With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.
Books Backstage
The Prince George Public Library and Theatre NorthWest have partnered to connect library patrons and theatre goers with resources on themes addressed within the plays performed during Theatre NorthWest’s 2019/2020 season. In collaboration with Theatre NorthWest’s artistic director, PGPL librarians will provide recommendations of fiction, non-fiction, DVDs and other materials that may enrich the audiences’ experience of the performances.
Isitwendam (An Understanding)
February 6th – 23rd, 2020
On her first book tour at the age of 26, Lee Maracle was asked a question from the audience, one she couldn't possibly answer at that moment. But she has been thinking about it ever since.
In prose essays that are both conversational and direct, Maracle seeks not to provide any answers to these questions she has lived with for so long. Rather, she thinks through each one using a multitude of experiences she's had as a First Nations leader, a woman, a mother, and grandmother over the course of her life. A tour de force exploration into the writer's own history and a reimagining of the future of our nation.
This book is a series of stories from the oral tradition of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg as told by Elder Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams). In his own words, he shares the history of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg discussing their origin stories, alliances, diplomacy, resistance and relations to the lands and waters in their homeland.
Just when you think you have nothing left to lose, they come for your dreams.
Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden - but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.
A powerful, raw and eloquent memoir about the abuse former First Nations chief Edmund Metatawabin endured in residential school in the 1960s, the resulting trauma, and the spirit he rediscovered within himself and his community through traditional spirituality and knowledge. After being seperated from his family at 6, Metatwabin was given a number and stripped of his Native identity. At his residential school, he was physically, emotionally and sexually abused. The trauma haunted him throughout his adult life until he reconnected with his Native past.
Burning in the Midnight Dream is the latest collection of poems by Louise Bernice Halfe. Many were written in response to the grim tide of emotions, memories, dreams and nightmares that arose in her as the Truth and Reconciliation process unfolded. In heart-wrenching detail, Halfe recalls the damage done to her parents, her family, herself. With fearlessly wrought verse, Halfe describes how the experience of the residential schools continues to haunt those who survive, and how the effects pass like a virus from one generation to the next.
This documentary includes both archival footage and interviews with Indigenous people.
