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2018., House of Anansi Press Inc. Call No: IND 362.280 T137a Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: In this vital and incisive work, bestselling and award-winning author Tanya Talaga explores the alarming rise of youth suicide in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonized nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing. It is an experience marked by the violent separation of Peoples from the land, the separation of families, and the separation of individuals from traditional ways of life — all of which has culminated in a spiritual separation that has had an enduring impact on generations of Indigenous children. As a result of this colonial legacy, too many communities today lack access to the basic determinants of health — income, employment, education, a safe environment, health services — leading to a mental health and youth suicide crisis on a global scale. But, Talaga reminds us, First Peoples also share a history of resistance, resilience, and civil rights activism, from the Occupation of Alcatraz led by the Indians of All Tribes, to the Northern Ontario Stirland Lake Quiet Riot, to the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which united Indigenous Nations from across Turtle Island in solidarity. Based on her Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series, All Our Relations is a powerful call for action, justice, and a better, more equitable world for all Indigenous Peoples.
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c2011., Adult, Knopf Canada Call No: IND Fic Bar Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "The novel begins at the age of six, Martha is taken from her family and their home in the Cat Lake First Nation in northern Ontario and flown to a residential school on James Bay. It's not a good experience. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her Native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls. Ten years later, it is an emotionally devastated sixteen-year-old who finds her way home again, barely able to speak the only language her mother knows. Martha hangs out with other young people, and gives birth to a little boy, whom she calls Spider, because of a web-shaped birthmark on his forehead. She loves him but has little knowledge or experience of good parenting. She seeks comfort and forgetfulness in alcohol, and Chidlren's Aid authorities in Toronto, a place she has only heard of, take Spider away from her. When she later gives birth to Raven, a daughter, Martha's mother insists on keeping her in Cat Lake when Martha decides to move to Toronto to find Spider. When Raven turns thirteen, she feels hopeless, rejected by her mother and not sure what, if anything, life has in store for her. She enters a suicide pact with three other teens and is eventually the only one of the group still alive."--Inside front cover.
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2023., Adult, HarperCollins Call No: NEW IND Fic Pet Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A four-year-old girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that will remain unsolved for nearly fifty years July 1962.
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2016., Adult, Simon & Schuster Call No: IND Fic Cra Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Torn from her home and delivered to St. Mark's Residential School for Girls by government decree, young Rose Marie finds herself in an alien universe where nothing of her previous life is tolerated, not even her Blackfoot name. For she has entered into the world of the Sisters of Brotherly Love, an order of nuns dedicated to saving the Indigenous children from damnation. Life under the sharp eye of Mother Grace, the Mother General, becomes an endless series of torments, from daily recitations and obligations to chronic sickness and inedible food. And then there are the beatings. All the feisty Rose Marie wants to do is escape from St. Mark's. How her imagination soars as she dreams about her lost family on the Reserve, finding in her visions a healing spirit that touches her heart. But all too soon she starts to see other shapes in her dreams as well, shapes that warn her of unspoken dangers and mysteries that threaten to engulf her. And she has seen the rows of plain wooden crosses behind the school, reminding her that many students have never left here alive. Set during the Second World War and the 1950s, Black Apple is an unforgettable, vividly rendered novel about two very different women whose worlds collide: an irrepressible young Blackfoot girl whose spirit cannot be destroyed, and an aging yet powerful nun who increasingly doubts the value of her life. It captures brilliantly the strange mix of cruelty and compassion in the residential schools, where young children are forbidden to speak their own languages and given Christian names. As Rose Marie matures, she finds increasingly that she knows only the life of the nuns, with its piety, hard work and self-denial. Why is it, then, that she is haunted by secret visions--of past crimes in the school that terrify her, of her dead mother, of the Indigenous life on the plains that has long vanished? Even the kind-hearted Sister Cilla is unable to calm her fears. And then, there is a miracle, or so Mother Grace says. Now Rose is thrust back into the outside world with only her wits to save her. With a poet's eye, Joan Crate creates brilliantly the many shadings of this heartbreaking novel, rendering perfectly the inner voices of Rose Marie and Mother Grace, and exploring the larger themes of belief and belonging, of faith and forgiveness."--From publisher.
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-- Augie Merasty2015., Adult, University of Regina Press Call No: IND 371.82 M552e Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Now a retired fisherman and trapper, 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."--From publisher.
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2020., McGill-Queen's University Press Call No: QWF 362.7 S524f Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Series Title: McGill-Queen's indigenous and northern studies Volume: 97Summary Note: 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 indispensible 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.
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-- Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.2015., General, James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers Call No: IND 971.004 T874h Availability:2 of 2 At Your Library Summary Note: The Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy. This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples. Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse. More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance. The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens.
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2014., General, Nimbus Publishing Call No: IND 371.8 B468i Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Journalist Chris Benjamin tackles the controversial and tragic history of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, its predecessors, and its lasting effects, giving voice to multiple perspectives for the first time. Benjamin integrates research, interviews, and testimonies to guide readers through the varied experiences of students, principals, and teachers over the school's nearly forty years of operation (1930<U+2013>1967) and beyond. Exposing the raw wounds of Truth and Reconciliation as well as the struggle for an inclusive Mi'kmaw education system, Indian School Road is a comprehensive and compassionate narrative history of the school that uneducated hundreds of Aboriginal children"--Provided by publisher.
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-- Keeper and me.2018., Adult, Penguin Random House Canada Call No: IND Fic Wag Edition: Penguin Modern Classics Edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "When Garnet Raven was three years old, he was taken from his home on an Ojibway Indian reserve and placed in a series of foster homes. Having reached his mid-teens, he escapes at the first available opportunity, only to find himself cast adrift on the streets of the big city. Having skirted the urban underbelly once too often by age 20, he finds himself thrown in jail. While there, he gets a surprise letter from his long-forgotten native family. The sudden communication from his past spurs him to return to the reserve following his release from jail. Deciding to stay awhile, his life is changed completely as he comes to discover his sense of place, and of self. While on the reserve, Garnet is initiated into the ways of the Ojibway--both ancient and modern--by Keeper, a friend of his grandfather, and last fount of history about his people's ways."--Publisher's description.
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2016., Adolescent, James Lorimer & Company Ltd. Call No: IND Fic Flo Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "After a girl she knows from school goes missing and is found dead in the Red River, Feather is shocked when the police write it off as a suicide. Then, it's Feather's best friend, Mia, who vanishes but Mia's mom and abusive stepfather paint Mia as a frequent runaway, so the authorities won't investigate her disappearance either. Everyone knows that Native girls are disappearing and being killed, but no one is connecting the dots. When Feather's brother Kiowa is arrested under suspicion of Mia's abduction, Feather knows she has to clear his name. What Feather doesn't know is that the young serial killer who has taken Mia has become obsessed with Feather, and her investigation is leading her into terrible danger. Using as its background the ongoing circumstance of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, this fictional thriller set in Winnipeg explores one teenager's response to a system that has long denied and misrepresented the problem.
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-- Instant[2018]., Juvenile, Playwrights Canada Press Call No: QWF 822 S555m Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "In these two plays for young audiences, award-winning playwright Erin Shields presents the challenges of communication and friendship. In Mistatim, which is based on a concept from Sandra Laronde of Red Sky Performance, two eleven-year-olds strike up an unlikely friendship at the fence between one's reservation and the other's ranch. On Speck's side, she's carved names of family members into the wooden posts as she tries to piece together her identity. On Calvin's, he's trying to train a horse in order to prove himself to his father. Speck realizes she can communicate with horses, and with this gift, the pair work to liberate Calvin's horse, and in the process learn about one another's cultures. In Instant, three teens find out how far they'll go in their quest to be seen and heard. Meredith is a singer-songwriter who makes YouTube videos of covers in an attempt to gain Internet fame. But her friend Jay, a rising hockey star, can't understand why she won't post her original songs. When their classmate Rosie suddenly goes viral after a video is posted of her singing to raise money for her father's medical bills, Meredith's jealousy takes over, and pushes Rosie too far, triggering a near-deadly response."--
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-- Des muffins pour grand-maman2007., Adult, Mongrel Media Call No: IND DVD 371.82 M949m Edition: Widescreen edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Indian elders recount their experiences in residential schools.
![Muffins for granny [DVD] (2007). Directed by Nadia McLaren. : Des muffins pour grand-maman : [stories from survivors of the Canadian residential school system]](/Library/images/cover/noimage.png "Muffins for granny [DVD] (2007). Directed by Nadia McLaren. : Des muffins pour grand-maman : [stories from survivors of the Canadian residential school system]")
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2021., Adult, McClelland & Stewart Call No: IND Bio A139n Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: An 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 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. This book 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.
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-- Raised somewhere else.2018., Adult, Roseway Publishing Call No: IND Bio C267o Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "During the 60s Scoop, over 20,000 Indigenous children in Canada were removed from their biological families, lands and culture and trafficked across provinces, borders and overseas to be raised in non-Indigenous households. Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh--Raised Somewhere Else delves into the personal and provocative narrative of Colleen Cardinal's journey growing up in a non-Indigenous household as a 60s Scoop adoptee. Cardinal speaks frankly and intimately about instances of violence and abuse throughout her life, but this book is not a story of tragedy. It is a story of empowerment, reclamation and, ultimately, personal reconciliation. It is a form of Indigenous resistance through truth-telling, a story that informs the narrative on missing and murdered Indigenous women, colonial violence, racism and the Indigenous child welfare system."--Provided by publisher.
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2015., General, Fernwood Publishing Call No: IND 371.829 K72o Edition: 4th ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "In the 1880s, through an amendment to the Indian Act of 1876, the government of Canada began to require all Aboriginal children to attend schools administered by churches. Separating these children from their families, removing them from their communities and destroying Aboriginal culture by denying them the right to speak Indigenous languages and perform native spiritual ceremonies, these residential schools were explicitly developed to assimilate Aboriginal peoples into Canadian culture and erase their existence as a people. Daring to break the code of silence imposed on Aboriginal students, residential school survivor Isabelle Knockwood offers the firsthand experiences of forty-two survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School. In their own words, these former students remember their first day of residential schooling, when they were outwardly transformed through hair cuts and striped uniforms marked with numbers. Then followed years of inner transformation from a strict and regimented life of education and manual training, as well as harsh punishments for speaking their own language or engaging in Indigenous customs. The survivors also speak of being released from their school -- and having to decide between living in a racist and unwelcoming dominant society or returning to reserves where the Aboriginal culture had evolved. In this newly updated fourth edition, Knockwood speaks to twenty-one survivors of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School about their reaction to the apology by the Canadian government in 2008. Is it now possible to move forward?"--Provided by publisher.
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-- Young ghouls[2014]., Adult, Entertainment One Call No: IND DVD Fic Rhymes Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Red Crow Mi'gMaq reservation, 1976: By government decree, every Indian child under the age of 18 must attend residential school. That means imprisonment at St. Dymphna's and being at the mercy of Popper, the sadistic Indian agent who runs the school. At 15, Aila is the weed princess of Red Crow. She sells enough dope to pay Popper her truancy tax, keeping her out of St. D's. But when Aila's drug money is stolen and her father Joseph returns from prison, her only options are to run or fight.
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2021., Milkweed Editions Edition: First edition. Connect to this eBook title Summary Note: A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakhóta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakhóta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato—where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited. On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron—women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools. Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.
![The seed keeper [eBook] : a novel](/Library/images/~imageCT102055.JPG "The seed keeper [eBook] : a novel")
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-- Reflections on reconciliation & residential school.2012., Aboriginal Healing Foundation Call No: IND 371.8 R729s Edition: Scholastic edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Following the success of an earlier Book Club edition, this volume has been revised and re-edited for scholastic and academic purposes. These essays, which shed light on the lived and living experiences and legacies of Residential Schools, are offered in the sincere hop that your reading and discussion of them will become part of a much needed dialogue on reconciliation in Canada."--Page 4 of cover.
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2021., Adult, Hamish Hamilton Call No: IND Fic Ver Availability:0 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Cedar has nearly forgotten what her family looks like. Phoenix has nearly forgotten what freedom feels like. And Elsie has nearly given up hope. Nearly. After time spent in foster homes, Cedar goes to live with her estranged father. Although she grapples with the pain of being separated from her mother, Elsie, and sister, Phoenix, she's hoping for a new chapter in her life, only to find herself once again in a strange house surrounded by strangers. From a youth detention centre, Phoenix gives birth to a baby she'll never get to raise and tries to forgive herself for all the harm she's caused (while wondering if she even should). Elsie, struggling with addiction and determined to turn her life around, is buoyed by the idea of being reunited with her daughters and strives to be someone they can depend on, unlike her own distant mother. These are the Strangers, each haunted in her own way. Between flickering moments of warmth and support, the women diverge and reconnect, fighting to survive in a fractured system that pretends to offer success but expects them to fail. Facing the distinct blade of racism from those they trusted most, they urge one another to move through the darkness, all the while wondering if they'll ever emerge safely on the other side.
