Indigenous Peoples in Canada

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

For fans of true crime, an unsolved mystery of missing persons, police conspiracies, and private investigations in an Indigenous community in northern Canada.

Métis leader James Brady was one of the most famous Indigenous activists in Canada. A communist, strategist, and bibliophile, he led Métis and First Nations to rebel against government and church oppression. Brady’s success made politicians and clergy fear him, and he had enemies everywhere.

In 1967, while prospecting in Saskatchewan with Cree Band Councillor and fellow activist Absolom Halkett, both men vanished without a trace from their remote lakeside camp. For 50 years rumours swirled of secret mining interests, political intrigue, assassination, and murder. Cold Case North is the story of how a small team, with the help of a local Indigenous community, exposed police failure in the original investigation, discovered new clues and testimony, and gathered the pieces of the North’s most enduring missing persons puzzle.

Reviews
“This engrossing account charts the efforts of three dedicated people to determine the fate of two missing Indigenous men in the north of Canada. [...] Meticulously researched, this smoothly written tale of injustice showcases the authors’ tenacity and arouses the reader’s indignation. This is a scathing rebuke of the RCMP’s failure to take the case of missing Indigenous people seriously.” —Publisher's Weekly

“Like too many cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous people, authorities failed to ensure that Brady and Halkett’s deaths were properly investigated. This book helps get to the bottom of the fate of these two men, and demonstrates why investigators should never dismiss the knowledge of Indigenous peoples.” —Darren Prefontaine, author of Gabriel Dumont

“Cold Case North is part true crime thriller, part gripping mystery about the disappearance of Métis legend James Brady and Absolom Halkett in northern Saskatchewan. It is also about Indigenous knowledge, investigative incompetence, and the stuff of legend.” —Paul Seesequasis, author of Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun

“A fascinating search for the truth, Cold Case North unravels the layers of a decades’ old mystery. It is about how communities hold knowledge for generations, and how missing loved ones are never forgotten.” —Katherena Vermette, author of River Woman and The Break

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.00" x 7.00"

How can we heal in the face of trauma? How can we transform intergenerational pain into a passion for community and healing?

Presenting herself as “Myrtle,” residential school survivor and Indigenous television personality Bevann Fox explores essential questions by recounting her life through fiction. She shares memories of an early childhood filled with love with her grandparents—until she is sent to residential school at the age of seven. Her horrific experiences of abuse there left her without a voice, timid and nervous, never sure, never trusting, affecting her romantic relationships and family bonds for years to come.

This is the story of Myrtle battling to recover her voice. Genocidal Love is a powerful confirmation of the long-lasting consequences of residential school violence —and a moving story of finding a path towards healing.

Awards

• 2021 Indigenous Voices Awards winner for Published Prose in English: Creative Nonfiction and Life-Writing

Reviews
“A riveting, often difficult, brave, important book. ” —Deanna Reder, Chair, Department of Indigenous Studies, Simon Fraser University

“A riveting and courageous reflection. . . . Genocidal Love is unique in its detailed account of the often re-traumatizing effects of the legal and bureaucratic barriers of compensation programs predating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ” —Jesse Rae Archibald-Barber, editor of kisiskâciwan and co-editor of Performing Turtle Island

“Fox tears beauty from the jaws of genocide, daring to claim love beyond settler imaginings—love that nurtures decolonial futures and makes possible a more just world. ”—Sam McKegney, author of Magic Weapons and Masculindians

Educator Information
A forward from Michelle Coupal explains more about "Genocidal Love—a story that Bevann tells about herself outside the boundaries of what constitutes fiction and non-fiction".

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.00" x 7.00"

Guileless and refreshingly honest, Terese Mailhot's debut memoir chronicles her struggle to balance the beauty of her Native heritage with the often desperate and chaotic reality of life on the reservation.

Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in British Columbia. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Bipolar II, Terese Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father--an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist--who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Mailhot "trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain and what we can bring ourselves to accept." Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people and to her place in the world.

Educator Information
This book is available in French: Petite Femme Montagne 

Additional Information
144 pages | 5.00" x 7.50" | Paperback

When the author learns of the death of her brother overseas, she embarks on a journey to bring him home. Through memories and dreams of all they shared together and through her Dene traditions, she finds comfort and strength. The lyrical art and story leave readers with a universal message of hope and love.

Educator Information
Recommended for ages 12+ (Mature Picture Book)

In this emotional illustrated picture book, author and illustrator Lisa Boivin tells the story of the loss of her brother and the journey with her Dene traditions to find comfort and the strength to move on from her grief.

This book explores themes of death, memory, remembrance, comfort, and specifically Dene perspectives on death. 

The author's deeply personal story is revealed through exquisite artwork and text that are grounded in her family's Dene culture.

Lisa Boivin's experiences as an artist and bioethicist inform her story, expressed in the Indigenous way of passing knowledge through images.

Additional Information
56 pages | 6.50" x 10.00" | Colour illustrations throughout

Fourteen-year-old Jaysen Flett-Paul's true story of how Elders guided him through his first Sundance ceremony to heal the anger and grief stemming from his mother’s violent murder. It sensitively tackles the heart-breaking problem of suicide in Indigenous communities, an issue of great importance to this community and for communities across North America.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 13 to 18.

This book is part of the Finding Waka series.

Keywords / Themes: Ceremony, Elders, Family Issues, Grief, Anger, Loss, Spirituality

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

Journeyman is a first-person biography of Ojibwe rightwinger Jamie Leach, son of the legendary NHL superstar Reggie Leach. Follow the fascinating hockey trajectory from his childhood years watching his father play for the Philadelphia Flyers, to Jamie’s first goal in the NHL.

Journeyman touches on Jamie’s summers on Lake Winnipeg, the World Junior Hockey Championships, his life in the minor leagues, and his eventual draft into the NHL as a Pittsburgh Penguin. Discover how some of hockey’s biggest stars such as Bobby Clarke, Jaromir Jagr, and Mario Lemieux influenced Jamie’s life.

Written in close consultation with Jamie and his mother, readers will learn about the struggles Jamie conquered, including his father’s alcoholism and his own crippling self-doubt.

A story of determination, heartbreak and perseverance.

Reviews
"This straightforward, inspiring account goes down easy and should appeal to most kids, especially skaters looking for role models." —Booklist

Educator Information
Recommended by the publisher for middle-grade readers 10+.

Forward by Reggie Leach.

Additional Information
104 pages | 5.00" x 7.00"

Mācī-Anihšināpēmowin / Beginning Saulteaux is an introductory look at one of the most widely spoken of all North American Indigenous languages, regionally known as Saulteaux, Ojibway, Ottawa (Odawa), Chippewa, and Algonquian. In an easy-to-use and easy-to-read series of lessons, both designed for self-study or for use in the classroom, Beginning Saulteaux will guide beginners through the language’s grammatical structures and spelling systems, as well as everyday terms and phrases. The book grounds the language in both traditional and contemporary contexts, and sheds light on the Saulteaux world view. For example, there is no word for good-bye in the language, so upon parting people will usually say Kika-wāpamin mīnawā, meaning “I’ll see you again.”

Educator & Series Information
The third in our Indigenous Languages for Beginners series, Beginning Saulteaux is an invaluable resource produced in consultation with Elders, Language Keepers, and community members, and continues our commitment to revitalizing Indigenous languages.

Additional Information
304 pages | 8.50" x 11.00" | Spiral Bound

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"

“Food is life. Food is the key to vitality, goodness, happiness, and a strong body and mind.”

Compiled by five women living in Igloolik, Nunavut, this collection of recipes brings together healthy traditional country foods—like seal, Arctic char, and caribou—with store-bought produce to create delicious meals that can be an alternative to pre-packaged foods. With details on food safety and storage, as well as information on how to build a healthy, nutritious diet, this book will help even novice cooks feel empowered to begin cooking from scratch at home.

With tasty recipes from land and sea—from Arctic char pizza to caribou chilli—this beautifully photographed cookbook provides wholesome, hearty meals that will become family favourites for years to come.

Additional Information
114 pages | 7.00" x 10.00" | colour photographs | 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"

"Then one day a ‘flyable’ took me away from our world through the sky to a dark and desolate place.”

Jose Kusugak had a typical Arctic childhood, growing up playing games, enjoying food caught by hunters, and watching his mother preparing skins. But he was one of the first generation of Inuit children who were taken from their homes and communities and sent to live in residential schools. In this moving and candid memoir, Jose tells of his experiences at residential school and the lifelong effects it had on him.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 12 to 15.

Included in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 6 to 9 for Social Studies, Science, and English Language Arts.

A personal, real story that introduces young readers to the memoir genre.

Inhabit Education Books is proud to introduce Qinuisaarniq (“resiliency”), a program created to educate Nunavummiut about the history and impacts of residential schools, policies of assimilation, and other colonial acts that affected the Canadian Arctic.

Each resource in the program has been carefully written and reviewed to include level-appropriate opportunities for students to learn about colonial acts and policies that affected Inuit. Topics covered include the residential school system, relocations to settlements and the High Arctic, sled dog slaughters, the use of E and W numbers, and others. These acts and policies created long-lasting impacts on Inuit individuals and communities, which are still being felt today.

The resources in this program include personal interviews, testimony, and writing; non-fiction informational resources; and information about traditional Inuit practices.

Additional Information
56 pages | 9.00" x 6.00". | b&w illustrations

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"

When Nellie Winters was 11 years old, she was sent to attend the Nain Boarding School, a residential school 400 kilometres from her home. In this memoir, she recalls life before residential school, her experiences at the school, and what it was like to come home.

Accompanied by the author’s original illustrations, this moving, often funny memoir sheds light on the experiences of Inuit residential school survivors in Labrador.

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 11-14.

This book is recommended in the Canadian Indigenous Books for Schools 2020/2021 resource list for grades 5 to 7 for English Language Arts and Social Studies.

This book is part of the Qinuisaarniq (“resiliency”) program.  This is a program created to educate Nunavummiut about the history and impacts of residential schools, policies of assimilation, and other colonial acts that have affected the Canadian Arctic.

Each resource has been carefully written and reviewed to include level-appropriate opportunities for students to learn about colonial acts and policies that have affected Inuit. These acts and policies created long-lasting impacts on Inuit individuals and communities, which are still being felt today.

The resources in this program include personal interviews, testimony, and writing; non-fiction informational resources; and information about traditional Inuit practices.

Additional Information
26 pages | 9.00" x 7.00" | Transcribed and edited by Erica Oberndorfer

An insightful collection exploring the plight, past and promise of the orca, powerful symbol of BC’s wild coast and apex predator of all oceans. Spirits of the Coast brings together the work of marine biologists, Indigenous knowledge keepers, poets, artists and storytellers, united by their enchantment with the orca. Long feared in Western cultures as “killer whales,” and respected and honoured by Indigenous cultures as friends, family or benefactors, orcas are complex social beings with culture and language of their own. With contributors ranging from Briony Penn to David Suzuki, Gary Geddes and Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, this collection brings together diverse voices, young and old, to explore the magic, myths, and ecology of orcas. A literary and visual journey through past and possibility, Spirits of the Coast illustrates how these enigmatic animals have shaped us as much as our actions have impacted them, and provokes the reader to imagine the shape of our shared future.

Educator Information
Includes Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributions.

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

Additional Information
192 pages | 8.00" x 10.00"