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2008., National Film Board of Canada Call No: DVD 971.4 O12c Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Series Title: Alanis Obomsawin - the Collection 270 Years of ResistanceSummary Note: Features 4 films by Alanis Obomsawin. Her lifelong documentary project finds vibrant expression and focus within this remarkable collection of four films.The 1990 Oka Crisis re-ignited historic First Nations grievances and galvanized collective resolve like few other events in recent history. With characteristic courage and generosity, Obomsawin was present to record the experience, crafting this compelling four-part tribute to cultural resistance and pride.Woven around her subjects' testimony is her own unmistakably elegant narration - measured and impassioned, committed and clear - the voice of a storyteller who's always listening.
![Alanis Obomsawin - the Collection 270 Years of Resistance [DVD] (2008). Directed by Alanis Obomsawin.](/Library/images/cover/noimage.png "Alanis Obomsawin - the Collection 270 Years of Resistance [DVD] (2008). Directed by Alanis Obomsawin.")
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-- Then she fell :2023., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: NEW IND Fic Ell Availability:0 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences. .
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Ã2017., University of Minnesota Press Call No: IND 323.1 S613a Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Across North America, Indigenous acts of resistance have in recent years opposed the removal of federal protections for forests and waterways in Indigenous lands, halted the expansion of tar sands extraction and the pipeline construction at Standing Rock, and demanded justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women. In As We Have Always Done, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson locates Indigenous political resurgence as a practice rooted in uniquely Indigenous theorizing, writing, organizing, and thinking.
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-- Atanarjuat.2003, c2000., Adult, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment Call No: DVD Fic Atanarjuat Edition: Widescreen format. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A young Inuit falls in love with a woman already promised to the son of the clan's leader. He wins her in a fight but then must escape from his vengeful rival across the frozen north.
![Atanarjuat, The fast runner [DVD] (2000). Directed by Zacharias Kunuk](/Library/images/~imageCT75088.JPG "Atanarjuat, The fast runner [DVD] (2000). Directed by Zacharias Kunuk")
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2017., Adult, Anvil Press Call No: IND Fic Bak Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Carleigh Baker likes to make light in the dark. She never lets go of the witty, the ironic, and perhaps most notably, the awkward. Despite the title, the resolution in these stories isn't always tragic, but it's often uncomfortable, unexpected, or just plain strange. While steadfastly local in her choice of setting, Baker's deep appreciation for nature takes a lot of these stories out of Vancouver and into the wild. Nature is a place of escape and attempted convalescence for characters suffering from urban burnout. Baker takes troubled characters to a moment of realization or self-revelation, but the results aren't always pretty."--From publisher.
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2015., Adult, Nightwood Editions Call No: IND Fic Dan Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape. Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky. From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong--finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself."--From publisher.
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By Knott, Helen2023., Alfred .A. Knopf Canada Call No: NEW IND Bio K72b Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: When matriarchs begin to disappear, there is a choice to either step into the places they left behind, or to craft a new space. Helen Knott's debut memoir, In My Own Moccasins, wowed reviewers, award-juries, and readers alike with its profoundly honest and moving account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, resilience, and survival. Now, with her highly anticipated second book, Knott exceeds the highest of expectations with a chronicle of grief, love, and legacy. Having lost both her mom and grandma in just over six months, forced to navigate the fine lines between matriarchy, martyrdom, and codependency, Knott realizes she must let go, not just of them, but let go of who she thought she was. Woven into the pages are themes that touch on mourning, staying sober through loss, and generational dreaming. Charted with poetic insights, a sprinkle of sass, humour, and heart, crossing the rivers and mountains of Dane Zaa Territory in Northeastern British Columbia and the cobbled streets of Antigua, Guatemala, this is a journey through pain on the way to becoming.
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2006., HarperPerennial Call No: IND Fic Erd Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "At the crossroads of his life, Lipsha Morrissey is summoned by his grandmother to return to the reservation. There, he falls in love for the very first time--with the beautiful Shawnee Ray, who's already considering a marriage proposal from Lipsha's wealthy entrepreneurial boss, Lyman Lamartine. But when all efforts to win Shawnee's affections go hopelessly awry, Lipsha seeks out his great-grandmother for a magical solution to his romantic dilemma--on sacred ground where a federally-sanctioned bingo palace is slated for construction. Louise Erdrich's luminous novel The Bingo Palace is a tale of spiritual death and reawakening; of money, desperate love, and wild hope; and of the enduring power of cherished dreams."--from back cover.
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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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2021., 80 min, Microclimat Call No: IND DVD Fic Bootleg Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Two radically opposed women quickly divide an Indigenous community into two sides who must then come face to face to determine the best path to independence.
![Bootlegger [DVD] (2021). Directed by Caroline Monnet](/Library/images/~imageCT102351.JPG "Bootlegger [DVD] (2021). Directed by Caroline Monnet")
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2016., Adult, House of Anansi Press Inc. Call No: IND Fic Ver c. 2 Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime.In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim police, family, and friends tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Lou, a social worker, grapples with the departure of her live-in boyfriend. Cheryl, an artist, mourns the premature death of her sister Rain. Paulina, a single mother, struggles to trust her new partner. Phoenix, a homeless teenager, is released from a youth detention centre. Officer Scott, a Métis policeman, feels caught between two worlds as he patrols the city. Through their various perspectives a larger, more comprehensive story about lives of the residents in Winnipeg's North End is exposed.A powerful intergenerational family saga, The Break showcases Vermette's abundant writing talent and positions her as an exciting new voice in Canadian literature.
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2017., Adult, House of Anansi Press Inc Edition: Unabridged. Connect to this eAudiobook title Summary Note: When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break - a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house - she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim - police, family, and friends - tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Lou, a social worker, grapples with the departure of her live-in boyfriend. Cheryl, an artist, mourns the premature death of her sister Rain. Paulina, a single mother, struggles to trust her new partner. Phoenix, a homeless teenager, is released from a youth detention center. Officer Scott, a Métis policeman, feels caught between two worlds as he patrols the city. Through their various perspectives a larger, more comprehensive story about lives of the residents in Winnipeg's North End is exposed. A powerful intergenerational family saga, The Break showcases Vermette's abundant writing talent and positions her as an exciting new voice in Canadian literature.
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By Maracle, Lee2016., Adult, Cormorant Books Call No: IND Fic Mar Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Mink is a witness, a shape shifter, compelled to follow the story that has ensnared Celia and her village, on the West coast of Vancouver Island in Nu: Chahlnuth territory. Celia is a seer who - despite being convinced she's a little "off" - must heal her village with the assistance of her sister, her mother and father, and her nephews. While mink is visiting, a double-headed sea serpent falls off the house front during a fierce storm. The old snake, ostracized from the village decades earlier, has left his terrible influence on Amos, a residential school survivor. The occurrence signals the unfolding of an ordeal that pulls Celia out of her reveries and into the tragedy of her cousin's granddaughter. Each one of Celia's family becomes involved in creating a greater solution than merely attending to her cousin's granddaughter. Celia's Song relates one Nu: Chahlnuth family's harrowing experiences over several generations, after years of brutality, interference, and neglect...
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2020., Goose Lane Editions Call No: IND 759.11 K966c Edition: Second edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Christi Belcourt is a Métis visual artist whose ancestry originates from the historic Métis community of Mânitou Sâkhigan (Lac Ste. Anne) in Alberta. She has a deep respect for Mother Earth and the traditions and knowledge of her people. She is also known for her work as a community-based artist, environmentalist, and advocate for the lands, waters, and rights of Indigenous peoples. This is the first book devoted exclusively to Belcourt’s life and work: her early paintings showcasing the natural world’s beauty and interconnectedness, her monumental "flower beadwork" paintings, and her recent collaborations with Isaac Murdoch, an Anishinaabe knowledge keeper. Drawn from a national touring exhibition, these works of art inspire reflection, provoke conversation, and call for action.
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2023., Adult, Hamish Hamilton Call No: IND Fic Ver Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: The concept was simple. You sit a bunch of people in a circle--everyone who hurt, everyone who got hurt, all affected--and let them share. Some people, it helped them heal, for sure. Others went in angry and left a different kind of angry. Learned how the blame belonged on the system, the history, the colonizer, the big things that were harder to change than one bad person. The day that Cedar Sage Stranger has been both dreading and longing for has finally come: her sister Phoenix is getting out of prison. The effect of Phoenix's release cascades through the community. M, the young girl whom she assaulted, is triggered by the news. Her mother, Paulina, is worried and her cousin is angry--all feel the threat of Phoenix's release. When Phoenix is seen lingering outside the school to catch a glimpse of her son, Sparrow, the police get a call to file a report--but the next thing they know, she has disappeared. Amid accusations and plots for revenge, past grievances become a poor guide in a moment of danger, and the clumsy armature of law enforcement is no match for the community. Cedar and her and Phoenix's mother, Elsie, continue down different paths of healing, while everyone in their lives form a circle around the chaos, the calm within the storm, and the beauty in the darkness. Fierce, heartbreaking, and profound, Vermette's The Circle is the third and final companion novel to her bestsellers The Break and The Strangers. Told from various perspectives, with an unforgettable voice for each chapter, the novel is masterfully structured as a Restorative Justice Circle where all gather--both the victimized and the accused--to take account of a crime that has altered the course of their lives. It considers what it means to be abandoned by the very systems that claim to offer support, how it feels to gain a sense of belonging, and the unanticipated cost of protecting those you love most.
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2017., General, University of Regina Press Call No: IND 305.8 G311c Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Denied her Indigenous status, Lynn Gehl has been fighting her entire life to reclaim mino-pimadiziwin - the good life. Exploring Anishinaabeg philosophy and Anishinaabeg conceptions of truth, Gehl shows how she came to locate her spirit and decolonize her identity, thereby becoming, in her words, "fully human." Gehl also provides a harsh critique of Canada and takes on important anti-colonial battles, including sex discrimination in the Indian Act and the destruction of sacred places. Lynn Gehl is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. She studied chemical technology in college. Her undergraduate studies were in psychology and cultural anthropology. She is the author of The Truth that Wampum Tells: my debwewin on the Algonquin land claims process"--Provided by publisher.
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2022., Adult, Random House Canada Call No: IND Fic Dan Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: In this haunting, groundbreaking, historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of her ancestors in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family link to a girl murdered near Trois-Rivières in the early days of French settlement. Marie, an Algonquin woman of the Weskarini Deer Clan, lost her first husband and her children to an Iroquois raid. In the aftermath of another lethal attack, her chief begs her to remarry for the sake of the clan. Marie is a healer who honours the ways of her people, and Pierre, the green-eyed ex-soldier from France who wants her for his bride, is not the man she would choose. But her people are dwindling, wracked by white men's diseases and nearly starving every winter as the game retreats away from the white settlements. If her chief believes such a marriage will cement their alliance with the French against the Iroquois and the British, she feels she has no choice. Though she does it reluctantly, and with some fear--Marie is trading the memory of the man she loved for a man she doesn't understand at all, and whose devout Catholicism blinds him to the ways of her people.
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2010., Juvenile, Annick Press ; Distributed in the U.S. by Firefly Books Call No: NEW IND Bio P761j Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: The moving memoir of an Inuit girl who emerges from a residential school with her spirit intact. Eight-year-old Margaret Pokiak has set her sights on learning to read, even though it means leaving her village in the high Arctic. Faced with unceasing pressure, her father finally agrees to let her make the five-day journey to attend school, but he warns Margaret of the terrors of residential schools. At school Margaret soon encounters the Raven, a black-cloaked nun with a hooked nose and bony fingers that resemble claws. She immediately dislikes the strong-willed young Margaret. Intending to humiliate her, the heartless Raven gives gray stockings to all the girls -- all except Margaret, who gets red ones. In an instant Margaret is the laughingstock of the entire school. In the face of such cruelty, Margaret refuses to be intimidated and bravely gets rid of the stockings. Although a sympathetic nun stands up for Margaret, in the end it is this brave young girl who gives the Raven a lesson in the power of human dignity. Complemented by archival photos from Margaret Pokiak-Fenton's collection and striking artwork from Liz Amini-Holmes, this inspiring first-person account of a plucky girl's determination to confront her tormentor will linger with young readers.
