Tanya Talaga

This was not an easy book to listen to but it is certainly an important book. Canadians all know that how the original people of the land were treated by those who came after was shameful and racist and violent. However, I think that most of us think we are treating our indigenous peoples better this day. This book, which details the deaths of seven indigenous students who were attending high school in Thunder Bay in the 21st century, shows that not much has changed.

Thunder Bay Ontario has a show more separate school for indigenous youth from reservations in North West Ontario to attend high school. All of the teachers are indigenous, there are elders present for guidance during the school day, counsellors are assigned to each student and each student is boarded with a family in Thunder Bay so this is not a residential school. There are very few reservations with schools going up to Grade 13 so for those indigenous youth who want to pursue higher education they have to leave home. They are of course homesick but also entranced by the attractions of the big city which includes alcohol and drugs. The high school has a van staffed by counsellors who drive the streets at night looking for their students who might be out late and may be intoxicated or in some other kind of trouble. If a student violates curfew or is found intoxicated they must sign a form accepting responsibility and agreeing to refrain from getting into trouble. There is usually some form of punishment such as writing an essay or taking special classes. The ultimate sanction is to suspend the student and send them home. For some students this may work but all seven of the students who died had run afoul of the authorities at least once prior to their death. Most of the bodies were found in one of the rivers in Thunder Bay and the police determined that these deaths were not suspicious. However, the author and others think that it is unlikely these students would have drowned unless there was some other factor because all of them came from reserves where they lived close to water. One boy whose brother was lost in this manner had been with him on the bank of the river and then the next thing he knew he was under the water and had a very sore back. When his brother's body was recovered he also sported a significant bruise on his back. Another man narrowly missed dying after he was attacked by some white men who hit him and called him names and then dumped him in the river. It seems pretty clear that there was some gang of racists who were targeting young indigenous students but the Thunder Bay Police never charged anyone. The other deaths that did not involve drowning are equally mysterious but proper investigations were not done at the time so it is unclear why one student suddenly collapsed and died. I am pretty sure that if a white student living away from home had died suddenly there would have been a thorough examination and an inquest. Instead it took seven deaths and ten years for an inquest to look into these deaths. So not much has changed from the bad old days. show less

Every year, around this time, my place of employment offers up a book that deals with our troubled history with our Indigenous population. I'm grateful for this, because it demands that I pay attention to something that—as a white, middle-class male—typically would fly under my radar.

None of this should fly under anyone's radar. Canada's great shame is that we have done wrong by those people who inhabited this land long before any white faces showed up. And, due to Canadian indifference show more and governmental stalling and excuse and delay and excuse and delay...we're still doing wrong by them.

This is an important work, and I dare any parent to read this and put themselves in the shoes of the parents and caregivers in this book. Put your kid in place of one of the seven who died tragically, and then were ignored by everyone who should have done their jobs to ensure it never happened again.

It's a hard, dreadful book to read.

And every Canadian should read it. show less

This book tells the stories of seven Indigenous youths who died in tragic and unusual circumstances while attending high school in Thunder Bay, Ontario. They’d had to travel hundreds of kilometres from home to attend school, often living with families not their own, and having to make their way in a city that could be actively hostile toward Indigenous people. This book tells their stories and goes even further back, to families scarred and traumatized by the Canadian government’s show more programme of residential schools and chronic underfunding of reserves, preventing today’s Indigenous youth from realizing their full potential.

This book is heartbreaking and harrowing. How can people be so cruel and thoughtless? And what will it take for the Canadian government to pull its finger out and actually give Indigenous groups the funding they need to maintain schools closer to home, and um, maybe actually have clean drinking water and indoor plumbing? Canada has failed and continues to fail the Indigenous peoples, and it is shameful.

Talaga has told these stories with sensitivity and respect, and they deserve to be heard. Every Canadian needs to read this, and most importantly, needs to work to change things. show less

Accounts of the of 7 deaths, the investigations and impact in Thunder Bay, with family and tribal background. It is an accounting of the continuing grinding genocide of aboriginal North Americans via government hostility, outright racism and deliberate neglect. In other words only the details are new. There is nothing pleasant, positive or hopeful as whatever the committees find never seems to be funded or positively implemented.