Indigenous Books From BC

When their grandfather suddenly dies, the twins learn that the deed to the precious spring in Wild Horse Creek Canyon is missing. When Liv discovers that the shady owner of the neighbouring ranch, Sam Regis, is planning to build a big retirement village on their land, she takes action. With only a few clues to go by, she and Brady secretly set out to find a mysterious old friend of Granddad’s who might know where the deed is.

Meanwhile, Sophie, Mark, and Shane discover that Mystery, the elu …

Standing Up with G̲a’ax̱sta’las is a compelling conversation with the colonial past initiated by the descendants of Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw leader and activist, Jane Constance Cook (1870-1951). Working in collaboration, Robertson and Cook’s descendants open this history, challenging dominant narratives that misrepresent her motivations for criticizing customary practices and eventually supporting the potlatch ban. Drawing from oral histories, archival materials, and historical and anthropolo …

The captivating story of Mary John (who passed away in 2004), a pioneering Carrier Native whose life on the Stoney Creek reserve in central BC is a capsule history of First Nations life from a unique woman's perspective. A mother of twelve, Mary endured much tragedy and heartbreak--the pangs of racism, poverty, and the deaths of six children--but lived her life with extraordinary grace and courage. Years after her death, she continues to be a positive role model for Aboriginals across Canada. I …

The North American fur trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a vividly complex and changing social world. Strangers in Blood fills a major gap in fur trade literature by systematically examining the traders as a group – their backgrounds, social patterns, domestic lives and families, and the problems of their offspring.

In 2008, Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend the deep rifts between Aboriginal peoples and the settler society that created Canada’s notorious residential school system. Unsettling the Settler Within argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation. Settlers must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peacemakers and acknowledge the dest …

An unsettling study of two tragic events at an Indian residential school in British Columbia which serve as a microcosm of the profound impact the residential school system had on Aboriginal communities in Canada throughout this century. The book's focal points are the death of a runaway boy and the suicide of another while they were students at the Williams Lake Indian Residential School during the early part of this century. Imbedded in these stories is the complex relationship between the Dep …

In 1974 Lorne Dufour moved to Alkali Lake Reserve, a Shuswap community near Williams Lake in British Columbia, to help reopen the local elementary school. Like many First Nation communities across Canada, Alkali Lake had been ravaged by decades of residential schools and forced religion. Colonialism had robbed them of their language and culture and had left a legacy of abuse and alcoholism. But in 1972, Chief Andy Chelsea and his wife Phyllis took it upon themselves to lead their community on a …

Boas, Teit, Hill-Tout, Barbeau, Swanton, Jenness, the luminaries of field research in British Columbia, are discussed here in A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend, and their work in Indian folklore evaluated. Other scholars, amateurs and Native informants of the past and present are given ample consideration, making this book a comprehensive survey of myth collecting in B.C. The aim is to reveal the true extent of this neglected body of world literature, and to begin to sort out the more valua …