Social and Cultural Studies

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"

“A comprehensive and well-informed review of canoeing and kayaking in British Columbia.” —BC Studies

Often called one of the Seven Wonders of Canada, the canoe has played a particularly important role in British Columbia. This seemingly simple watercraft allowed coastal First Nations to hunt on the open ocean and early explorers to travel the province’s many waterways. Always at the crossroads of canoe culture, BC today is home to innovative artists and designers who have rediscovered ancient canoe-building techniques, as well as community leaders who see the canoe’s potential to bring people together in exciting, inspiring ways.

The story of Canoe Crossings begins some fifteen thousand years ago, when, as compelling new evidence suggests, the first humans to reach the Americas did so by canoe down the West Coast. It continues through the centuries, chronicling the evolution of the canoe and its impact on the various people who used it to explore, hunt, trade, fight, race, create, and even heal. The book contains dozens of stories of colourful, passionate people who have contributed to the province’s canoe culture, including a teenager who lived ninety feet up in a tree house while designing and building the world’s longest kayak; a group of high school students who practised on a tiny lake and went on to win several World Dragon Boat Championships; and at-risk Aboriginal youth who reconnected with their traditional culture through annual “big canoe” trips.

Canoe Crossings will appeal to anyone who has ever sought adventure, found solace, or seen beauty in a canoe or wondered about the origins of its design and use in British Columbia and beyond.

Reviews
“The canoe is a threshold vessel—a skin, a fabric, and some bark between water and sky. Floating is some kind of miracle, some kind of dream. All canoeists are dreamers to a degree. As you will see in Canoe Crossings, the canoe has always brought diverse groups of people together, both for joy and for common purpose, and it always will." —from the foreword by Shelagh Rogers

Additional Information
192 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

In Decolonizing Trauma Work, Renee Linklater explores healing and wellness in Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Drawing on a decolonizing approach, which puts the “soul wound” of colonialism at the centre, Linklater engages ten Indigenous health care practitioners in a dialogue regarding Indigenous notions of wellness and wholistic health, critiques of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses, and Indigenous approaches to helping people through trauma, depression and experiences of parallel and multiple realities. Through stories and strategies that are grounded in Indigenous worldviews and embedded with cultural knowledge, Linklater offers purposeful and practical methods to help individuals and communities that have experienced trauma. Decolonizing Trauma Work, one of the first books of its kind, is a resource for education and training programs, health care practitioners, healing centres, clinical services and policy initiatives.

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176 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback

Imagine a world in which people see themselves as embedded in the natural order, with ethical responsibilities not only toward each other, but also toward rocks, trees, water and all nature. Imagine seeing yourself not as a master of Creation, but as the most humble, dependent and vulnerable part.

Rupert Ross explores this indigenous world view and the determination of indigenous thinkers to restore it to full prominence today. He comes to understand that an appreciation of this perspective is vital to understanding the destructive forces of colonization. As a former Crown Attorney in northern Ontario, Ross witnessed many of these forces. He examines them here with a special focus on residential schools and their power to destabilize entire communities long after the last school has closed. With help from many indigenous authors, he explores their emerging conviction that healing is now better described as “decolonization therapy.” And the key to healing, they assert, is a return to the traditional indigenous world view.

The author of two previous bestsellers on indigenous themes, Dancing with a Ghost and Returning to the Teachings, Ross shares his continuing personal journey into traditional understanding with all of the confusion, delight and exhilaration of learning to see the world in a different way.

Ross sees the beginning of a vibrant future for indigenous people across Canada as they begin to restore their own definition of a “healthy person” and bring that indigenous wellness into being once again. Indigenous Healing is a hopeful book, not only for indigenous people, but for all others open to accepting some of their ancient lessons about who we might choose to be.

Additional Information
344 pages | 5.25" x 8.20" | Paperback

Indigenous rights are generally conceptualized and advocated separately from the human rights framework. The contributors to Indivisible: Indigenous Human Rights, however, deftly and powerfully argue that Indigenous rights are in fact human rights and that the fundamental human rights of Indigenous people cannot be protected without the inclusion of their Indigenous rights, which are suppressed and oppressed by the forces of racism and colonialism. Drawing on a wealth of experience and blending critical theoretical frameworks and a close knowledge of domestic and international law on human rights, the authors in this collection show that settler states such as Canada persist in violating and failing to acknowledge Indigenous human rights. Furthermore, settler states are obligated to respect and animate these rights, despite the evident tensions in political and economic interests between elite capitalists, settler citizens and Indigenous peoples.

Reviews
“The historic and contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous peoples, be it the tragedy of residential schools, high levels of violence against women, abusive policing, struggles around land and resources, or entrenched poverty are reflective of the disgraceful failure of Canada and other states to uphold human rights. Indivisible is a critical call to governments and Indigenous peoples to take up the indivisible framework of rights protection enshrined in the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” — Alex Neve, Amnesty International

“Well written, fast moving, and well researched, this is book is a rich, smart resource for anyone wanting to break down and understand the human rights versus indigenous rights debate, and to move on to more productive conversations about real political and legal change for indigenous peoples.” — Val Napoleon, University of Victoria

“Have you ever looked back at a point in your life when, had good advice been taken, it would have meant a much better future? This book offers that advice, now. Canadians who want to live well because Indigenous peoples prosper need to read Indivisible.” — Robert Lovelace, Retired Chief of Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, professor of global studies, Queen’s University

Educator Information

Table of Contents
Indigenous Human Rights are Indivisible (Joyce Green)

THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT FOR INDIGENOUS HUMAN RIGHTS
Denying Indigenous Human Rights: Colonialism and Rights Discourse in Canada (Joyce Green)
Two The Race Bind: Denying Aboriginal Rights in Australia (Maggie Walter)
Colonialism Past and Present: Indigenous Human Rights and Canadian Policing (Elizabeth Comack)
Indigenous Human Rights and Decolonization (Andrea Smith)

ABORIGINAL HUMAN RIGHTS — SPECIFIC THEMES
McIvor v. Canada: Legislated Patriarchy Meets Aboriginal Women’s Equality Rights (Gwen Brodsky)
Confronting Violence: Indigenous Women. Self-Determination and International Human Rights (Rauna Kuokkanen)
Victoria’s Secret: How to Make a Population of Prey (Mary Eberts)

INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC CONSTITUTIONAL LAW and INDIGENOUS HUMAN RIGHTS
Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Defending Indigenous Rights in the Global Rush for Resources (Craig Benjamin)
The Presumption of Conformity: International Indigenous Human Rights and the Canadian Constitution (Brenda Gunn)
Undermining Indigenous Peoples’ Security and Human Rights (Paul Joffe)

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Dr. Gregory Cajete, Dr. John G. Hansen, Dr. Jay Hansford C. Vest, and Dr. John E. Charlton have expanded the breadth, depth and scope of Walking With Indigenous Philosophy: Justice and Addiction Recovery (3rd ed.) making it a multidisciplinary, international and cross-cultural examination of a restorative justice based approach, that at its heart draws upon the wisdom inherent within Indigenous cultures, in order to question hierarchical and heavily one-sided disease based understanding to addiction recovery.

This third edition continues to advocate a model of restorative justice, saturated throughout by an Indigenous philosophy of holism and healing through inclusion and education, when working with those upon the margins, in order to appreciate and honour the whole person.

Justice is understood as a concept that must be based upon, and within, the recognition of the other. It is from within this recognition of the other that accountability, as a healing endeavour, must find its grounding. The voices of Cree elders indigenous to northern Manitoba, Indigenous Justice Workers, two American Indians (Cajete and Vest), one First Nation (Hansen), one addiction counselling professional (Charlton) and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in recovery are heard.

Reviews
"Walking With Indigenous Philosophy: Justice and Addiction Recovery (3rd ed) is an accurate and introspective look at Indigenous peoples and addictions. This exemplary work recognizes storytelling, restorying, and the inherent value within healing through spiritual and cultural praxis that privileges Indigenous ways of knowing. The book challenges the existing paradigm and takes you through an alternative method of being. Great for a textbook and reference for Addictions workers." - Verna Billy Minnabarriet

"For those who teach Native Cultures or want to be better informed, this book is a valuable resource. Its Indigenous perspectives on addiction recovery would be hard to find elsewhere." - Wanda Teays, PhD

Additional Information
238 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | 3rd Edition | Paperback 

Drawing upon a variety of academic sources as well as personal and professional experiences, Dr. Michell, a member of the Barren Lands First Nation, offers a book designed to assist educators in coming to understand the larger frameworks of Cree ontology (ways of seeing the world and one’s place in it), epistemology (ways of understanding knowledge), and methodologies (ways of teaching).

While Dr. Michell’s book is a specific example of Cree culture, from northern Saskatchewan, the message is most certainly transferable beyond the Barren Lands First Nation example, and as such, offers readers entry into thinking about how to make bridges between diverse ways of knowing that is applicable cross-culturally.

Reviews
"The book Cree Ways of Knowing and School Science provides a good personal description of Cree culture and how it can improve science teaching in the classroom for First Nations students. Drawing from his experience in Northern Saskatchewan, Dr. Michell illustrates the importance of hands-on experience for students and the need to relate what they are learning in the classroom to their culture. Most importantly, Dr. Michell promotes taking the students to the knowledge holders (the Elders) and to the natural teaching lab (the land), thus incorporating traditional knowledge in the teaching of science. Elders are an essential component in this endeavour. This book will be of interest to current and prospective teachers as well as to anyone interested in cross-cultural experiences and learning. This book provides a timely contribution to the question of how to improve educational outcomes for First Nations students, a critical issue for federal, provincial and First Nations governments." - Fidji Gendron, PhD

Educator Information

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Introduction

2. Nîhîthawâk Ithînîwak

3. Nîhîthawâk Ithînîwak and School
 Science: A Storied Reflection

4. Nîhîthâwatîsîwîn

5. The Concept of Indigenous Science

6. The Concept of Western Science

7. Assumptions in Western and Cree
 Ways of Knowing

8. Promising Practices: School Science in Cree Contexts

References
About the Author

Additional Information
88 pages | 7.00" x 10.50" | Paperback 

This extraordinary story of courage and faith is based on the actual experiences of three girls who fled from the repressive life of Moore River Native Settlement, following along the rabbit-proof fence back to their homelands. Assimilationist policy dictated that these girls be taken from their kin and their homes in order to be made white. Settlement life was unbearable with its chains and padlocks, barred windows, hard cold beds, and horrible food. Solitary confinement was doled out as regular punishment. The girls were not even allowed to speak their language. Of all the journeys made since white people set foot on Australian soil, the journey made by these girls born of Aboriginal mothers and white fathers speaks something to everyone.

Educator Information
Grades 11-12 English First Peoples Resource.

Additional Information
160 pages | 5.00" x 7.75"

Arctic historian Kenn Harper gathers the best of his columns about Inuit history, which appear weekly in Nunatsiaq News, in this exciting new series of books.

Each installment of In Those Days: Collected Columns on Arctic History will cover a particularly fascinating aspect of traditional Inuit life. In volume one, “Inuit Biographies,” Harper shares the unique challenges and life histories of several Inuit living in pre-contact times.

The result of extensive interviews, research, and travel across the Arctic, these amazing short life histories provide readers with a detailed understanding of their specific time and place.

Series Information
This book is part of the In Those Days series, a historical series that collects writings on Arctic history.

Additional Information
200 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Like thousands of Aboriginal children in Canada, and elsewhere in the colonized world, Xatsu'll chief Bev Sellars spent part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school.

These institutions endeavored to "civilize" Native children through Christian teachings; forced separation from family, language, and culture; and strict discipline. Perhaps the most symbolically potent strategy used to alienate residential school children was addressing them by assigned numbers only-not by the names with which they knew and understood themselves.

In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her family-from substance abuse to suicide attempts-and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. 'Number One' comes at a time of recognition-by governments and society at large-that only through knowing the truth about these past injustices can we begin to redress them.

Awards

• 2014 Burt Award Third Place Winner

Educator Information
Grades 10-12 BC English First Peoples resource for the unit Place-Conscious Learning - Exploring Text through Local Landscape.

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.67" x 8.20"

First Nations, Inuit, and Métis music in Canada is dynamic and diverse, reflecting continuities with earlier traditions and innovative approaches to creating new musical sounds. Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada narrates a story of resistance and renewal, struggle and success, as indigenous musicians in Canada negotiate who they are and who they want to be. Comprised of essays, interviews, and personal reflections by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal musicians and scholars alike, the collection highlights themes of innovation, teaching and transmission, and cultural interaction. Individual chapters discuss musical genres ranging from popular styles including country and pop to nation-specific and intertribal practices such as powwows, as well as hybrid performances that incorporate music with theatre and dance. As a whole, this collection demonstrates how music is a powerful tool for articulating the social challenges faced by Aboriginal communities and an effective way to affirm indigenous strength and pride. Juxtaposing scholarly study with artistic practice, Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada celebrates and critically engages Canada's vibrant Aboriginal music scene. Contributors include Véronique Audet (Université de Montreal), Columpa C. Bobb (Tsleil Waututh and Nlaka'pamux, Manitoba Theatre for Young People), Sadie Buck (Haudenosaunee), Annette Chrétien (Métis), Marie Clements (Métis/Dene), Walter Denny Jr. (Mi'kmaw), Gabriel Desrosiers (Ojibwa, University of Minnesota, Morris), Beverley Diamond (Memorial University), Jimmy Dick (Cree), Byron Dueck (Royal Northern College of Music), Klisala Harrison (University of Helsinki), Donna Lariviere (Algonquin), Charity Marsh (University of Regina), Sophie Merasty (Dene and Cree), Garry Oker (Dane-zaa), Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), Mary Piercey (Memorial University), Amber Ridington (Memorial University), Dylan Robinson (Stó:lo, University of Toronto), Christopher Scales (Michigan State University), Gilles Sioui (Wendat), Gordon E. Smith (Queen's University), Beverly Souliere (Algonquin), Janice Esther Tulk (Memorial University), Florent Vollant (Innu) and Russell Wallace (Lil'wat).

Additional Information
520 pages | 6.14" x 9.25"

Authenticity Note: While the editors of this book are not Indigenous, the majority of contributors are Indigenous; therefore, this book has received the Authentic Indigenous Text label.

Tsawalk, or “one,” expresses the Nuu-chah-nulth view that all living things – human, plant, and animal – form part of an integrated whole brought into harmony through constant negotiation and mutual respect. In this book, Umeek argues that contemporary environmental and political crises and the ongoing plight of indigenous peoples reflect a world out of balance, a world in which Western approaches for sustainable living are not working. Nuu-chah-nulth principles of recognition, consent, and continuity, by contrast, hold the promise of bringing greater harmony, where all life forms are treated with respect and accorded formal constitutional recognition.

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

In December 2002 members of the Grassy Narrows First Nation blocked a logging road to impede the movement of timber industry trucks and equipment within their traditional territory. The Grassy Narrows blockade went on to become the longest-standing protest of its type in Canadian history. The story of the blockade is a story of convergences. It takes place where cultural, political, and environmental dimensions of Indigenous activism intersect; where history combines with current challenges and future aspirations to inspire direct action. In Strong Hearts, Native Lands, Anna J. Willow demonstrates that Indigenous people decisions to take environmentally protective action cannot be understood apart from political or cultural concerns. By recounting how and why one Anishinaabe community was able to take a stand against the industrial logging that threatens their land-based subsistence and way of life, Willow offers a more complex and more constructive understanding of human-environment relationships. Grassy Narrows activists have long been part of a network of supporters that extends across North America and beyond. This book shows how the blockade realized those connections, making this community? efforts a model and inspiration for other Indigenous groups, environmentalists, and social justice advocates.

Beginning with an historic overview of legislative enactments defining Indian status and their impact on First Nations, the author examines contemporary court rulings dealing with Aboriginal rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in relation to Indigenous identity. She also examines various band membership codes to determine how they affect Indigenous identity, and how their reliance on status criteria perpetuates discrimination. She offers suggestions for a better way of determining Indigenous identity and citizenship and argues that First Nations themselves must determine their citizenship based on ties to the community, not blood or status.

Additional Information
280 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

The history of the colonization of the Americas by Europeans is often portrayed as a mutually beneficial process, in which ”civilization” was brought to the Natives, who in return shared their land and cultures. A more critical history might present it as a genocide in which Indigenous peoples were helpless victims, overwhelmed by European military power. In reality, neither of these views is correct. This book is more than a history of European colonization of the Americas. In this slim volume, Gord Hill chronicles the resistance by Indigenous peoples, which limited and shaped the forms and extent of colonialism. This history encompasses North and South America, the development of nation-states and the resurgence of Indigenous resistance in the post-WW2 era.

Additional Information
72 pages | 8.50" x 5.50"