thesis statement for seven fallen feathers

Seven Fallen Feathers

Author: Tanya Talaga

Hearing a sound through reading it off a page is a particular experience. One hears the impression that the sound left on the writer, an impression so deep that it survives through ink or pixilation only to take hold in the brain of the reader and live again. For Tanya Talaga in Seven Fallen Feathers that sound reverberated through Norma Kejick’s memory and will continue as I pass it on now through Talaga’s words, but it is the source of the sound that carries the strength to create a space in all who hear it, it is “the sound of a mother losing her child” (p. 2705).

Seven Fallen Feathers is an account of the deaths of Indigenous students in the Ontario educational system from twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack in 1966, who died running away from a residential school, to the deaths of seventeen-year-old Tammy Keeash, and fourteen-year-old Josiah Begg, whose bodies were found within two weeks of each other in the waters that surround Thunder Bay in 2017. Talaga highlights the deeply entrenched racism in governing institutions in the city by exposing the paradigm of tiered justice and education systems for Indigenous students. Talaga also includes hate crimes against Indigenous citizens like Barbara Kentner, “the Indigenous mother from Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation who was hit in the stomach by a trailer hitch that was thrown out of a moving car on January 29, 2017. Her sister Melissa, heard someone in the car say, “I (expletive) got one of them.”” (pg. 3652) Barbara died on July 4, 2017 from the injuries she sustained in the incident. It should be noted that in December 2020, 22-year-old Brayden Bushby was convicted of manslaughter in her death and while the crown is asking for eight to twelve years, Bushby is still awaiting his sentence.

Seven Fallen Feathers offers the details of the lives and deaths of seven Indigenous teens who died over the span of 11 years while attending high school in Thunder Bay, their names are: Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese, Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau, and Jordan Wabasse. All of these students had to leave their families and move to a place plagued with the hatred noted above, to reside with little or no supervision, in order to gain access to education.

Talaga describes the culture of racism that led to the student’s deaths and the subsequent systemic failure to investigate that will forever withhold the truth of how they died from their families. The cornerstone of this system is the Indian Act which Talaga points out “has been described as a form of apartheid, a piece of legislation designed to control and tame the Indigenous population” (p. 701). An education true to this form of legislation will certainly result in the death of students, but as noted in the review by Jade Colbert in The Globe and Mail, “Talaga makes clear how Thunder Bay is symptomatic, not the problem itself”, Jade continues to call it “a book to be justly infuriated by”(2017). Likewise, Publishers Weekly calls the book “heartbreaking and infuriating” (2017).

According to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Talaga reminds us, Indigenous children have the right to “all levels and forms of education of the State without discrimination”(p. 2449), and swiftly thereafter offers the details of Cindy Blackstock’s human rights complaint against the Canadian government for racial discrimination against Indigenous children. Amidst the litany of reasons Talaga offers as evidence of the stark inequities in the education system is the story of Kyle Morrisseau, a 17-year-old student in Thunder Bay whose body was pulled from the McIntyre River in 2009. Kyle was the grandson of famed Indigenous Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau, son of artist Christian Morrisseau, and an artist in his own right, yet he attended a school where his “final mark for visual arts was 2 percent”(p. 3031). Clearly the school system fails to account for the fact that survival trumps learning. It is Christian Morrisseau who paints what becomes the cover of the novel, a painting called Seven Fallen Feathers because he was “tired of hearing them being called [the] “seven dead students” as if they weren’t anything else in life” (p. 3573). The painting is “a Masterpiece…a requiem for his first born son” (p. 3589).

In Seven Fallen Feathers Talaga interweaves traditional Ojibway teachings of “giant Nanabijou” (p. 52) and Anishinaabe teachings of the “seven principles” (p. 34), and the prophecy of the “seven fires” (p. 218) which I will not reiterate as they are not my traditions to share but I will say that they reflect the world from which Talaga, as a truth-teller, mingles past and present so seamlessly that she breaks through the boundaries of time as we know it with her compelling look to the future through Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s thoughts on an eighth fire, as he questions whether or not “settlers and Indigenous people [will] come together as one and move forward in harmony” (p. 3748) In writing Seven Fallen Feathers Talaga is a historiographer, a poet, a judicial reviewer, a vessel for grief, and, a restorer of honour and dignity to the Indigenous youth whose lives were meant to be bigger than the system imagined, whose lives were cut short by our collective shrug of indifference. Talaga’s words call out each and every one of us for our complacency because being infuriated alone won’t change a thing.

Jade Colbert. (2017, October 20). “Review: Tanya Talaga’s Seven Fallen Feathers, Lydia Kwa’s Oracle Bone and Guillaume Morissette’s The Original Face.” Theglobeandmail.com. Retrieved February 11, 2021, from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/review-tanya-talagas-seven-fallen-feathers-lydia-kwas-oracle-bone-and-guillaume-morissettes-the-original-face/article36674971/

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4870-0226-8

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Book review: seven fallen feathers.

By Sarah DelVillano

From  the Catalyst , Summer 2018

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City

By Tanya Talaga

House of Anansi Press, 2017

Reviewed by Sarah DelVillano

Seven Fallen Feathers , winner of the Indigenous Literature Award this year, is a powerful account of the deaths of seven Indigenous youths in Thunder Bay. It shines a light on each individual story behind the seven fallen feathers of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Each of the fallen feathers represents young Indigenous students, forced to leave home to pursue education, away from their families – families plagued by the intergenerational trauma resulting from residential schools. Many of these youth were found in rivers, despite being strong swimmers and having lived by the water their whole lives. And all their deaths were deemed accidental by local authorities.

For many settler Canadians, it is very easy to put the legacy of colonialism and the genocidal policy of residential schools behind us, believing these events to be a part of a shameful past in our successful road to reconciliation. The wealth of information presented in this book makes it impossible to deny that systemic and institutional violence, as it relates to colonialism in Canada, are alive and well today. The stories behind each of the seven fallen feathers pick apart these beliefs, slowly but surely, and expose them for what they are. Each child has a family that was failed by the system both before, and after, their passing.

Talaga ends the book with a look at present-day relations. Her work deconstructs the belief that Indigenous peoples and First Nation communities are passive victims of this violence. It is a powerful testament to the resilience of these youth, and a troubling indictment of continued colonial violence in Canada.

Sarah was first introduced to CPJ during her practicum placement with Canada Without Poverty, where she worked briefly on the Dignity for All campaign. Sarah’s passion for social justice became entrenched during her studies at Carleton University. She is especially interested in systematic injustices and the effects these injustices have on marginalized groups within Canada and beyond. This includes a special interest in power relations and remedial strategies. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Rights and Social Justice, combined with a double-minor in Anthropology and Political Science. This unique, interdisciplinary combination has helped Sarah achieve a broader understanding of the cultural, political, and rights-based components of complex socio-economic issues. Sarah is also passionate about the legal components of social justice and has been pursuing a law degree at the University of Ottawa since completing her time with CPJ.

Charitable registration number: 89438 3512 RR0001 (CJL Foundation)

© 2024 Citizens for Public Justice. All Rights Reserved.

Seven Fallen Feathers: The story Tanya Talaga had to tell

Social Sharing

This piece originally aired December 3, 2017.

When Toronto Star reporter Tanya Talaga went to Thunder Bay in 2011, it was to write a story about why First Nation people were not voting in the federal election.

But instead, she came across a more compelling, and important story: the deaths of seven First Nation students who were living in Thunder Bay to attend high school.

"I went to interview Stan Beardy, who was then the grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation … and I asked him about Indigenous voting patterns."

"While I was asking questions, he would look at me and ask me, 'Why is it you aren't writing a story about Jordan Wabasse?'"

After asking her question again, Beardy replied, "Jordan's been missing for 70 days," — prompting Talaga to change the story she was chasing.

"When [Beardy] told me that Jordan was the seventh student to die or go missing while in Thunder Bay, I couldn't believe it … because there were no proper schools for them in their home communities," said Talaga.

"It was then that I realized that I couldn't believe that this wasn't a bigger story, I mean why wasn't it having national media attention?"

• Deaths of 7 Indigenous students in Thunder Bay the responsibility of all Canadians: author

Talaga started her research in the building where families from across northern Ontario were meeting to help coordinate the search for Jordan Wabasse.

"I was amazed because there were all these northern searchers were there, there were searchers from Cat Lake, there were searchers from his home community in Webequie, and they had put the flags up of their nations all over the inside of the office," said Talaga.

"There were grandmas in the corner making food for the searchers … I was just overwhelmed by the sense of community and love."

After doing a bit of research into Wabasse, Talaga realized that there was not enough room in a standard 800-word article to cover the complexity of the issue, which is why she decided to write the book, Seven Fallen Feathers .

"I just felt that people needed to know that this just wasn't a story about these seven kids, that this is a story about Canada … this is a story about so many things, about the legacy of the residential school system, of the fact that there are no schools for kids in northern communities," said Talaga.

Chanie's story rings true today

Included in Seven Fallen Feathers is the story of Chanie Wenjack, the young boy who ran away from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential school in Kenora, Ont. in the fall of 1966, and later died of exposure along the railway tracks.

An inquest was held into Wenjack's death, and Talaga said that the jury asked, "Why is it that we have residential schools and we don't have schools in the community for the kids where they live?"

That question, Talaga said, still rings true in 2017.

"The story of Thunder Bay is really the story of Canada … broken treaties, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, and the failure to have equity for [First Nation] kids," said Talaga.

"Inside Thunder Bay you can see it's a microcosm of Canada, there's an undercurrent of subtle racism that runs through."

More from this episode

• Unreserved Elementary school students rewriting the TRC's calls to action... as poetry
• Ansley Simpson: Anishinaabe musician comes out of her 'hiding place'
• FULL EPISODE: Taking action: elementary schools, universities play active role in reconciliation

Related Stories

• UNRESERVED Wondering how to get involved in reconciliation? Start by asking yourself these 5 questions
• Tanya Talaga on her new book, and race relations in Thunder Bay
• UNRESERVED 'This is our civil rights movement': Teacher says learning Indigenous history only a first step

“Seven Fallen Feathers”: Injustice and Morality Essay

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Introduction

Native indian populations in residential schooling, considering the governmental responses, investigations into the natives’ deaths.

Presenting the controversial topic of injustice and morality can be a difficult task for a writer. Tanya Talaga’s work “ Seven Fallen Feathers ” battles with the themes of unfairness and righteousness in the context of seven indigenous people’s lives, attempting to analyze the mysterious events in Thunder Bay (Talaga, 2017). Even though there may be various opinions on this work, society’s attitudes to the native populations were disastrous. In this essay, general injustices toward the seven students will be described, and explanations of the government’s actions’ immorality will be provided.

The issues of the relationship between the indigenous people and the Canadian population are highly varying. Talaga’s book “ Seven Fallen Feathers ” is targeted at disclosing the truth about those relations, presenting the stories of seven young people who died mysteriously between the years 2000 and 2011 (Talaga, 2017). The evidence states that the youth belonged to Native Indian people, who were wrongfully treated based on their origins (Talaga, 2017). In this work, these individuals’ life details are explained and supported by meticulous research from the writer (Talaga, 2017). Thus, the book allows the reader to understand the injustice caused by the residential schools’ environment.

To provide a thorough analysis of this story, the author presents seven stories separately. Even though the are many distinctions between the people described, such as the periods they lived in and the families they came from, all of the individuals suffered from similar difficulties (Burkhart, 2018). Society’s attitudes towards the teenagers were extremely negative, as the youth were treated as outcasts (Talaga, 2017). Talaga (2017) presents various reports of violence towards individuals who came from Indian families. Such students received harmful comments from their classmates and were considered non-important by the teaching personnel (Talaga, 2017). Moreover, the residential schools were located far from the Indian settlements, causing the children to be separated from their relatives and familiar surroundings (Talaga, 2017). Overall, the environment that young native people had to live in was incredibly hostile.

The government produced additional pressure on the indigenous youth. The support systems for the Indian representatives were highly insufficient, lacking the necessary programs to provide them with proper healthcare (Talaga, 2017). Furthermore, financial aid was only available for the boarding families, whose parenting actions were not regulated (Talaga, 2017). The native individuals’ well-being was not controlled or accounted for, which is a significant injustice, considering that the white students acquired satisfactory living arrangements (Talaga, 2017). In the case of Curran Strang, who suffered from various assimilation troubles, there was no support provided to help him overcome these issues (Talaga, 2017). Altogether, the young people from Indian reservations were placed at a severe disadvantage concerning other social groups.

One of the most striking facts stated in “ Seven Fallen Feathers ” is the authorities’ disregard for the indigenous students. It is noted that such acutely dismissive attitudes to the native youth were considered normal by Thunder Bay’s culture due to a long historical relationship between white and Indian populations (Talaga, 2017). Nevertheless, it was the government’s duty to provide all the citizens with the proper quality of life. The author describes the events after the children’s disappearances in extraordinary detail, and in all the seven cases, the town leaders’ negligence toward the missing youth is present (Talaga, 2017). The authorities would most often suppose that the teenager’s absence did not require investigation (Burkhart, 2018). “He’s just out there partying like every other Native kid” – was the officer’s response to the disappearance of Jethro Anderson (Talaga, 2017, p. 82). Such actions from the police might have led to the disastrous outcomes that we know today.

It is crucial to analyze the governments’ response to discovering the children’s bodies. Even though there were some attempts from the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) representatives to launch search parties for the missing natives, the investigations’ overall flow was dangerously slow (Talaga, 2017). Additionally, necessary guidelines were omitted by the officers and coroners, who handled the cases of the indigenous people. Although it is mandatory to notify the next of kin at the beginning of the inquiry into the accident, this step was not performed on various occasions (Talaga, 2017). During the examination of Robyn Harper’s incident, the law enforcement specialists did not contact the girl’s mother to inform her of the circumstances (Talaga, 2017). The necessary information was not collected, and the authorities were able to simply close the case without any investigation (Talaga, 2017). Such negligence from the government’s officials is especially disturbing.

Substantial evidence exists that police officers did not continue their research into some of the native individuals’ missing reports. According to Talaga, the case of Paul Panacheese was never resolved (2017). Even though there is no malicious intent recorded in the evidence about this incident, the teenager’s cause of death is still unclear (Talaga, 2017). The mother stated that her son had collapsed on the floor, and there was no indication of illness (Talaga, 2017). The police’s lack of interest in this incident can be considered unjust.

Most of the incidents connected to the disappearance of indigenous students had a specific pattern connecting them. Five of seven individuals, who died during the period described, were found in the rivers near Lake Superior (Talaga, 2017). The coincidental nature of these deaths was never thoroughly investigated (Burkhart, 2018). It is still unclear why most of the bodies were discovered this way and if there is any connection between them (Burkhart, 2018). Moreover, in at least five of the incidents, their accidental occurrence is highly disputed, thus proposing a possibility of malicious intent (Talaga, 2017). Given that many native children suffered from their classmates’ hostile behavior, as well as the evidence supporting these statements, it is perplexing why the officials have chosen to ignore these cases. A proper insight into the situations that happened before the kids’ perished was required.

Considering the morality of the events described is especially essential in the missing teenagers’ cases. The attitude towards the native children was incredibly unfair, given that its occurrence was caused mostly by the stereotypes towards the Indian population (Burkhart, 2018). The records state that most indigenous individuals presented themselves as great students: they received good grades and showed exemplary behavior at school (Talaga, 2017). Some of them were especially eager to acquire secondary education, such as Jordan Wabasse, who had to persuade his mother to let him continue attending the classes (Talaga, 2017). Thus, it is necessary to mention the unfairness of the situations that transpired in Thunder Bay. The authorities’ negligence towards the children’s reports and lack of action after their disappearance is significantly erroneous. Having known the issues, the native teenagers had to face in their social surroundings, it was highly injudicious for them to accept the accidental nature of their deaths.

To conclude, it is essential to consider the injustices that minorities have to manage in their daily lives. Timely response to the issues surrounding small indigenous groups is a crucial factor in their representatives’ well-being. The government should uphold equality among all its citizens, especially those of young age. Additional support is highly needed for the Native Indian community to sustain a satisfactory quality of life for themselves and their children.

Burkhart, B. D. (2018). Seven fallen feathers: Racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city (Tanya Talaga). Transmotion , 4 (1), 171–172. Web.

Talaga, T. (2017). Seven fallen feathers: Racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city . House of Anansi Press.

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Seven fallen feathers : racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city

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The Australian Legend

Australian literature. the independent woman. the lone hand, seven fallen feathers, tanya talaga.

North America Project 2022

Seven Fallen Feathers documents the deaths of seven Indigenous high school students living away – a long way in most cases – from home to attend Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School (DFC) in Thunder Bay, Ontario (Canada) in the years 2000-2011.

I listened to it a few weeks ago and then again for a few hours yesterday. I can’t pretend to have retained enough for a proper review, but this is a moving and important story and I will attempt to reconstruct it from the considerable resources of the internet.

Tanya Talaga is an experienced journalist and an Ojibwe woman “with roots in Fort William First Nation … Her great-grandmother, Liz Gauthier, was a residential school survivor. Her great-grandfather, Russell Bowen, was an Ojibwe trapper and labourer. Her grandmother is a member of Fort William First Nation, and her mother was raised in Raith and Graham, Ontario.” ( About Tanya )

The book is divided into seven sections, one for each ‘fallen feather’ plus a couple of chapters to wind up. But throughout Talaga winds in background material. Northern Ontario sounds bleak, forests, snow and innumerable lakes, with small remote First Nations communities accessible only by seaplanes, or by long drives when the roads are open.

I gather most communities have schools up to Year 8, but beyond that it’s either correspondence or living away from home – boarding with families, not residential colleges – to attend DFC. Sadly, it is (or was) a condition of attending DFC that the kids come from a remote community. Hence if a parent set up home in Thunder Bay to support their child then they no longer met the condition for attending the school.

Indigenous education fell, and maybe still falls, under Federal Native Affairs (however it is now named) while the education of settler children was a function of Provincial governments. As is the way with Native Affairs bureaucracies everywhere, even if the spending per student was nominally the same, most of it went on (white) administration, and Indigenous schools were woefully underfunded compared with settler schools.

Talaga’s thesis is that the Canadian government engaged in the systematic elimination of First Nations culture – cultural genocide – and for all their good words/good intentions now, that is ongoing. Treaties, which First Nations leaders entered into under duress, were not honoured; the 1876 Indian Act restricted First Nations people to mostly remote reservations and enforced the attendance of of all children up to 16 years at one of 137 residential schools, run by churches, and now notorious for physical and sexual violence, inadequate food and clothing, and rampant disease, especially TB which might easily have been controlled; even with the closure of the residential schools, Indigenous education has been inadequately funded.

To date, according to conservative estimates from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, approximately 4,100 to 6,000 children died amid abuse and neglect while in the residential school system, which ran until 1996. CTV News, 1 June 2021 ( here )

DFC, with 150 students over Years 9-12, was opened by the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council on the site of an old residential school in Thunder Bay in 2000. Within weeks of the opening the first of the seven, Jethro Anderson, was reported missing. His body was subsequently found in the Kam River, bruised and with what appeared to be cigarette burns to his face. In what became an unvarying trend, Thunder Bay police reported, prior to any possibility of investigation, that there was no suspicion of foul play.

The other six are – Curran Strang, 2005, found in the McIntyre River Paul Panacheese, 2006, collapsed and died at home Robyn Harper, 2006, died of acute alcohol poisoning Reggie Bushie, 2007, found in the McIntyre River. He had been drinking on the banks of the river with his brother Ricki, who came to, in the river, with no memory of how he got there Kyle Morrisseau, 2009, found in the McIntyre River Jordan Wabasse, 2011, found in the Kam River

Talaga writes sympathetic accounts of each of the seven and their families. She provides instances of Indigenous kids reporting being beaten up by white kids and of being tossed into waterways. She documents ongoing racist harassment; taunts and rubbish thrown from passing cars; one Indigenous woman dying of injuries from a lump of metal thrown at her stomach. Over and over we run into indifferent police and coroners inquiries with all white juries.

There is clearly a problem with children 14-18, too far from parental love and supervision, with too many opportunities for drinking and smoking. As in Australia, concerned elders patrol the streets at night and do what they can. As in Australia, Indigenous kids out after dark are treated by the police with suspicion rather than compassion or understanding.

Provincial police were brought in to redo the investigations. To no effect. An inquest into the seven deaths made open findings about the causes of the deaths and 145 recommendations. Children are now brought home for a week mid-term; and new, more local schools are opening. I was left unsure about whether there were local Provincial high schools that Indigenous kids might attend.

In 2017, two more dead teenagers—Tammy Keeash and Josiah Begg—were pulled from different parts of the McIntyre River within two weeks of each other.

Tanya Talaga, Seven Fallen Feathers , House of Anansi Press, Toronto, 2017. Audible, 2018, Read by Michaela Washburn. 9 hours.

Christian Morrisseau, an Ojibwa ‘woodland’ artist, painted Seven Fallen Feathers in about 2016, after the inquest into the deaths of his son Kyle and six other First Nations students in Thunder Bay in the years 2000-2011 (Tanya Talaga, Ojibwa artist paints Seven Fallen Feathers to ease pain, remember seven young lives , Toronto Star )

see also: Marcie/Buried in Print’s review ( here ) Lisa/ANZLL’s Indigenous Lit page/Canada and the Americas ( here )

I don’t get the impression anyone is attempting to read along with my North America Project. Just as well! Next month (June) my review will be of James Baldwin’s Just Above my Head (1979) which I happened on in the library and have already listened to (yes Emma, it was excellent). July WILL be Their Eyes were watching God (1937), Zora Neale Hurston. I already have Life Among the Qallunaat , Mini Aodla Freeman, so that leaves me four more to find (I also have Dhalgren , Samuel R Delany, but I think that’s a project for another day).

Also in June, for Naomi’s Literary Wives Club , I have The Sentence (2021) by Louise Erdrich to read – I know! What a waste to read a book for only one challenge when it might easily cover two or three.

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18 thoughts on “ seven fallen feathers, tanya talaga ”.

Absolutely re your last point and challenges.

I heard a discussion on the radio the other day about Native American children (in the Midwest I think) being taken to school for it to be essentially a domestic service training institution. They weren’t allowed to speak their language, etc etc. Everywhere! The story just repeats wherever colonisers come on.

We Brits must accept that we too engaged in Genocide everywhere that we separated children from their mothers and forbade them to learn Language, as we do even to today by refusing to educate in any language other than English. Talaga makes the point that S Africa’s Apartheid was derived from Canada’s Indian Act, but fails to note the similar Aborigines Acts adopted by Australian states.

Not surprising. Who even hears about our situation, outside of Australia?

I think there are just too many Indigenous nations closer to home that are priorities from her perspective, to trouble with other colonial nation-states and their histories. Maybe, too, she finds that she’s causing a lot of controversy by exposing injustices committed by the nation that is most directly threatening (abolishing) her own nation’s sovereignty (i.e. Canada) to challenge other nation states like Australia! :wry laugh:

I was concerned to read Talaga from an Australian point of view – to continue my education in Indigenous issues – but I didn’t mean to imply that she should have been thinking about us. Apartheid (and Genocide) have particular meanings from which Talaga correctly draws parallels. But it is clear that those parallels exist in many colonial situations, in Canada, in Palestine, in Australia, just to name three to which I am paying/learning to pay attention.

The story is such an old one in so many countries. I am so saddened by it all. A book you might consider for your North American challenge is Native Son by Richard Wright. A real African American classic that I think is quite overlooked.

I have you down on my Project post as advocating Native Son. Before I select my last four books, I have to check for US/Canada and Indigenous/African American balance, and I guess for old/new as well (as well as for availability, mostly on Audible). But I will keep him in mind!

The saddest part is how difficult it is for us as settlers to accept that the harm we are doing to Indigenous communities is ongoing and should be stopped, rectified, reparations made.

Not so much for you, Bill, but for any fans of Native Son–I recently watched the 2019 film directed by Rashid Johnson and it was quite remarkable. Can’t really say much more than that, without risking spoilers, but I would recommend it for anyone who values the book.

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I also listened to this on audio – you’ve done well to remember what you have – the book is jam-packed with information! It’s an eye-opener, isn’t it? What really made me sad while listening to this is how current it all is – progression on this is so painstakingly slow. I love the art work.

It is an eye-opener, though after Royal Commissions, Truth & Reconciliation processes, innumerable inquiries in Canada, Australia and South Africa, it shouldn’t be. I hope there is some progression, but the figures in Australia anyway suggest otherwise.

I love the artwork too. Contemporary painting had reached a dead end IMO, but Indigenous painting gives us a new way of looking at Country.

I hadn’t heard of this book Bill. It saddens, but doesn’t surprise, me. There was a report recently on the ABC (either Four Corners or Australian Story I think) of the desperate need for Aboriginal housing to have more rooms and a verandah (and air conditioning) as overcrowding is a problem – and the Aboriginal people are requesting they have a say in the design of their homes. It’s pathetic to think they are still having to request they actually have some input in the design of their housing. I sometimes despair.

Seven Fallen Feathers did well in Canada, in prizes and in sales, I gather. I know Indigenous peoples around the world have drawn on each other’s experience for some time now; but it is still terrible how we the British diaspora behaved wherever we chose to land (pretty well everywhere).

It might take another half a century, but I hope the world eventually looks on the British (ie. us) in the same way as we look on Germans; and I hope we have the grace to do something about our faults, about our actions past and present, as the Germans seem to have.

Hey Bill, it may be because I’ve been struggling/distracted lately, but I don’t remember seeing a list of which North American books you’re reading. I’d be happy to read along with some of them. Hurston I’ve read, of course, and am happy to gab in your comments section.

As for Seven Fall Feathers, the part that pisses me off to no end about the treatment of native/indigenous children is that they are taken from their homes, either by force or coercion, because the church thinks they will be civilized. And then they’re dead or abused. All the church had to do was leave the children alone. Just leave them alone. For shits sake, just leave them alone.

I’ve been slack about setting up a month by month reading list for the whole year, but I’ll stick to the ones I’ve listed at the end of this post and I’ll write to you soon and we might work out one or two others which will fit in with us both.

After the calamity of the church run residential schools, I think education for remote First Nations kids was a mess. A mess that had to be tackled by First Nations bodies inadequately funded by the federal government. DFC was an attempt to provide a decent high school education to kids from hundreds of kilometres around, but the difficulties of living away from parental support; the temptations of being out late; and the racism of the white community, especially the police, proved deadly.

You’ve found a lot of parallels between what you’ve already read about Indigenous justice issues in (the country currently called) Australia and (the country currently called) Canada, which have clearly made this a remarkably rewarding read for you, despite the fact that there are a lot of specifics (geographical, historical, political) that would have been difficult to ascertain.

I hope others will be inspired to read it too because I think she handles it all so skillfully, twining the personal and individual stories of these seven youths with broader cultural and political issues. I think one could simply choose to read just for the seven stories and temporarily set aside the broader trends to feel those accounts more keenly. (But I believe the richer experience is to be had by doing what you’ve done.)

There are definitely bureaucratic complications about where children and youth can attend schools in Ontario. Generally speaking, you must have an address in the school’s official district in order to be permitted to attend. So, for those living on reservation land, I don’t expect they would be welcomed in a federally funded secondary school, not socially anyway, even if technically there is a way to register (and I doubt there is). It has to do, in theory, with how taxes are collected and dispersed, but in reality it also serves to protect longstanding economic dis/advantages in communities.

I have put in an ILL for Baldwin but I don’t think it will arrive very quickly. But I do have a copy of the new Hurston (new, for publication) collection. However, you know what I’m most concerned about reading these days…so I’m not sure how these plans will play out!

I am loving the books I am reading in this ‘Project’. I might have to do a 13th report and write an overview. Yes, it provides me with new points of comparison with Australia (it might be a while before we call it anything else! Though the new, Labor government has appointed a Minister for the Republic, And a Minister for a Treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. So change is afoot in those directions. Slowly.) But there is also the fun of coming across new/new-to-me writing.

Before I write to Melanie I will have to make up a table to see where I am up to balancing US/Canada, male/female, new/old and Indigenous/African-American. Though I seem to be doing ok so far just winging it.

I agree that Talaga did a great job blending personal and general accounts, including how she herself fitted into the narrative. And the warmth of her accounts of meeting families and elders worked really well. It’s no wonder the book did so well in prizes – and in schools, the internet is full of cheat notes on it (some of which – don’t tell Naomi – I took advantage of).

“There are definitely bureaucratic complications about where children and youth can attend schools in Ontario” sounds a lot like ongoing racial separation, at least for kids from remote communities. Not that there seems to be any better solution in Aust. except that if the parents are willing to move into town, the kids get to go to the local high school. There is one school in Perth, Clontarf, I’m not sure who runs it (Catholics), which provides a mix of education and football for Indigenous BOYS (I’m obviously not up to date, but the Clontarf Foundation apparently now runs programmes throughout WA).

Don’t let me add any more to the reading pressures under which you are currently groaning! I’ll work out what the last four books are to be and put up a list ‘soon’.

That’s true, although I have a couple of friends whose children attend schools that have been renamed (previously named for politicians that supported the Residential School System). I suppose that phrase is as much to serve as a reminder that these nations’ names were not always thus, as much as to wonder what they might be called next. A process, I suppose.

Ohhh, yes, don’t let Naomi find out you’ve been cheating. I definitely am not going to text her about it right now. Of course not. ow

Even though I know that I learned a lot from Tanya Talaga, it’s actually the scenes of her talking with the family and how she describes those relationships (and how they spoke about their losses, articulated them, didn’t) that have remained with me strongly!

It does sound like that, doesn’t it. Unfortunately. I recently finished a very interesting memoir by Eli Baxter called Aki-wayn-zih, who teaches at an Ojibwe school a couple of hours from Toronto (near where I grew up) and I wonder how long it will take for that to become an option for the majority of Indigenous kids. (The book recently won a national prize here, but comes from two university presses here, so I expect it’d be hard to find outside these borders. He writes about carrying on the story, which only takes him through childhood, so maybe he will gain an audience thanks to that prize.)

I see Eli Baxter, Aki-wayn-zih is in one of your posts I’m yet to read. I’ll do so shortly. It’s not available on Audible. Toni Morrison will be my 11th read. I’d like a recent Canadian First Nations/Indigenous to be my 12th (in January or even Feb.)

You’ve contributed a lot to the discussion here. Thank you

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Seven Fallen Feathers

60 pages • 2 hours read

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City

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Sociohistorical Context: Thunder Bay and Canada’s Treatment of Indigenous Communities

From the founding of Thunder Bay , many white residents discriminated against Indigenous people within the city, and it was split into “white” and “Ojibwe” sides. Racism and apathy toward Indigenous communities still occurs today. Thunder Bay, which has a population of around 120,000 residents, has the highest hate crime rate in Canada. In addition, a third of Indigenous murders in Ontario occur in the city. As the book illustrates, all seven Indigenous children encountered racist attitudes from the city’s white residents. Thunder Bay is a dangerous place for the Ojibwe people, especially Ojibwe children. The Ojibwe have tried to file reports about hate crimes, but the police rarely conduct thorough investigations related to the treatment of Indigenous peoples. Given the city’s high levels of racism and apathy, Indigenous people living in Thunder Bay have a deep mistrust of the city’s institutions, particularly the police and justice system.

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Seven Fallen Feathers

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