Highway is a fine novelist (Kiss of the Fur Queen) but this is a memoir, subtitled “Growing up Cree in the land of snow and sky”. Born in 1951, he grows up in remote Indigenous communities in NW Manitoba. The Indian Act declared that status Indian children MUST be sent to residential schools, so at age 6, he is flown to Guy Hill Indian Residential School in The Pas. Over the next 9 years, he describes academic challenges to learn English, but he does NOT experience institutional cultural genocide and has only a brief experience with sexual abuse at age 11. Overall, his residential school experience is positive even for a two-spirit individual, so an important perspective.
Category: Indigenous author
VenCo – Cherie Dimaline
This new book by Ms. Dimaline just gets better and better, moving from YA to adult fiction. Imagine a young Metis woman on a search for a spoon to reassemble a coven of 7 witches. Imagine that a deliciously evil male Benanmanti witch hunter pursues her with deadly intent. This is a subversive feminist story that is exciting and compulsively readable, mixing danger with humour. Highly recommended. By the way, the title is an anagram for coven!
The Strangers – Katherena Vermette
Like the companion novel The Break, this book begins with a Trigger Warning. The Strangers are a multi-generational Metis family living in Winnipeg: the story focusses on grandmother Margaret, daughter Elsie and children Phoenix and Cedar. Powerful emotions characterize these women: anger, shame in addictions, feeling invisible. Reflecting on sad stories, Margaret concludes (page 316) that “only Indians, Metis … had sorrow built into their bones, who exchanged despair as exclusively as recipes, who had devastation after devastation after dismissal after denial woven into their skin”. Compelling sentiments in the setting of important and necessary stories – a must read for all Canadians.
The Sentence – Louise Erdrich
This fabulous book follows one year (November 2019 – November 2020) in the life of Tookie, an Indigenous woman working in a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis. And importantly, the bookstore is haunted! In addition, there is the trauma of the pandemic and George Floyd’s murder. So, a year of living dangerously – highly recommended.
Seven Fallen Feathers – Tanya Talaga
Ms. Talaga has written an impeccably researched and powerful story about the deaths of seven Indigenous youths in Thunder Bay from 2000-2011. This is a modern version of the residential school tragedy. Indigenous youth are forced to leave their remote Anishinaabe northern communities due to lack of educational resources so they take High School in Thunder Bay. They lack a supportive social system and experience racism ranging from indifference to overt hostility with violence. This revealing book should be required reading for all Canadians.
Indians On Vacation – Thomas King
Bird and Mimi are travelling in Europe in an attempt to re-trace the journey of Mimi’s long-lost Uncle. What follows is a complex mix of humour and wit with poignant introspective events. The backstory emerges in alternating chapters. This is a completely satisfying look at two people’s relationship that is stressed by travel.
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
The author balances science with Indigenous knowledge in this fantastic book. There is much biology and botany together with the wisdom of mother nature and ecology. There are achingly beautiful musings on motherhood which extend to our relationship with mother nature, that mother nature is a wise teacher. The indigenous focus is, in part, on how to retain language with important lessons in sustainability. Plus who doesn’t want to read about migrating salamanders. Overall, a very uplifting book; thanks Joyce, for this recommendation.
Five Little Indians – Michelle Good
A graphic and powerful story of five indigernous children who have experienced Residential Schools, especially the aftermath on their post-school lives. Some tragic endings, some examples of resilience. This book should be assigned reading for those who dismiss the Residential School tragedy and for those who acknowledge hardship but then suggest that “survivors” should just get over it.The Night Watchman – Louise Erdrich
Another very fine Indigenous novel from Ms. Erdrich, this time the Turtle Mountain Indians (North Dakota) in 1953-54 who have to counter a USA Government plan to “emancipate” Indian tribes. In fact, this government plan will terminate all support to Indians and force their relocation to cities with loss of their lands. Much of the story concerns the community response to this existential threat. One of the most attractive aspects of this story is the ordinariness of the community. There is angst, to be sure: poverty, substance abuse, human trafficking. But the story does not dwell on the negatives, but rather on the community action. Who are the leaders? How can their initiatives be financed? And there are ghosts! A very fine read.
What David Read 