lands, water, and lives.

The Indian Act, Idle No More, and the legacy of residential schools are just a few of the topics covered by a wide range of elders, scholars, artists, and activists. Contributors include Mary Eberts, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Leroy Little Bear.

Reviews
"Published to coincide with celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation, this insightful compendium of largely Indigenous voices challenges all Canadians to improve relations with and conditions for the continents First Nations Peoples. Poems, essays, interviews, song lyrics, and illustrations bring razor-sharp clarity to historic and contemporary issues, including the shameful history of residential schools, current reconciliation efforts, conflicts over resource development, and how best to confront legacies of racism and colonialism. The editors' aim to provide an accessible educational tool is well-served by coverage of diverse topics, including over-representation of Indigenous people in prison, land dispossession, and how social amnesia prevents progress. Equally impressive is the recovery of repressed histories, such as First Nation women's suffrage struggles, how the city of Winnipeg was built with stolen water, and the critical battle to preserve language rights. Contributors including the late actor Chief Dan George, singer-songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie, and a number of writers and activists, such as Erica Violet Lee and Helen Knott share feelings of anger and disappointment at past and ongoing injustices, as well as an incredible hope that insistent resilience that has marked Indigenous existence in Canada will help spark a new awakening for all Canadians." - Publishers Weekly

Additional Information
464 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"