Social and Cultural Studies

How can social movements help bring about large-scale systems change? This is the question Jen Gobby sets out to answer in More Powerful Together. As an activist, Gobby has been actively involved with climate justice, anti-pipeline, and Indigenous land defense movements in Canada for many years. As a researcher, she has sat down with folks from these movements and asked them to reflect on their experiences with movement building. Bringing their incredibly poignant insights into dialogue with scholarly and activist literature on transformation, Gobby weaves together a powerful story about how change happens.

In reflecting on what’s working and what’s not working in these movements, taking inventory of the obstacles hindering efforts, and imagining the strategies for building a powerful movement of movements, a common theme emerges: relationships are crucial to building movements strong enough to transform systems. Indigenous scholarship, ecological principles, and activist reflections all converge on the insight that the means and ends of radical transformation is in forging relationships of equality and reciprocity with each other and with the land.

It is through this, Gobby argues, that we become more powerful together.

100% of the royalties made from the sales of this book are being donated to Indigenous Climate Action.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Thinking Together About Changing Everything
The Climate and Inequality Crises in Canada
Understanding the Crises
Envisioning Alternatives
How We Get From Here to There
Taking Stock of Where We Are At and What Stands in Our Way
Overcoming the Barriers and Building More Powerful Movements
“We Get There Together, or We Don’t Get There at All”
Appendix
References
Index

Additional Information
266 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

The recipes and traditions found in this book reflect the culture and the knowledge of the Medicine Wheel, featuring 26 edible and medicinal plants that you can gather in nature as Carrie and her grandmother did.

Create a luxurious and natural beauty regime by crafting your own lotions, soaps and teas from all-natural ingredients. From stress-busting teas and bath bombs to skin-smoothing lotions and creams, get vibrant skin and a healthy glow with Carrie’s creations based on her grandmother’s traditional teachings.

"I remember gathering plants and berries with my grandmother while she shared her stories and her deep understanding of traditional plants and their uses. My grandmother healed us with her medicinal plants—everything from pink eye, sore throats, stomach ailments, aches and pains, and infections. She’d make us these beautiful, healing teas." –Carrie

Additional Information
144 pages | 6.00" x 7.75"

Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her Potawatomi identity both informs and challenges her faith.

Curtice draws on her personal journey, poetry, imagery, and stories of the Potawatomi people to address themes at the forefront of today's discussions of faith and culture in a positive and constructive way. She encourages us to embrace our own origins and to share and listen to each other's stories so we can build a more inclusive and diverse future. Each of our stories matters for the church to be truly whole. As Curtice shares what it means to experience her faith through the lens of her Indigenous heritage, she reveals that a vibrant spirituality has its origins in identity, belonging, and a sense of place.

Awards

• Foreword INDIES 2020 Book of the Year Award (SILVER Winner for Religion)
• 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award (Inspirational)
• 2021 Midwest Book Award (Silver Winner for Religion/Philosophy)

Reviews
"It isn't very often that a book about identity--let alone dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy--reads like a poem, but that's Kaitlin. She is thoughtful decolonization set to music and wrapped in love. Her story is compelling and healing, and her path is an invitation to all of us, even as she challenges our assumptions and imaginations. I treasure each of these sacred words, rooted in her story and in the larger stories we still carry. This book can make all of us both more free and more connected to one another."- Sarah Bessey, author of Miracles and Other Reasonable Things and Jesus Feminist

"In the pages of Native, Kaitlin B. Curtice is a poet, professor, storyteller, and unapologetic truth-teller. This book is required reading for all those committed to learning the truth about the land we live on and the institutions we live inside of. It both stretched me and comforted me--it called me out and called me home. Curtice is a vital artist and teacher, and Native is her most important offering yet. It will remain on my shelf forever." - Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed and founder of Together Rising

"There is no doubt that Christianity has been the handmaiden to the destruction of Indigenous nations. Native is more than Kaitlin Curtice's testament. It is an indigenization of faith and, more important, a moral call not only for the Christian church but for everyone to reckon with the genocidal legacies of US settler colonialism and African slavery. As she humbly puts it, decolonization is an invitation and a gift for humankind to re-establish correct relations with each other--and the earth." - Nick Estes, cofounder of The Red Nation and author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

"Because Curtice's writing is so personal, engaging, hospitable, and invitational, readers quickly come alongside of her, accompanying her in her journey while beginning their own. She weaves stories of journeying, wandering, and creation into the structure of her writing, and invites and then challenges her readers to unpack the hard topics of white supremacy, racism, and European settler colonization that have affected each one of us since the Europeans first arrived in this land determined to strip Native Peoples of every trace of their being--personhood, identity, land, language, culture, and society. . . . Native: Identity, Belonging, and Discovering God serves as a guidebook for us to participate in God's reconciliation with God, with each other, and with ourselves."- Susie Carter-Wiggins, Presbyterian Outlook

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Beginnings
1. Land and Water
2. Journeying Stories
3. Creation Stories
4. My Own Beginning

Part 2: Searching for Meaning
5. The Problem of Whiteness
6. Stereotypes and Survival
7. A Heart Language
8. Gifts of Prayer

Part 3: The Struggle for Truth
9. Ceremony
10. Ancestors
11. Self, Examined
12. The Pain of Church Spaces

Part 4: Working
13. Wake-Up Calls
14. When the Church Gets to Work
15. Keeping Watch
16. Fighting Invisibility

Part 5: Bearing Fruit in a New World
17. Finding One Another
18. The Future of Decolonization
19. Returning
20. A New World for Our Children
Afterword

Additional Information
208 pages | 5.50" x 8.40" | Paperback

From Griffin Poetry Prize winner Jordan Abel comes a groundbreaking and emotionally devastating autobiographical meditation on the complicated legacies that Canada's reservation school system has cast on his grandparents', his parents' and his own generation.

NISHGA is a deeply personal and autobiographical book that attempts to address the complications of contemporary Indigenous existence. As a Nisga'a writer, Jordan Abel often finds himself in a position where he is asked to explain his relationship to Nisga'a language, Nisga'a community, and Nisga'a cultural knowledge. However, as an intergenerational survivor of residential school--both of his grandparents attended the same residential school in Chilliwack, British Columbia--his relationship to his own Indigenous identity is complicated to say the least.

NISHGA explores those complications and is invested in understanding how the colonial violence originating at the Coqualeetza Indian Residential School impacted his grandparents' generation, then his father's generation, and ultimately his own. The project is rooted in a desire to illuminate the realities of intergenerational survivors of residential school, but sheds light on Indigenous experiences that may not seem to be immediately (or inherently) Indigenous.

Drawing on autobiography, a series of interconnected documents (including pieces of memoir, transcriptions of talks, and photography), NISHGA is a book about confronting difficult truths and it is about how both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples engage with a history of colonial violence that is quite often rendered invisible.

Reviews
“With NISHGA, Jordan Abel has reinvented the memoir, incorporating personal anecdotes, archival footage, legal documentation, photos and concrete poetry to create an unforgettable portrait of an Indigenous artist trying to find his place in a world that insists Indigeneity can only ever be the things that he is not. Abel deftly shows us the devastating impact this gate-keeping has had on those who, through no decisions of their own, have been ripped from our communities and forced to claw their way back home, or to a semblance of home, often unassisted. This is a brave, vulnerable, brilliant work that will change the face of nonfiction, as well as the conversations around what constitutes Indigenous identity. It's a work I will return to again and again.” —Alicia Elliott, author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

“In NISHGA, Jordan Abel puts to use the documentary impulse that has already established him as an artist of inimitable methodological flair. By way of a mixture of testimonial vignettes, recordings of academic talks, found text/art, and visual art/concrete poetry, Abel sculpts a narrative of dislocation and self-examination that pressurizes received notions of “Canada” and “history” and “art” and “literature” and “belonging” and “forgiveness.” Yes, it is a book of that magnitude, of that enormity and power. By its Afterword, NISHGA adds up to a work of personal and national reckoning that is by turns heartbreaking and scathing.” —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of NDN Coping Mechanisms and A History of My Brief Body

"This is a heart-shattering read, and will also be a blanket for others looking for home. NISHGA is a work of absolute courage and vulnerability. I am in complete awe of the sorrow here and the bravery. Mahsi cho, Jordan.” —Richard Van Camp, author of Moccasin Square Gardens

“Jordan Abel digs deeply into the questions we should all be asking. Questions that need no explanation but ones that require us to crawl back into our bones, back into the marrow of our understanding. NISHGA is a ceremony where we need to be silent. Where we need to listen.” —Gregory Scofield, author of Witness, I Am

Additional Information
288 pages | 7.25" x 8.62"

Western theory and practice are over-represented in child welfare services for Indigenous peoples, not the other way around. Contributors to this collection invert the long-held, colonial relationship between Indigenous peoples and systems of child welfare in Canada. By understanding the problem as the prevalence of the Western universe in child welfare services rather than Indigenous peoples, efforts to understand and support Indigenous children and families are fundamentally transformed. Child welfare for Indigenous peoples must be informed and guided by Indigenous practices and understandings. Privileging the iyiniw (First people, people of the land) universe leads to reinvigorating traditional knowledges, practices and ceremonies related to children and families that have existed for centuries.

The chapters of ohpikinâwasowin/Growing a Child describe wisdom-seeking journeys and service-provision changes that occurred in Treaty 6, Treaty 7, and Treaty 8 territory on Turtle Island. Many of the teachings are nehiyaw (Cree) and some are from the Blackfoot people. Taken together, this collection forms a whole related to the Turtle Lodge Teachings, which expresses nehiyaw stages of development, and works to undo the colonial trappings of Canada’s current child welfare system.

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Introduction: Entering the Circle (Leona Makokis, Ralph Bodor, Avery Calhoun, and Stephanie Tyler)

iyiniw tâpwêwin ekwa kiskeyitamowin (Leona Makokis, Ralph Bodor, Avery Calhoun, Stephanie Tyler, Amanda McLellan, Ariel Veldhuisen, Kristina Kopp, Suzanne McLeod, and Sharon Goulet)

miyawata. Family Teachings on Turtle Island (Carolyn Barker)

kayiwatisi. Indigenous Program Indicators (Carol Turner and Ralph Bodor)

ayahpatisi. Practice as Ceremony (Amber Dion, Stephanie Tyler, Christie Pace, and Karen Delver)

tâpwêwin. Foundations of wīcihitāsowin (Angie Pinder and Avery Calhoun)

kîseyihtamowin. miyo ohpikinâwasowin: Igniting Spiritual Fires (Kristina Kopp, Caleb Anacker, Angie Pinder, and Bonda Thompson)

ayawawasowin. pe kīwe Come Home: Indigenous Adoptee Re-Connection with Self, Family and Community (Fran Kuefler Jose and Judy McRee)

kakehtawewin. Bringing Ceremony Home: An Inaugural kiskinohamakewin (Stephanie Tyler and Avery Calhoun)

Conclusion: Closing the Circle

Glossary: English Meaning and Pronunciation of nehiyaw Words
Glossary: English Meaning of nehiyaw Kinship Terms
References
Index

Additional Information
224 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

A vision shared. A manifesto. This remarkable work argues that Anishinabeg need to reconnect with non-colonized modes of thinking, social organization, and decision making in order to achieve genuine sovereignty. In Our Hearts Are as One Fire, Jerry Fontaine recounts the stories of three Ota’wa, Shawnee, and Ojibway-Anishinabe leaders who challenged aggressive colonial expansion – Obwandiac, Tecumtha, and Shingwauk. He weaves Ojibwaymowin language and knowledge with conversations with elders and descendants of the three leaders. The result is a book that reframes the history of Manitou Aki, sharing a vision of how Anishinabe spiritual, cultural, legal, and political principles will support the leaders of today and tomorrow.

Reviews
"A critically important manifesto written by an Anishinabe leader. Every First Nations leader in North America must read Our Hearts Are as One Fire. It is the book we have all been waiting for." — Matthew L.M. Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, Michigan State University

"makwa ogimaa presents an intimate story of Anishinabe traditional leadership, one that reflects the place of “an ethics of relationship” that is so urgently needed as we search for paradigms of leadership that once again connect us to each other and to the Earth."— Gregory A. Cajete, professor of Native American Studies and Education, University of New Mexico

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Foreword / Lee Anne Cameron

Ah-di-so-kay Anishinabeg / Traditional Storytellers

Maaitaa / Prologue

Nitam igo / Introduction

1 Gah-o-mah-mah-wahn-dah-wi-zid gah-ki-nah-gay-goo ji-gi-kayn-dah-so aki / A prophet is someone who has a completed view of the world

2 Obwandiac / The Man who Travelled and Stopped at Many Places

3 Tecumtha / He Walked Across

4 Shingwauk / The White Pine, Boss of All the Trees

5 N’swi-ish-ko-day-kawn Anishinabeg O’dish-ko-day-kawn / Our Hearts Are as One Fire

6 Meegwetch bi-zhin-dah-wi-yeg / Thank you for listening to me

Wayekwaase / It is finished

Appendix

Timeline

Glossary; Notes; Index

Additional Information
280 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Calls to Action in June 2015, governments, churches, non-profit, professional and community organizations, corporations, schools and universities, clubs and individuals have asked: “How can I/we participate in reconciliation?”

Recognizing that reconciliation is not only an ultimate goal, but a decolonizing process of journeying in ways that embody everyday acts of resistance, resurgence, and solidarity, coupled with renewed commitments to justice, dialogue, and relationship-building, Pathways of Reconciliation helps readers find their way forward.

The essays in Pathways of Reconciliation address the themes of reframing, learning and healing, researching, and living. They engage with different approaches to reconciliation (within a variety of reconciliation frameworks, either explicit or implicit) and illustrate the complexities of the reconciliation process itself. They canvass multiple and varied pathways of reconciliation, from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, reflecting a diversity of approaches to the mandate given to all Canadians by the TRC with its Calls to Action.

Together the authors — academics, practitioners, students and ordinary citizens — demonstrate the importance of trying and learning from new and creative approaches to thinking about and practicing reconciliation and reflect on what they have learned from their attempts (both successful and less successful) in the process.

Reviews
“Alerts Canadians to what must be done if we are to seriously embrace the goal of decolonizing relations with Indigenous peoples." – Peter Russell, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto

Educator & Series Information
Table of Contents
Introduction

Ch. 1—Paved with Comfortable Intentions: Moving Beyond Liberal Multiculturalism and Civil Rights Frames on the Road to Transformative Reconciliation

Ch. 2—Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation: Lessons from Gacaca in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Ch. 3—Monitoring That Reconciles: Reflecting on the TRC’s Call for a National Council for Reconciliation

Ch. 4—A Move to Distract: Mobilizing Truth and Reconciliation in Settler Colonial States

Ch. 5—Teaching Truth Before Reconciliation

Ch. 6—“The Honour of Righting a Wrong:” Circles for Reconciliation

Ch. 7—What Does Reconciliation Mean to Newcomers Post-TRC?

Ch. 8—Healing from Residential School Experiences: Support Workers and Elders on Healing and the Role of Mental Health Professionals

Ch. 9—Learning and reconciliation for the collaborative governance of forestland in northwestern Ontario, Canada

Ch. 10—Bending to the Prevailing Wind: How Apology Repetition Helps Speakers and Hearers Walk Together

Ch. 11—How do I reconcile Child and Family Services’ practice of cultural genocide with my own practice as a CFS social worker?

Ch. 12—Repatriation, Reconciliation, and Refiguring Relationships. A Case study of the return of children’s artwork from the Alberni Indian Residential School to Survivors and their families

Other contributors to this work include: Peter Bush, Tracey Carr, Brian Chartier, Mary Anne Clarke, Ko’ona Cochrane, Aimée Craft, Raymond F. Currie, Rachel (Yacaa?ał) George, Erica Jurgens, Régine Uwibereyeho King, Sheryl Lightfoot, David B. MacDonald, Benjamin Maiangwa, Cody O’Neil, Paulette Regan, Cathy Rocke, John Sinclair, Andrea Walsh, Melanie Zurba

This book is part of the Perceptions on Truth and Reconciliation series.

Additional Information
336 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

A powerful case for the essential role of plants and environments in recognizing Indigenous Peoples' land rights around the world.

For millennia, plants and their habitats have been fundamental to the lives of Indigenous Peoples - as sources of food and nutrition, medicines, and technological materials - and central to ceremonial traditions, spiritual beliefs, narratives, and language. While the First Peoples of Canada and other parts of the world have developed deep cultural understandings of plants and their environments, this knowledge is often underrecognized in debates about land rights and title, reconciliation, treaty negotiations, and traditional territories. Plants, People, and Places argues that the time is long past due to recognize and accommodate Indigenous Peoples' relationships with plants and their ecosystems. Essays in this volume, by leading voices in philosophy, Indigenous law, and environmental sustainability, consider the critical importance of botanical and ecological knowledge to land rights and related legal and government policy, planning, and decision making in Canada, the United States, Sweden, and New Zealand. Analyzing specific cases in which Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights to the environment have been denied or restricted, this collection promotes future prosperity through more effective and just recognition of the historical use of and care for plants in Indigenous cultures. A timely book featuring Indigenous perspectives on reconciliation, environmental sustainability, and pathways toward ethnoecological restoration, Plants, People, and Places reveals how much there is to learn from the history of human relationships with nature.

Reviews
"Nancy Turner is respected at every level of the field and this book brings together many of the collaborators she has worked with throughout her career. The chapters they contribute are impressive, and as a whole they comprise the collective research and experience of over forty authors all demonstrating how Indigenous peoples, past and present, have contributed to land rights, policies, ethics, and caring for the earth." - Scott Herron, Ferris State University

Educator Information

Additional Information
554 pages | 6.25" x 9.25"

Experience the riveting, powerful story of the Native American civil rights movement and the resulting struggle for identity told through the high-flying career of West Coast rock 'n' roll pioneers Redbone.

You've heard the hit song "Come and Get Your Love" in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, but the story of the band behind it is one of cultural, political, and social importance.

Brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas were talented Native American rock musicians that took the 1960s Sunset Strip by storm. They influenced The Doors and jammed with Jimmy Hendrix before he was "Jimi," and the idea of a band made up of all Native Americans soon followed. Determined to control their creative vision and maintain their cultural identity, they eventually signed a deal with Epic Records in 1969. But as the American Indian Movement gained momentum the band took a stand, choosing pride in their ancestry over continued commercial reward.

Created in cooperation of the Vegas family, authors Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni with artist Thibault Balahy take painstaking steps to ensure the historical accuracy of this important and often overlooked story of America's past. Part biography and part research journalism, Redbone tells a vivid story about this neglected chapter of American history.

Reviews
"Compelling reading for fans of roots rock and Native American history in middle school and up." —School Library Journal

"An entertaining, enlightening history for music fans. Balahy’s loose, energetic drawings; imaginative layouts; and playful use of color make everything pop." —Publishers Weekly

"Musicians with heart put their people before profits in an inspirational tale. Well-researched and well-paced, this book will introduce a new generation to the music and impact of Redbone." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred review)

"In some eyes, the guys in Redbone, still the most successful Native American rock band this country has produced, are indeed superheroes. Not all heroes wear capes, and some wear buckskin." —Houston Chronicle

"In the early sixties, Pat and his brother, Lolly, perform on the Sunset Strip, crossing paths with The Byrds, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix, who gives the brothers the idea of forming 'an all Indian band. That'd make this country sit up.' The seed germinates and Redbone bursts forth. Staebler and Paoloni offer a lens onto aspects of the twentieth-century Native American struggle for civil rights and injustices like forced schooling and racist policing, as well as the 1968 birth of the American Indian Movement. Balahy's art is particularly splendid and well-varied in style for the complex subject matter." —Booklist

Additional Information
160 pages | 7.00" x 10.00"

S’TENISTOLW is a SENĆOŦEN term referencing the concept of ‘moving forward’. This book highlights both the doing and being of Indigenous education. Authors share their knowledge on the themes of: Land-Based Learning; Supporting Learners; Indigenization; and Strengthening Alliances. Keynote writings by renowned Indigenous scholars Gregory Cajete, Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Kathy Absolon are intertwined throughout the book.

Reviews"
"This book is like a visit home, to talk with the wisest people you know on your reserve or in your neighbourhood. There is an intimacy in how each author shares their own stories of hope, insight and resilience. You will be nourished, strengthened, and inspired. You may be even gently chastised as you read about how Indigenous ways of learning are gaining ground in the educational settings around us. If you enjoy such visits you will treasure this book." — John Borrows, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law, University of Victoria

"S’TENISTOLW is a wonderful feast of stories, experiences, teachings, and approaches of educational and community leaders involved in Indigenous post-secondary education. Practitioners-scholars-leaders receive gifts of hope, inspiration, and transforming potential to live Indigenous education in good ways through innovative Indigenous pedagogies, relational theories, authentic community and land-based programs, and critical engagement." — Jo-Ann Archibald, PhD, Professor of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia

"I can’t wait to share this book! It offers timely and pivotal insights from leading theorists and practitioners about the transformational project of “Indigenizing” the academy and other institutions. I’m sure it will serve educators, students and community members alike as we think through complex questions of transformative, Indigenous knowledge production and education." — Kim Anderson, PhD Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Relationships, University of Guelph

Additional Information
166 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, the majority of Canadians argued that European "civilization" must replace Indigenous culture. The ultimate objective was assimilation into the dominant society.

Seen but Not Seen explores the history of Indigenous marginalization and why non-Indigenous Canadians failed to recognize Indigenous societies and cultures as worthy of respect. Approaching the issue biographically, Donald B. Smith presents the commentaries of sixteen influential Canadians – including John A. Macdonald, George Grant, and Emily Carr – who spoke extensively on Indigenous subjects. Supported by documentary records spanning over nearly two centuries, Seen but Not Seen covers fresh ground in the history of settler-Indigenous relations.

Reviews
“The quality of scholarship is very high. Donald B. Smith is meticulous, building on decades of extensive and careful research and thoroughly documenting his writings and conclusions.” — Jennifer S.H. Brown, University of Winnipeg

“Offering revelation after revelation, each indicting the rich, privileged, and elite society of Canada, shackled in their own times, Donald B. Smith skillfully and poignantly reveals stories illuminating the truth. No celebrations here, and nowhere to hide as one ponders and copes with what could have been. Miigwech (thank you), Donald, for elevating us to our stage in time where we can own the imperative that yes, we can!” — Dean M. Jacobs, Walpole Island First Nation

“Donald B. Smith’s Seen but Not Seen could not possibly be more timely – and more welcome. This is the lifework of one of the country’s greatest historians. Canadians will see themselves in this book; they will not like much of what they see, but they will finish with a sense that reconciliation with First Nations is possible – so long as we first face the truths. These truths are here, in a remarkable work that covers everything from a re-evaluated John A. Macdonald to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is peopled with remarkable characters, many admirable, some despicable – Duncan Campbell Scott, John McDougall, Crowfoot, Long Lance, Kathleen Coburn, Emily Carr, Pauline Johnson, Harold Cardinal – and is wonderfully illustrated with archival photographs and maps.” — Roy MacGregor, columnist and feature writer for The Globe and Mail

“Impeccably researched, much like everything Donald B. Smith has written over his impressive career. This work is a gift from an historian on the cusp of retirement, who shares his archive to help us understand the history of Canada and outlines the gaps left for future, especially Indigenous, researchers to tackle.” — Deanna Reder, Simon Fraser University

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Maps

Prologue
Note on Terminology

1. John A. Macdonald and the “Indians”
2. Rev. John McDougall and the Stoney Nakoda
3. George Grant: An English Canadian Public Intellectual and the “Indians”
4. Chancellor John A. Boyd and a Fellow Georgian Bay Cottager, Kathleen Coburn 
5. Duncan Campbell Scott: Determined Assimilationist 
6. Paul A.W. Wallace and the “White Roots of Peace”
7. Quebec Viewpoints: From Lionel Groulx to Jacques Rousseau
8. Attitudes on the Pacific Coast: Franz Boas, Emily Carr, and Maisie Hurley 
9. Alberta Perspectives: Long Lance, John Laurie, Hugh Dempsey, and Harold Cardinal

Epilogue: The First Nations and Canada’s Conscience

Bibliography   
Notes
Index

Additional Information
488 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Within this volume Métis stories of strength, courage and resistance are shared. Each of the chapters describe a need to re-examine how social policy is formulated and have impacted our relatives and continue to impact our children. Today we are faced with particular challenges on the planet and in our communities. We have stretched Mother Earth to the limits of her capacity and she is fighting back. As someone said, ‘we need the Earth, but the Earth does not need us’. One of the invitations of this time is to reduce our footprint, our consumption and to restore balance and harmony between mankind and the environment.

Reviews
"This powerful collection revitalizes Métis teachings, history and perspectives and will inform social policy and public understandings of Métis identities, pedagogies, health, governance, and spirituality." - Sarah Wright Cardinal

"This book represents a remarkable collection of writing that reflects profound Métis knowledge and wisdom drawing on the insights of both historical and contemporary knowledge keepers. The result is a much needed and valuable resource to understanding Métis culture ranging from values to identity, land relationships, law and political acuity. It is an insightful and powerful tribute to Métis peoples and is certain to enhance your knowledge and understanding."  - Gwendolyn Gosek

"This important book, with its exclusive focus on the work of women and two-spirit people, celebrates the unique wisdom and perspective of Métis scholars and communities. Its blend of personal narratives and culturally-connected research shows clearly why Métis voices must be amplified in academia and beyond." - Lindsay Morcom

Additional Information
168 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

A remarkable and profound collection of reflections by one of North America’s most important Indigenous leaders.

My name is Wa’xaid, given to me by my people. ‘Wa’ is ‘the river’, ‘Xaid’ is ‘good’ – good river. Sometimes the river is not good. I am a Xenaksiala, I am from the Killer Whale Clan. I would like to walk with you in Xenaksiala lands. Where I will take you is the place of my birth. They call it the Kitlope. It is called Xesdu’wäxw (Huschduwaschdu) for ‘blue, milky, glacial water’. Our destination is what I would like to talk about, and a boat – I call it my magic canoe. It is a magical canoe because there is room for everyone who wants to come into it to paddle together. The currents against it are very strong but I believe we can reach that destination and this is the reason for our survival. —Cecil Paul

Who better to tell the narrative of our times about the restoration of land and culture than Wa’xaid (the good river), or Cecil Paul, a Xenaksiala elder who pursued both in his ancestral home, the Kitlope — now the largest protected unlogged temperate rainforest left on the planet. Paul’s cultural teachings are more relevant today than ever in the face of environmental threats, climate change and social unrest, while his personal stories of loss from residential schools, industrialization and theft of cultural property (the world-renowned Gps’golox pole) put a human face to the survivors of this particular brand of genocide.

Told in Cecil Paul’s singular, vernacular voice, Stories from the Magic Canoe spans a lifetime of experience, suffering and survival. This beautifully produced volume is in Cecil’s own words, as told to Briony Penn and other friends, and has been meticulously transcribed. Along with Penn’s biography of Cecil Paul, Following the Good River, Stories from the Magic Canoe provides a valuable documented history of a generation that continues to deal with the impacts of brutal colonization and environmental change at the hands of politicians, industrialists and those who willingly ignore the power of ancestral lands and traditional knowledge.

Reviews
“The Magic Canoe brings peace to one’s soul. It is a warm wind moving our hearts. Wa’xaid takes us on a journey that regenerates and empowers us. T’ismista, the stone hunter, looks down on the Magic Canoe and reminds us to listen to storytellers like Cecil Paul. This is a story for the family of man; we are all in the canoe together and our stories need to be shared with each other.” – Roy Henry Vickers

Educator Information
Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2019-2020 resource list, as well as the 2020-2021 resource list, for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.00" x 7.00" | Paperback

In August of 2016, Cree youth Colten Boushie was shot dead by Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley. Using colonial and socio-political narratives that underlie white rural settler life, the authors position the death of Boushie and trial of Stanley in relation to Indigenous histories and experiences in Saskatchewan. They point to the Stanley case as just one instance of Indigenous peoples' presence being seen as a threat to settler-colonial security, then used to sanction the exclusion, violent treatment, and death of Indigenous peoples and communities.

Additional Information
120 pages | 5.00" x 7.00"

At the age of seventeen, an Anishinabe boy who was raised in the south joined a James Bay Cree family in a one-room hunting cabin in the isolated wilderness of northern Quebec. In the five months that followed, he learned a way of life on the land with which few are familiar, where the daily focus is on the necessities of life, and where both skill and finesse are required for self-sufficiency.

In The Shoe Boy, that boy – Duncan McCue – takes us on an evocative journey that explores the hopeful confusion of the teenage years, entwined with the challenges and culture shock of coming from a mixed-race family and moving to the unfamiliar North. As he reflects on his search for his own personal identity, he illustrates the relationship Indigenous peoples have with their lands, and the challenges urban Indigenous people face when they seek to reconnect to traditional lifestyles.

The result is a contemplative, honest, and unexpected coming-of-age memoir set in the context of the Cree struggle to protect their way of life, after massive hydro-electric projects forever altered the landscape they know as Eeyou Istchee.

This memoir will be of interest to readers of all ages who want to know more about the interplay of traditional and contemporary Indigenous lifestyles, the challenges of identity for First Nations youth, and the relationship Indigenous peoples have with their land.

Reviews
"Frank, funny and evocative, The Shoe Boy deftly entwines the challenges of identity for First Nations youth, the sexual frustration and hopeful confusion of the teenage years, and the realities of living in an enduring state of culture shock." — CBC Books

"The Shoe Boy is a valuable read and will enrich anyone who tunes in to CBC Radio One on Sunday afternoons, as McCue establishes his voice in the conversation of Canada.— Thomas Billingsley, Globe and Mail

Educator Information
Related Topics: Biography, Memoirs, and Letters; Canadian Studies; Indigenous Studies.

Recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 9 to 12 for English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Caution: mature language, references to sex, alcohol, and suicide.

Additional Information
88 pages | 5.00" x 8.00"