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- CBC
14 books to read for National Indigenous History Month
June is National Indigenous History Month. This month, add these buzzworthy books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit authors to your reading list. The Knowing In her latest book, The Knowing, Tanya Talaga retells her family story to explore Canada's history with an Indigenous lens. The Knowing starts with the life of Talaga's great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and charts the violence she and her family experienced for decades at the hands of the Church and the government. The Knowing, shares both a personal and well-researched account of the oppression of Indigenous people and its continued forms and reverberations. Tanya Talaga is a writer and journalist of Anishinaabe and Polish descent. She is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her book won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award. In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade. The memoir was . Mary Louisa Plummer is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children's rights. Small Ceremonies by Kyle Edwards In the city of Winnipeg, two Indigenous boys are on the cusp of adulthood, imagining a future filled with possibility and greatness. In Small Ceremonies, their stories are intertwined with others in the community, who are also searching for purpose, all of which ultimately leads to one fateful and tragic night. Kyle Edwards is an award-winning Anishinaabe journalist and writer from the Lake Manitoba First Nation and a member of the Ebb and Flow First Nation. His work has appeared in the BBC News World, CBC, Maclean's, Native News Online and the Toronto Star. He has won two National Magazine Awards in Canada, and he was recognized as an Emerging Indigenous Journalist by the Canadian Association of Journalists. A graduate of Ryerson University, he is currently a Provost Fellow at the University of Southern California, where he is pursuing a PhD in creative writing and literature. From the Rez to the Runway by Christian Allaire In From the Rez to the Runway, Christian Allaire shares his journey from growing up on the Nipissing First Nation reserve to breaking into the world of high fashion in New York City, navigating the challenges and realities of the industry. He shares the difficulty of balancing his ambitions with the often-inaccurate perceptions — including his own — of his culture's place in the realm of fashion, offering a powerful story of staying true to yourself while pursuing your dreams. Christian Allaire is an Ojibway writer from Nipissing First Nation. He earned a Bachelor of Journalism from Ryerson University in 2014, and he has since written for publications such as Footwear News, Refinery29, Elle, Hazlitt, Mr. Porter and The National Post. Currently, he is the senior Fashion and Style Writer for Vogue. Allaire is also the author of The Power of Style, a YA nonfiction book that highlights the need for diversity and representation in fashion — and examines topics such as cosplay, make up, hijabs, and hair to show the intersection of style, culture and social justice over the years. Allaire won Canada Reads 2022, championing Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson In Theory of Water, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson discovers, understands and traces the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. She presents water as a catalyst for radical transformation and how it has the potential to heal and reshape the world in response to environmental and social injustice. Simpson was chosen by Thomas King for the 2014 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. was shortlisted for the Rogers Writer's Trust Fiction Prize in 2017 and the 2018 Trillium Book Award. Her novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. Her most recent book, a collaboration with Robyn Maynard titled Rehearsals for Living, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Soft As Bones by Chyana Marie Sage Chyana Marie Sage's memoir, Soft As Bones, is her quest to better understand the childhood trauma and abuse that scarred her family. It's also a tapestry of poetry, history, Cree language, traditional ceremony and folklore — and delves into her experiences and those of her family with compassion and strength. Chyana Marie Sage is a Cree, Métis and Salish writer from Edmonton. Her journalism has appeared in the Toronto Star, Huff Post and the New Quarterly. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University where she taught as an adjunct professor. Sage won first place in the Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and silver in the National Magazine Awards for her essay Soar. She teaches Indigenous youth about cultivating self-love and healing through the Connected North program. When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, with Sean Carleton When the Pine Needles Fall tells the story of Canada's violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in 1990 from the perspective of Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel who was the Kanien'kehá:ka spokesperson during that time. The book covers her experiences leading up to the siege and her work as an activist for her community since. Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel is a Kanien'kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton, artist, documentarian and Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist. She lives in Kanehsatà:ke Kanien'kehá:ka Homelands. Sean Carleton is a historian and professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba. REDress is a powerful anthology that brings together the voices of Indigenous women, elders, activists, artists, academics and families affected by the tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people from across Turtle Island. Through personal stories and reflections on the REDress Project — an art installation featuring red dresses placed in public spaces as a call for justice — the book emphasizes the ongoing call for action and honours the vital role of Indigenous women as keepers and protectors of land, culture and community. Jaime Black-Morsette is a Red River Métis artist and activist. Founder of The REDress project in 2010, Jaime has used their art to foster community and drive change against the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls across Turtle Island for over a decade. Their interdisciplinary art practice spans immersive film, video, installation, photography, and performance, exploring themes of memory, identity, place, and resistance. All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain by Sarain Frank Soonias All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is a collection of poems that searches through family history and sheds light on intergenerational trauma and how it impacts Indigenous voices. Bringing together fragmented memories, All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain invites strength, beauty and intensity. Sarain Frank Soonias is a Cree/Ojibwe writer and artist. His work has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, Canadian Literature Review, Carousel, Carte Blanche and Filling Station, among others. All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is Soonias's debut poetry book. He currently lives in Red Deer, Alta. Born Sacred by Smokii Sumac Through 100 poems, Born Sacred reflects on colonial violence past and present through honouring the shared histories of Indigenous peoples of North America and of the people in Palestine. Smokii Sumac is a Ktunaxa two-spirit poet and emerging playwright. Their debut poetry collection you are enough: love poems for the end of the world won the Indigenous Voices Award, and they hosted The ʔasqanaki Podcast, interviewing Indigenous musicians and writers. They reside in their home territories of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, near the Kootenay River in B.C. WATCH | Smokii Sumac reflects on the wisdom and strength of bereaved mothers: There Are Hierarchies of Grief | How to Lose Everything – Episode 4 3 months ago Duration 5:35 real ones by katherena vermette Following two Michif sisters, lyn and June, real ones examines what happens when their estranged and white mother gets called out as a pretendian. Going by the name Raven Bearclaw, she's seen success for her art that draws on Indigenous style. As the media hones in on the story, the sisters, whose childhood trauma manifests in different ways, are pulled into their mother's web of lies and the painful past resurfaces. real ones was on the longlist for the 2024 Giller Prize. North End Love Songs and river woman and the four-book graphic novel series A Girl Called Echo. Her novels are The Break, The Strangers, The Circle. Murray Sinclair made his mark on Canadian society as a judge, activist, senator, the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry — and now he writes all about it in his memoir Who We Are. The book answers the four guiding questions of Sinclair's life — Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? Who am I? — through stories about his remarkable career and trailblazing advocacy for Indigenous peoples' rights and freedoms. Murray Sinclair was a former judge and senator. Anishinaabe and a member of the Peguis First Nation, Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge appointed in Manitoba and the second appointed in Canada. He served as Co-Chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba and as Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He won awards including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, the Manitoba Bar Association's Equality Award and its Distinguished Service Award (2016) and received Honorary Doctorates from 14 Canadian universities. Sara Sinclair is an oral historian of Cree-Ojibwa and mixed settler descent. She teaches at Columbia University and is currently co-editing two anthologies of Indigenous letters. Niigaan Sinclair is a writer, editor, activist and the head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the co-editor of Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. He won the 2019 Peace Educator of the Year award in 2019. Andrea Currie is a writer, healer and activist. She lives in Cape Breton where she works as a psychotherapist in Indigenous mental health. The Liturgy of Savage No. 82 by Maya Cousineau Mollen, translated by Adam Haiun As an Innu woman Maya Cousineau-Mollen grew up outside of the Ekuanitshit (Mingan) community she was born in. In her poetry collection The Liturgy of Savage No. 82, Cousineau-Mollen reflects on connecting with her biological family and culture after being adopted into another family as part of the Sixties Scoop. From childhood and onwards, Cousineau-Mollen's poems bring attention to the complex realities of Indigenous women in Canada and the Indigenous homeless population in Montreal as she draws on her own relationships to identity and systemic racism. Maya Cousineau Mollen is an Innu poet based in Quebec. Her poetry collection Bréviaire du matricule 082 won the Indigenous Voices Award for French Poetry. Cousineau Mollen also served as an executive assistant to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Adam Haiun is a writer and poet from Montreal. Haiun's work was a finalist for the Malahat Review's Open Season Award for fiction and for the Far Horizons Contest for poetry in 2020. She Falls Again by Rosanna Deerchild She Falls Again follows the voice of a poet attempting to survive as an Indigenous person in Winnipeg when so many are disappearing. Riddled with uncertainties, like if the crow she speaks to is a trickster, the poet hears the message of the Sky Woman who is set on dismantling the patriarchy. Through short poems and prose this collection calls for reclamation and matriarchal power. Rosanna Deerchild has been storytelling for more than twenty years, currently as host of CBC's Unreserved. Deerchild also developed and hosted This Place, a podcast series for CBC Books around the Indigenous anthology This Place: 150 Years Retold. Her book, calling down the sky, is her mother's Residential School survivor story. Deerchild is currently based in Winnipeg.
CBC
12-06-2025
- CBC
Winnipeg principal 'dumbfounded' after 4-metre teepee stolen from elementary school's lawn
Social Sharing The principal of an East Kildonan elementary school says the theft of a teepee that was put up on the school's lawn has robbed its students of important land-based learning opportunities during National Indigenous History Month. The four-metre-wide teepee was erected on Monday by a knowledge keeper who has a relationship with Angus McKay School, said principal Jean-Paul Rochon. It was gone the next morning. Rochon said the theft happened sometime between 11:30 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday morning, when school staff arrived. "I'm still quite dumbfounded, because it would have taken a lot of effort to get that teepee down," Rochon said, adding that moving a teepee of that size and its heavy wooden poles would have likely required a large truck. The teepee was supposed to stand on the lawn of the kindergarten to Grade 5 school for two weeks during June, which is National Indigenous History Month and includes National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21, and was large enough to accommodate full classes of more than 20 students, Rochon said. "If we're going to talk about learning from the land and learning about different cultures, it would be important to learn within the context of those pieces. So to have an actual teepee that the kids could go into as they talked about it, to be inside of a teepee, would have been extraordinary," he said. He said another teepee has been set up in the school library, thanks to the knowledge keeper. It will stay there until the end of the month. "We'll be able to still do some of those activities. It won't be out on the land, but at least we've not lost out on the opportunity of the actual physical teepee," Rochon said. Winnipeg police confirmed to CBC News that a police report has been filed and officials are investigating. No further information has been provided. Rochon said the school custodian checked in the wooded area behind the playground to see if anything had been left there, but found nothing. The school hasn't heard anything about the teepee's whereabouts yet, he said. 'Like it had vanished': parent Parent Chelsea Dyck, whose two children go to Angus McKay, said the tight-knit and quiet community has been shocked and upset by the theft — and how quickly it happened. "I didn't even know that the teepee had even been here until we got the email about the news that it had been stolen. It got put up, and the next morning it was like it had vanished," she said. She said parents and community members are shaken by the fact that someone would steal something so large and culturally significant from the lawn of an elementary school. "This isn't the kind of thing you can just tuck under your jacket and walk off with," Dyck said. Kelli Johnson, whose two children also attend the school, said many of the houses in the area have doorbell cameras, but many face away from the street and likely wouldn't have video of the crime. "It's not just some petty vandalism. It's got to be something that must have been planned," Johnson said. She said it's disappointing to lose both the teepee and the learning experiences that students would have had inside it. "I think being in that teepee would have been a really awesome experience for the children of Angus McKay," Johnson said. CBC News was not able to contact the knowledge keeper who works with the school as of Wednesday. Learning teepee stolen from front lawn of Winnipeg elementary school 12 hours ago Duration 2:07 Staff at Angus McKay School are surprised after a four-metre-wide teepee on the school's front lawn disappeared without a trace. The teepee was to be used for lessons around the summer solstice and National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21. Now that it's missing, educators at the northeast Winnipeg school are making different plans.
CBC
05-06-2025
- General
- CBC
Kahnawà:ke Fire Brigade gives out smoke detectors to educate community on fire prevention
The fire brigade in Kahnawà:ke is holding a campaign during National Indigenous History Month to raise awareness about fire safety. Indigenous people make up five per cent of the population in Canada, but 20 per cent of deaths related to residential fires, according to the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council.
ABC News
03-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
War Memorial honours Aurukun veteran
Isabella Higgins: More than 80 years after he died, an Indigenous family have discovered the secret war history of one of their relatives. For decades, the story of service of Private Ngakyunkwokka was lost due to a spelling error. Now the Australian War Memorial is fixing that, as James Vyver reports. James Vyver: In Wik country on the western side of Queensland's Cape York, the old Aurukun Mission Cemetery is filled with white wooden crosses. Among them, a gleaming white headstone stands out, the war grave of an Aboriginal World War II soldier, whose service and story has only recently been discovered by his great-niece, Ariana Yunkaporta. Ariana Yunkaporta: We didn't know our great-great uncle was serving in the World War II. We were like, wow, we had an ancestors, you know, who served before and I was like really happy. I was like, wow, I don't know any white Australian served in the World War. James Vyver: The soldier, Private Ngakyunkwokka, died in 1945 while on active duty for the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion. Incorrect mission and army records dating back over the last century led to the veteran being buried with the wrong name, Private Ngarkwokka. That error, carved in gold lettering, is still on the headstone today. Ariana Yunkaporta: Seeing that grave for the first time, it was emotional and then I started like, had tears coming down. James Vyver: It meant Ariana Yunkaporta and her family had no idea their ancestor was with them in Aurukun. The mystery of how the headstone bears the wrong name has now been solved after 80 years, thanks to a fellow digger and some luck. Tim White: The last thing I expected to find in a cemetery in a remote Aboriginal community was a war grave. James Vyver: In 2022, Aurukun local and army veteran Dr Tim White recognised the significance of the headstone, but not the Ngarkwokka name. Tim White: My inquiry started that day. I've got to find out who this is and what the story is. If one of our Afghanistan or Vietnam veterans were buried under the wrong name, there'd be national outcry about it. James Vyver: The incorrect records had also led to the soldier being listed with the wrong name on the roll of honour at the Australian War Memorial, twice. Well, his name has been changed three times. Australian War Memorial Director Matt Anderson. Matt Anderson: We're determined now with the help of family, with the help of community that we've got it right. That's the right answer, to keep on striving for perfection. This is a roll of honour. This is the nation's debt recorded in bronze and if we can get it right, that's what we're determined to do and I'm just so pleased we've been able to do that. James Vyver: A supplementary bronze panel now correctly reads Ngakyunkwokka C.B. The previous two incorrect names remain on the roll of honour. Army Reservists themselves, Ariana Yunkaporta and her brother Irwin, travelled to Canberra last week for a last post ceremony at the War Memorial. A service dedicated to a fellow soldier and their new-found uncle, finally recognised with his true name. Ariana Yunkaporta: He's not just a role model for us, he's a role model to Aurukun as well, to the whole community. James Vyver: The headstone on Private Ngakyunkwokka's grave will be replaced in the coming months. Isabella Higgins: James Vyver reporting there.
CTV News
02-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Books to celebrate National Indigenous History Month
Ottawa Watch We kick of National Indigenous History Month with the Ottawa Public Library for their top pick this month.
