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

by Tanya Talaga

The groundbreaking and multiple award-winning national bestseller work about systemic racism, education, the failure of the policing and justice systems, and Indigenous rights by Tanya Talaga.

Over the span of eleven years, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. They were hundreds of kilometres away from their families, forced to leave home because there was no adequate high school on their reserves. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning author Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.

Genres: Nonfiction, Indigenous, History, Canada, Audiobook, Politics, True Crime

376 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2017

About the author

Tanya Talaga is an Anishinaabe Canadian journalist and author.

Her 2017 book, Seven Fallen Feathers, won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult. The book was also a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and the BC National Award for Nonfiction, and it was CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year, a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book, and a national bestseller. For more than twenty years she has been a journalist at the Toronto Star, and has been nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism. She was also named the 2017–2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy.

Talaga is of Polish and Indigenous descent. 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. Her mother was raised in Raith and Graham, Ontario. She lives in Toronto with her two teenage children.

Reviews

[Kara Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City is one of those books I wish didn’t exist but am so grateful it does. Over the past few years, I’ve seen my city come up in the national media from time to time—and often related to Indigenous issues, such as the deaths or inquests of the students in this book. But after the interest in those stories dies down, and the spotlight of the press turns away, life in this city goes on. Nothing really changes. Tanya Talaga, by investigating and piecing together the stories of these seven deaths, and by putting them in the larger context of our colonial history, has created an enduring record that—I hope—is more difficult to ignore.

I’m going to review this book first for a general audience, then I’m going to get into my reaction to it as a settler from Thunder Bay. Trigger warnings, obvs, in this book and review for discussions of suicide, violence (particularly against women and youth), binge drinking, and racial slurs.

Seven Fallen Feathers is not about blame; it is about responsibility. We all have a responsibility towards children, as our future. The government has a responsibility towards Indigenous peoples—it acknowledges this, even if it doesn’t always act on it. Settlers have a responsibility to understand how the actions of our ancestors have resulted in a broken and hostile system of multiple genocides. Talaga pulls no punches in these respects; she has a quotation about cultural genocide right up front from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.

That’s why this book is so important beyond the boundaries of the city in which it’s set. This is a story of seven deaths in Thunder Bay, yes, but it goes wider than that. It’s a story about the complacency of an entire country, of a whole population, to the plight of Indigenous peoples caused and continued by a settler government that doesn’t care. Seven students attending Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School died between 2000 and 2011, and the police and city did the utter minimum that they could do to investigate or prevent further tragedies. The jury roll shenanigans, the inquest recommendations—all signs point to a deadly spectrum from apathy to outright racism within our judicial and political system. Talaga puts the pieces together so clearly and decisively that no matter where you live in Canada, no matter how little you’ve tuned into these stories, you’re going to understand the situation.

Context is so important, and that’s what Seven Fallen Feathers provides. Yes, it retells, as best Talaga can piece together, the night of each student’s disappearance or death and the days that followed. More importantly, however, Talaga connects these students’ deaths to the history of this city and this country. DFC, albeit run by an Indigenous education authority, is a response to and inheritor of the colonial system of residential schools that broke apart so many families over the past century. These students were only attending high school in Thunder Bay because their own communities don’t have high schools, for various reasons, all of which are ultimately attributable to the provincial and federal governments refusing to do anything about it. The governments have, through decades of inaction, proved that Indigenous lives (by which I mean their livelihoods, lands, education, culture, language, as well as their bodies) matter less than settler lives. No amount of Trudeau-style speechmaking or name-changing is going to ameliorate this single, sad legacy.

We did this. We meaning not just settlers but entire generations of anyone who calls themselves Canadians. And we are still doing it. When we ignore Indigenous people who are telling us about communities with unsafe drinking water, without proper housing or flushing toilets, when we don’t care about the state of education in these communities—we are complicit. This isn’t about guilt for something that happened twenty, fifty, a hundred years in the past; this is about complicity in what’s happening right now, every single day. It’s happening all across Canada—it’s just more obvious, more brutally explicit, here in Thunder Bay.

Talaga opens the book with a prologue that introduces readers to Thunder Bay. Having grown up here and lived here for almost my entire life, it is strange to see my city described to those who might have no context. But of course, this isn’t Toronto or Vancouver. Talaga needs to give the “average reader” context for what they are going to learn:

Thunder Bay has always been a city of two faces. The Port Arthur side is the white face and the Fort William side is the red face. Port Arthur lies on the north shore. It is built up on the gentle, sloping Canadian Shield. Two-storey brick houses line streets that run up and down the Shield, each with a beautiful view of Lake Superior as far as the Sibley Peninsula, where the stone-cold Sleeping Giant Nanabijou sleeps.

The red side is located down by the Kaministiquia (known locally as the Kam) River, on the Ojibwe’s traditional lands near the base of Mount McKay in the flatlands known as Fort William. Except for one tiny enclave of grand homes near Vickers Park, built by the affluent of another time, the residential streets of Fort William are staunchly working class, small bungalows or two-storey homes in various stages of repair, most with a pickup truck parked out front.

She’s correct, of course. It’s a little strange to see my city described so clinically, to hear her discuss the layout of streets I know so well, to hear Intercity referred to as “the demilitarized zone” or Victoriaville as a “poorly planned shopping mall with a 1970s vibe” (entirely too true), just because it’s the normal backdrop for me. But Thunder Bay really is divided this way, even if some of us residents don’t like to think about it. I sit here, typing this review in a two-storey (albeit non-brick) house that I bought in Port Arthur, and I won’t lie: I principally looked at houses on this side of town because it’s “nicer”. Such are the divisions of class and race made even deeper by colonialism.

Similarly, despite this being my hometown, I have been ignorant of a lot of the ways racism manifests here. In part this is my youth—I was barely 11 in 2000, when DFC opened and the first of the seven students discussed here, Jethro Anderson, went missing and was found dead. And although there were a few Indigenous kids in my classes at school, the truth was that when I was younger, my world was very stratified. I never really interacted a lot with Indigenous people until I started working at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in high school. I didn’t go to powwows or other cultural events (more so because I just … didn’t … go … anywhere, but still).

Now a large proportion of the adults I teach are Indigenous, and I am much more directly connected to what’s happening in this city and in Northern Ontario. The crises affecting these communities reach right into my classroom. I knew about these deaths, about the inquest and its recommendations, about the myriad other issues. I bought Seven Fallen Feathers because I wanted to learn more and then to amplify it. Yet that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that my privilege insulates me from understanding how truly hostile Thunder Bay is to Indigenous people. It insulates me from ever having heard certain slurs tossed around in my company, though I totally believe Talaga when she says it’s commonly heard on our streets. I can read and listen all I like … but I’m never really going to know. Because at the end of the day, I’m safe on these streets. Indigenous people are not. And it’s shameful that it took me working with a large proportion of Indigenous people for me to finally start learning about these issues.

Of course, this isn’t about me. I don’t mean to centre myself here and make this all about how I feel. I just want to share why it’s so important for fellow settlers of Thunder Bay to read Seven Fallen Feathers and keep an open mind. There is so much defensiveness in this city, on the part of the settler population, to any hint that we might have a problem. It’s gross. But speaking settler-to-settler, I get where that’s coming from, even if the people being defensive don’t: deep down, in your gut, you’re starting to wake up to the fact you’ve been duped. You’ve been able to live in wilful ignorance for so long that the idea you’ve been so blind makes you feel almost comically buffoonish—how could you have missed this? In such moments, often it is easier to succumb to the siren calls of cognitive dissonance and dismiss what’s right in front of your eyes: no, there’s no problem here; these are just tragic accidents, the result of too much drinking, of an education authority that can’t keep its kids under control, why don’t they just all relocate…. It’s easier to believe in the lies of colonialism than in what’s right.

It’s uncomfortable, yeah. But what’s worse—some minor personal discomfort, or more people losing their lives?

Thunder Bay has a racism problem, and it’s one that no amount of “Respect” campaigning is going to fix. Such campaigns are ultimately doomed to failure because they locate racism in individuals’ actions rather than in the systems that surround and support them. Yes, it was a single individual—Brayden Bushby—who threw a trailer hitch at Barbara Kentner, who would ultimately die from those injuries, while reportedly yelling “I got one!” But it was a system of justice long practised at ignoring violence against Indigenous people that resulted in police investigating “if” it was a hate crime and ultimately never upgrading the charges beyond assault. “Respect” campaigning won’t work if the costs of showing disrespect are zero.

Canadians need to read this book. If you live in Thunder Bay, you need to read this and confront the hard truths of our northern city. If you don’t live here, you need to read this and understand what is happening here. I challenge you to read Seven Fallen Feathers, to hear the testimony of the families and teachers and Elders, and not feel your heart break seven times over. But what really matters is what you do after you read this. Will it be just another tragic tale? Or will it be time to act and demand change? If you read this and it changes nothing about your perspectives or actions, you are participating in the colonization of Indigenous tragedy; it becomes a spectacle, something for settlers to consume the way we’ve consumed the land and … well … everything else. You must read this, and then you must act: use your privilege to demand change from your governments, your schools, your organizations, and yourselves.

Also posted at Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my digest newsletter.

[Katy O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the most important nonfiction books I have ever read. It's also one that I encourage every single resident of the US and Canada to read, whether or not it's a book you WANT to read. While it is about the Seven Fallen Feathers (mysterious deaths of Indigenous teens in Thunder Bay), it's so so much more. It's about the crimes against the First Nations, it's about attempts at reconciliation between Canada and the victims of the Indian boarding schools, and most of all, it brings to life the horrible conditions that many Indigenous youths are still living in today.

Add this to your TBR and read it. I finished it in a day, but feel free to take your time. But read it. And soon.

Thanks to the publisher for this review copy - all opinions are my own.

[Paul Weiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canada’s struggles with its relationship with its indigenous communities continues!

Tanya Talaga is an Anishinaabe Canadian journalist, an author and an investigative reporter. Her story of seven indigenous high school students who died under suspicious, unexplained circumstances in Thunder Bay, Ontario, hundreds of kilometers away from their families to attend school because there simply was no available school on their reserves, needs to be read.

For any compassionate, rational reader, SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS will be a stark, blunt, heart-rending, and revealing look at the history of white man’s treatment of the aboriginal people in Canada. Canadian readers should be at once embarrassed, ashamed and angered. What Talaga conveys to the reader are the the sordid details of the history that lead up to headlines such as the one that appeared on my internet newsfeed this morning, “Inquiry into MMIWG [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls] claims ‘genocide’ was Canada’s historic goal”. Let the full import and magnitude of that statement sink in. This inquiry suggests that ‘genocide’ didn’t just occur but that white settlers, the government and the Roman Catholic Church acted with malice intent and forethought to eliminate the aboriginal people, their society and culture and their languages.

In one of this morning’s news article a respected judge said that the tragedies were the result of a “persistent and deliberate pattern of systemic racial and gendered human and Indigenous-rights violations and abuses, perpetuated historically and maintained today by the Canadian state, designed to displace Indigenous people from their lands, social structures and governments, and to eradicate their existence as nations, communities, families and individuals.” It may be an open and debatable question as to whether what is happening TODAY can be characterized as willful genocide. Certainly, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, would deny that but what he has not denied is the existence of serious systemic problems in how aboriginals are treated. Nor can it be denied that the conduct of the government in the past and, more particularly, the fact of the Roman Catholic administration of residential schools up until as recently as the late 20th century certainly WAS genocide. And my money goes with the added description of “willful”.

SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS covers so much ground in Canada’s relationship with its indigenous people and the description of current conditions that it’s hard to know where to start – teen suicide; misogyny; racial profiling and discriminatory policing; alcoholism and other mental and physical health issues; sub-standard infrastructure and living conditions in northern communities; education; violation of human rights; exclusion from jury selection; and incompetent, incomplete, inadequate and ignored coroner’s inquests. The list of problems seems endlessly daunting.

You want to read this. You need to read this. You MUST read this! Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

To understand the stories of the seven lost students who are the subjects of this book, the seven “fallen feathers”, you must understand Thunder Bay's past, how the seeds of division, of acrimony and distaste, of a lack of cultural awareness and understanding, were planted in those early days, and how they were watered and nourished with misunderstanding and ambivalence. And you must understand how the government of Canada has historically underfunded education and health services for Indigenous children, providing consistently lower levels of support than for non-Indigenous kids, and how it continues to do so to this day. The white face of prosperity built its own society as the red face powerlessly stood and watched.

Seven Fallen Feathers is the kind of book that makes me feel near paralysed by helplessness: In straightforward reportage, investigative journalist Tanya Talaga tells the stories of seven Indigenous teenagers who died while attending the Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School in Thunder Bay, Ontario between its opening, in 2000, and 2011 (when Talaga began her investigation). Established to educate students who are flown in from remote northern reserves, this Indigenous-administrated private school of about 150 grade 9-12 students not only provides classroom instruction, but offers 24 hour/day counselling and arranges the offsite boarding for these kids who are often in “the big city” for the first time. Although none of these tragic deaths occurred on school property, Talaga is able to paint a perilous picture for any Indigenous person who chooses to live in Thunder Bay; made exponentially more dangerous for loosely supervised youths who have no choice but to move to Thunder Bay to attend high school, and who might turn to drugs and alcohol out of boredom or a desire to fit in. And as perilous as this picture is, I have no idea how to fix it; hence the paralysis. I couldn't help but get my back up at some of Talaga's accusations of Canada's “apartheid” culture, and I didn't always follow along with her conclusions, but this book is an important work of witnessing and should be widely read.

Talaga starts at the beginning – with the history of Thunder Bay and its surrounding First Nations – and after covering the horrors of residential schools, and after their closure, the pressing need for decent post-secondary schooling for those students who outgrow whatever underfunded elementary education their home reserves offer, Talaga describes Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School – a school run by Natives themselves that provides “a First Nations' education system that enforces academic standards, reinforces cultural identity, and enables learners to contribute with confidence to the well-being of the global community” (from the school's website) – and who, Native or non-Native, wouldn't like the sound of that? Tragically, within weeks of DFC first opening, 15-year-old student Jethro Anderson was found dead in Thunder Bay's Kaministiquia River. In retracing what is known of Jethro Anderson's last day, Talaga writes that he had been drinking all evening, and although no one knows how he made his way from his bus stop to the river, Talaga insists that his death couldn't have been accidental – no Native youth, raised around lakes and rivers, would have entered the cold water willingly. Although there was never any evidence of foul play, and I couldn't quite understand Talaga's insistence that there must have been, there's no denying that the Thunder Bay PD did very little to find the missing teenager, and when he was recovered from the river, they were quick to close the case.

This same pattern is seen in most of the stories of the seven “fallen feathers”: Jordan Wabasse, Curran Strang, Kyle Morrisseau, and Reggie Bushie were all drinking heavily the nights they disappeared and were later found in the water. Robyn Harper was heavily intoxicated and aspirated on her vomit as she lay in the hallway of her boarding house. Paul Panacheese had not been drinking or using drugs, and although he didn't appear to have anything physically wrong with him, the young man simply dropped dead in the house he was sharing with his mother. In each case of drowning, Talaga insists that they must have encountered foul play, and in every case, it is the indifferent response of the police, the coroner, and the justice system that the author particularly underlines; just another dead Indian; case closed.

At the urging of a high profile Toronto lawyer, an inquest was eventually held into these seven deaths, and the jury came back with dozens of recommendations; including maybe not forcing teenagers to travel hundreds of kilometres away from their families in order to receive a basic education. Two more DFC students have drowned in Thunder Bay since the inquest closed.

I did have a hard time accepting Talaga's insistence that those who drowned would never have willingly gone into cold rivers, and although she does describe the binge-drinking that most of them engaged in on the nights they disappeared, Talaga never suggests that any of them may have stumbled off a riverbank or fallen off a bridge. On the other hand, she does include the stories of a couple of Natives who survived beatings by groups of white men (including one who was left for dead in a river), so without outright saying so, I imagine that Talaga is trying to make the point that systemic racism in Thunder Bay has led to groups of white men going around throwing Native teenagers into the water; all tacitly accepted by the systemic racism of the white police and coroner's office. If that's her suspicion, I wish she would have come right out and said it: after the horrifying story of Barbara Kentner's senseless death – succumbing to the internal trauma caused by a trailer hitch being thrown at her from the window of a moving pickup as she walked down the side of a Thunder Bay street – I would have believed it (and am gratified to have heard this week that the perpetrator, Brayden Bushby, has had the charges against him upgraded to second degree murder).

I also don't understand the logistics of opening a proper high school on every reserve in Canada, but I do agree that this is a human rights issue, and despite my feelings of paralysis on the matter, I hope there are people out there with the power to make things happen. Education is the first step to all social change, and Seven Fallen Feathers is a vital lesson in what's going on today.

[MyPlantsLoveAudiobooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for Seven Fallen Feathers because I was looking forward to a book shedding light on a tragic and hugely under-reported situation. Talaga tells a very important story; however, I was frustrated by the poor writing and inconsistencies in the text.

I found the generalizations troubling: "ask any Indigenous person and they will..." or "any Indigenous person will tell you..." I find it difficult to reconcile a narrative that at once demands respect of the diversity of Indigenous cultures and traditions while making grand generalizations that dismiss that diversity.

It seems as though this book was written in sections and both author and editor missed the many moments of repetition. These repeated details (sometimes word for word from previous pages) were unnecessary and distracted from the narrative.

I wonder if this section approach explains the contradictions? There were many times when Talaga referenced boarding parents and teachers driving around looking for youth, realizing that they are surrogate parents, doing their best to protect young people. Yet, Talaga then quotes Julian Falconer arguing during the inquest that these teens died of neglect. I was confused by the disconnect.

There are significant problems with narrative authority: Talaga presumes far, far too much of it. There were so many times when readers would see phrases about what someone thought or felt with no citation given. How can Talaga know what people thought over a decade ago? Given that she positions herself in the book as an investigative journalist, I was expecting appropriate citations. If she had intended to employ storytelling and bend the limits of what she could "know" for her non-fiction text, she needed to be upfront about that style. I was shocked at the lack of first person interviews in a book that presumes to tell me how someone felt and the intimate details of their actions on a given night.

This would have made an exceptional podcast had we had the benefit of own voice narratives instead of the entire story being told by Talaga.

The content and subject of this book is imperative, crucial reading for Canadians. I just wish the writing had been the quality that the victims, their families, and their communities deserve.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tanya Talaga is pissed off. She's pissed at how Canada and its different forms of 170 plus years of government has systemically crushed and debilitated its Indigenous, and how it is very much still alive in Canada's society today.

She does a masterful job chapter by chapter, piece by piece, example after example describing in very readable detail how the blatantly racist treaties that Ontario First Nations were forced to sign and comply to are still very much in effect today within the Indigenous communities. This happened all over Canada, but her focus is on Ontario and its history.

She wonderfully weaves together the timelines and helps to open ones eyes to the stomped-in prejudices Canadians in general have towards our First Nations people. Tanya brings up multiple instances when such prejudice is at the forefront within the Thunder Bay, Ontario police. How they handled the deaths of the Seven Fallen Feathers amongst other First Nations deaths in Thunder Bay is indicative to how Canada's Indigenous people are treated. Like they are lesser citizens.

She writes with frustration and in absolutes and I'm so glad she does because to me, that speaks to passion, her passion against the mistreatment by the powers that be towards Canada's Indigenous people.

To those who read this review, and to those people who hold onto the opinion that Tanya Talaga wrote this book with a bias or a certain agenda, I'm going to ask you this: what purpose and to whom would it serve to sugarcoat or dumb down the topic she touches on? Who would that benefit? What would that benefit? The government of Canada has made many promises over many years to fund infrastructure, provide a quality education, provide clean drinking water, etc etc etc, and has continually delayed these processes. There's no excuses for continuing to lie to and grossly mishandle its Indigenous people.

This book, and I cannot say this with greater conviction, should be required reading for Ontario high school students. I wish it would have been for me when I was that age. As a student in Ontario, I can tell you we were taught next to nothing about our First Nations citizens. I suppose that's just one more example of Canada's failures towards its Indigenous.

I have not read many books in my life so far but regardless, this is the most important book I have ever read. I am indebted to Tanya Talaga for her work.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This is a powerful, heartbreaking book, a moving and informative investigation into the awful goals and legacy of the Indian Act of the late 1800’s. It examines the aftermath of residential schools, where children were seized from their northern settlements and forced to attend schools far from their families, culture and language and native religious practices. There was physical and sexual abuse and lack of medical treatment. The last of these schools were not closed down until the 1990’s. Children attempted to run away, walking with inadequate clothing in an attempt to reach their homes many miles away. When caught they were returned to the schools and severely punished, and some froze to death while making their escape.
There is great disparity in funding for schools in the north, and in many cases the education of young children is well below the standards of other Canadian schools. The buildings are in terrible condition and lack adequate educational resources. To get a high school education the Indigenous teenagers must attend schools hundreds of miles from their small native settlements. There is culture shock, loneliness and prejudice. This book focuses on the death of 7 teenaged young people who died in Thunder Bay, and the lack of investigation by the police who quickly stated that none of the deaths were mysterious. Bodies of young people were found fully clothes and drowned in the river. Even after a couple of young Indigenous men reported being beaten and thrown in the river and escaped death, there was no effort to learn the cause of the drownings. Official word was immediate that each one had been drunk and fell in the river, with little or no communication by police to grieving families.
The book also shows that living conditions are not unique to Ontario. Many northern native settlements have no drinkable water, no indoor toilets and live in abject poverty. Mentioned are the epidemics of suicide by hanging by children, glue and solvent sniffing which causes brain damage in young people who live with depression and despair, the dysfunction of adults in the aftermath of their time in residential schools. Also discussed is the present inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls(MMIW) and the dreadful crimes of Robert Pickton in BC, where many of the 40+ missing women murdered on his farm were Indigenous and ignored by the police for a long time.
I do wish the book had included a map to show the location of the home settlements of the native children who came to Thunder Bay for schooling. I would also have wanted photos of the young people who died there. This was a story in Maclean’s magazine this summer, and photos of each were shown on the cover. Recommended reading for all Canadians who care about our past and its effects on the present, and to see how far we still need to go to address injustices, prejudice and disparities.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sad account of Canada’s Indigenous population (also referred to as First Nations) and how they are currently treated by the Canadian Government, local governments and the bulk of the Canadian people.

The author strongly suggests there is a cultural divide between Indigenous People and the rest of Canada.

Let me first introduce the setting of this book which is in Western Ontario. The book focuses mostly on an Indigenous high school in the town of Thunder Bay on Lake Superior with a (metropolitan) population of 110,000. It is referred to often in the book as a large urban city because the Indigenous youth who attend come from extremely remote locations in Northern Ontario. These are far-flung communities of less than one thousand people scattered in bush country hundreds of miles north of Thunder Bay. Many of these communities are just accessible by planes which would land on the nearby lake on the water or ice in the winter months. If there are roads, they would be tenuous particularly during the autumn and spring.

The transition of these teenagers from living in bush country to attending school in Thunder Bay would be arduous. There are often social problems within their own communities like drugs, alcohol, sniffing gasoline which can cause permanent brain damage. There is also sexual abuse. Not mentioned by the author is that many teenage girls get pregnant at a young age – and many marry at a young age.

The author gives us the sorrowful history starting in the 1870’s of how young boys and girls were forced out of their communities to attend residential schools in southern areas across Canada. This was a brutal colonization that I was not aware of. The children were prevented from speaking their own language – but worse many were physically and sexually abused by their teachers. This abuse often led to the older children abusing the younger ones – and this trauma was brought back to their communities. Many also died due to the spread of tuberculosis. Many tried to escape – and if caught were beaten – if successful many would fall into more exploitation creating a vicious pattern of substance abuse and sex trafficking. This happened for over one hundred years. The last residential schools were dismantled in the 1970’s.

What is most disturbing is that the value of education has not been passed down from generation to generation. Schools and education were a largely horrifying and negative experience for Indigenous People. It was forced on them in an alien environment.

To bring the consequences of this to the present day the author gives us the story of seven high school students who died (this is the reason for the books title – “Seven Fallen Feathers”) while attending an Indigenous High School in Thunder Bay. The author outlines the negligence of the investigations of the Thunder Bay Police Department – and also the inhospitable environment created by the non-Indigenous population of Thunder Bay towards the Indigenous People where they face verbal and physical abuse.

We are given a portrait of those seven young lives as they tried to adjust to their new school and community in Thunder Bay. Many took to drinking so that a nightly patrol of the school’s elders and counselors would go looking for the students in the evening at the usual haunts by the river where they would go binge drinking. This is symptomatic of a problem. Most of these youths had already had an inferior elementary school education on their remote reserves in Northern Ontario and were academically behind students in urban areas.

Page 164 (my book)

Statistics show that three out of every four Indigenous students drop out of high school.

This is a shocking statistic. These young people, if they decide to stay in a southern urban area have almost no chance of finding worthwhile employment – they will drift into crime, substance abuse and sex trafficking. Unemployment in many northern remote reserves is at 80%.

The Canadian Government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apologized for its treatment of Indigenous people in residential schools that went on for one hundred years. They also have come up with recommendations to resolve the problems faced by First Nations across Canada – but so far these are just words.

The author seems hopeful that with more Indigenous input into schooling and education the future may be better. I feel that the transition from their small isolated communities in bush country is in many ways insurmountable. A constructive program by Indigenous people must be put in place to successfully accomplish this life passage.

This is an essential book for understanding the predicament of Indigenous People – more so the young. By giving us the details of the deaths of these seven young people in Thunder Bay we can more clearly see the challenges that Canadian society faces – and is avoiding – with its Indigenous People.

Page 240

As Alvin Fiddler [Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation] listened quietly to Harper’s speech (Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology for residential schools], he thought about the children of Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the situation they were in right now. Most of them didn’t have clear water to drink or to bathe in. Many lived in houses without plumbing or proper heating. Fires were constantly claiming the lives of NAN kids because they lived in poorly constructed tinderbox houses that used homemade wood stoves to heat the rooms. Alvin thought about the abject poverty most of his people lived in and the addictions they suffered.

[NILTON TEIXEIRA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winner, 2018 RBC Taylor Prize

Winner, 2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing

Winner, First Nation Communities Read Indigenous Literature Award

Finalist, 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

Finalist, 2017 Speaker’s Book Award

Finalist, 2018 B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

A Globe And Mail Top 100 Book

A National Post 99 Best Book Of The Year

The list above is impressive, after all this is the journalist Tanya Talaga’s debut about the deaths of seven young indigenous people between 2000 and 2011 in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
This book is heartbreaking and infuriating.
This is not an entertaining story.
It’s not a fiction. It really happened.
It’s a huge stain in Canadian history.
I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it did not work for me. Regardless of all the rave reviews, the prizes and nominations received, I thought that the writing was not good. I know that this book is important but...
I did not feel the passion.
Sorry if I sound picky, but that’s how I feel.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Canadian Should Be Required To Read This Book

Award winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga explains the importance behind the need for Reconciliation.
This is a heartbreaking story about systemic racism that is impacting Indigenous people. It's impact on First Nation children trying to gain an education, and being separated from their families, is unforgivable!
I learned more about a part of Canadian history reading this book than all my years of schooling.
Thank you author Tanya Talaga for opening my eyes!

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Very Necessary Book

I wish I could rate this book higher than I have. The accounts certainly need to be told. However, it was at times hard to follow, because of some clunky writing and poor grammar. I don’t necessarily expect everyone to write well and correctly, but I don’t think that it’s an unreasonable expectation that a professional writer should, for example, be able to know how to use a reflexive pronoun.
All in all, I’m glad I read it, and I will look for other books on this subject, but this one needed some serious editing, and it’s unfortunate that it didn’t get that treatment. It is a disservice to the memory of the seven fallen ones.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

Tamra Jewel Keepness.

Name doesn’t ring a bell to many people here in the United States. In 2004, the five-year member of Whitebear First Nation went missing from her family home in Reinga. She has never been found. I only know about because I was in Montreal shortly after she was reported missing, when the story was showed on Canadian news. I remember thinking at the time that it such coverage seemed to be different than that of the US, were the only people who seem to go missing are attractive white women or old forgetful people, at least according to the national news.

I found myself thinking of Keepness while reading this book, in part because the book showed me how wrong I was.

Prior to reading this book I knew about the reputation of Residential Schools, of the taking of Native/First Nation children by whites in order to “civilize” or “assimilate” them in both the US and Canada, and I have read reports and watched documentaries about the large number of First Nation women missing and killed in Canada, including along Highway 16. Yet, there was a sense that Canada at least owned up to the injustice in a way that the United States has not done.

Nope. Wrong about that.

Talaga’s book looks at the deaths of seven indigenous students from a school in Thunder Bay. The students lied in Thunder Bay, but they came from small Northern communities that lacked adequate schooling. The only way for the students to get a good education, the First Nation schools in their communities either being non-existent or severally underfunded. It is also a condemnation of a society and a government that does little to nothing to correct the issues that are a result of colonialism and racism. Of school that is underfunded but tries, and a town that does little to deal with hate crimes.

Talaga tells the story from the indigenous point of view. This means that the focus is on racism and government responsibility as well as, at times, culture shock of moving to a city from a town of 300 people or less. So, this isn’t drink done them wrong, at least no more than drink does any teen wrong. Additionally, while details are given about the lives of the people whom Talaga is writing about, she doesn’t Romanize them. It is reporting, all the more damning because of it. In part, this is all due to Talaga herself who is honest enough to admit that when the germ of the story started, she was reporting on something completely different.

It’s important to remember that the focus is on seven young lives that were lost, all in a similar way. It chronicles not only the crime but also the reaction of society and the struggle to get justice. It also is a look at the families. What would you do if there was no school for your child at home, and the closest school was 100s of miles away? You also have more than one child.

The book is both eye-opening and anger inducing.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canada...we have a long way to go. I’m happy this book is a best seller, we all need our eyes and hearts to be more open.

[Chapters & Chives · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all Canadians! This is a comprehensive and well-researched history of the cultural genocide committed by not only the Canadian government and churches, but from the ignorance and racism of many of its citizens because of ignorance and complicity. It’s definitely a wake up call that better education, changed attitudes and reconciliation needs to occur over a long period of time.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seven Fallen Feathers is the most powerful, thought provoking, soul crushing book I’ve read this year and every Canadian should read it.

When I was young very young I would overhear things said about Indigenous people, too young to understand any of it or its implications. Ugly comments being whispered by adults, I’d hear nasty things being said at the grocery store checkout, older kids laughing about kids from “the reservation”. Even if I was too young to comprehend any of it, I knew it wasn’t right. Then I moved away from that Northern town and never really heard about those things again.
Like I said, I urge every Canadian to pick up this book. Seven Fallen Feathers holds nothing back and I’m glad Tanya Talaga was unrelenting in her approach.

When you hear about these things on the news or in magazine articles, you get a sound bite here or a brief article there, however after reading Seven Fallen Feathers I finally felt like I got a real sense of what is going on.

My heart broke, I wept and understandably, it took me a while to get through this book. It’s sad that this book even exists, nevertheless, Seven Fallen Feathers deserves a place on your shelf.

Then after reading the book, there is that; “but what now moment”. I remember listening to a recent radio talk (I think on the CBC) about how activism doesn’t need to always be “in-your-face” activism to create change. Teaching our children the real history of the Indigenous people, helping them see what racism is, or any injustice for that matter and giving our children the tools necessary to act when they see or hear any discrimination.

You may live in a part of Canada where these issues are not in the forefront, however once you’ve read Seven Fallen Feathers, you won’t be able to un-see it.

[Paltia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A harrowing heart stopping history of the still unfolding betrayals against indigenous people. Seven Fallen Feathers brings the covered up history of repeated injustice and mistreatment into the light. Time after time First Nation people have gone through the experience of being uprooted against their will. They know the grief of losing their homes, sacred places, ancestor’s graves and their children. An enduring book that reminds one of the necessity of standing united and strong in resistance against oppression and injustice.
Please read Taylor’s fine review as there is not much more I could add.

[Alexander Kosoris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here we are again: race relations in Thunder Bay. I’m really having a hard time determining where to start with this one, and probably not just because of its sensitive nature, but because of the uneasy feeling I’m left with when I dwell on it for too long. I think it has a lot to do with terrible, racist things I’ve said and sincerely thought over the years. I mean, I’m trying my best to do better, but I still struggle to overcome my personal ignorance. Besides, my past is still a part of me, and it’s not easy to admit how ugly that part of me may have been. And it’s not easy picking up a book like Talaga’s, one that reminds you of this ugly side, but it’s an important book to try to get through with an honest attempt at understanding if we actually want to fix the problem.

Talaga, an award-winning investigative journalist, came to Thunder Bay in the middle of the 2011 federal election with the intention of writing an article about Indigenous Canadians’ untapped ability to swing the vote. When she sat down with Stan Beardy, Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s grand chief, he had little interest in her line of questioning, instead bringing up Jordan Wabasse, a young Indigenous student who went missing seventy-one days beforehand. Wabasse’s body was eventually recovered from the Kaministiqua River, making him the seventh student from Thunder Bay’s Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School–-a school for teens from remote reserves across Northwestern Ontario and the Far North–-to die in just eleven years. Seven Fallen Feathers is Talaga’s telling of the students’ lives before leaving their tiny, remote communities for Northwestern Ontario’s largest city; the details known or speculated on regarding the events surrounding their deaths; and the eventual coroner’s inquest into the police investigations, including the perceived racism in the way the cases were handled.

Talaga presents the historical context for the racial tension locally as well as nationally, discussing the residential school system’s lasting legacy of trauma, the seeds of mistrust sown in the Indigenous communities toward governments continually ignoring recommendations aimed at mending fractured relations and bettering Indigenous lives, and a justice system that continually ignores Indigenous pleas for help. But she always returns her narrative to the Seven. The author talks to friends and relatives of the teens, as well as members of reservations in the region. This not only gives a sense of where the students came from–-whether they individually came from functional families or broken homes, all the remote communities grapple with significant issues, with boil water advisories, a lack of adequate housing, and ill-equipped schools affecting the majority, but some also dealing with suicide epidemics and widespread childhood addictions–-it also keeps them human, and this is imperative to the book’s success. For it’s far too easy to emotionally dissociate from tragedies such as these, to treat these deaths as statistics rather than people. But it was people, and Talaga makes the case that they and their families deserve to discover why this happened so that we can prevent it in the future, so that this tragedy doesn’t have to be a pointless one.

While the government and police services get the majority of the criticism within these pages, Seven Fallen Feathers is less about directing the blame at one group and more about a collective failure of our society to protect and support these teens in order to give them a chance to live a normal and fulfilling life. Talaga argues that there must be a better way to offer Indigenous children a good education than forcing them to leave their families to live with strangers in a strange, hostile city. Though we still seem far from any meaningful way forward on this front, I find it hard to disagree with her, and I find myself putting down her book feeling the need to do more to help, to do better.

[Sterling Archer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a tough read. Not because of the subject matter at hand, but because of the author's biased unilateral view on the issue. Please don't get me wrong, the subject of the book is very serious and concerning with no easy or obvious path to correct (it's why I wanted to read the book in the first place). But because of the writers one sided, biased, opinion based rather than fact based, anecdotal and smeared with univariate analysis, I find it hurts the cause rather than help move it forward. Opinions are the purview of any author but I expected more from a journalist.

[Carla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a Canadian, I wanted to read this book to learn about the many issues facing Indigenous People in our country. I really wanted to like this book. I had a difficult time reading and listening to it. It is non-fiction, it is disturbing, it is sad and it is a terrible thing that is still going on in Canada and Ontario, the province I live in. I hear the racist comments even in my Southern Ontario city. My biggest problem with this book was that the author tried to include too much. It wasn't just about the Seven Fallen Feathers, but touched on missing indigenous women, cases from out west, and others. It was also very dry and it was hard to connect with the victims. All governments, unfortunately, have not lived up to their agreements and commitments with indigenous people and a lot of that has caused much of the problems touched upon in this book. Having said that, racism is at the bottom of the cases of the Seven Fallen Feathers. I had not heard of all these cases, and I am glad I read this book to educate myself. I am not sure what I can do to help with this huge problem, but it sure has me thinking.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many First Nations teens in Northern Ontario have to move to the city of Thunder Bay for high school, which is largely only available via distance education in their remote communities. Away from their homes in a city pock-marked by racism, grappling with the multigenerational effects of colonialism and residential schools, these young people can have a very hard time. In recent years, a number of these teens, attending a First Nations-run school in the big city, have died under mysterious circumstances. Talaga is a Toronto Star reporter with roots in a small Northern Ontario First Nations community. She does a good job accessibly unpacking the systemic issues at play, giving voice to affected communities and families, and drawing a heartbreaking picture of each of the young people who has died in recent years (the 'seven fallen feathers' of the title). A readable balance between human interest and exploring systematic problems that hopefully will engender a greater sense of urgency among Canadians in addressing the latter.

[Lynda Archer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an important book about all the resources that continue to not be available for indigenous youth in Canada, particularly educational and mental health resources. This is the story of seven First Nation youths who were required to leave their remote, fly in communities in Ontario to get a high school education, usually in Thunder Bay. Talaga describes these youth and their families with rich details and deep compassion. And then to lose one's child often by drowning in the river. The local police do appalling investigations. Talaga doesn't rant (as I may be here) she simply tells the stories as she found them, but the message is clear about the endemic racism, especially in Thunder Bay, ON, and in its police department. And the unbearable grief of the parents and communities that the youth came from. I wept. This should be required reading for everyone.

[❀ Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this a second time for a work book club and upgrading this book to a 5. Also want to encourage ALL Canadians to read, listen and learn more about the treatment of First Nations people in Canada. Racism does not just happen in other countries it is rampant in Canada and we all need to learn, listen and speak up!!

https://ayearofbooksblog.com/2018/02/...

As part of the Canada Reads 2018 long-list, Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City is truly an eye-opening account of racism and the terrible loss of 7 indigenous young adults. These deaths occurred between 2000 and 2011 in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It is shocking to read about the lack of police response and mistakes during the investigation and coroner’s examinations. It is hard to imagine that students in Northern Canada have little access to school and are forced to move South leaving behind their families and support network.

With a lack of secondary school options, indigenous families have few options but to send their sons an daughters to Thunder Bay to ensure their education. The young adults end up boarding in this city with various amounts of supervision and support. Unprepared for new freedom and city life, 7 of these students became involved with a mixture of alcohol and drugs and sadly died or drowned in unexplained circumstances.

The families were far away, notified sometimes days later and poorly supported after their terrible losses. In addition to the loss of their child, these families dealt with their own generations of issues related to horrific experiences in residential schools.

This book truly was eye-opening and I hope, will make Canadians stop and think of the racism that continues today. These students would have been future artists, hockey players, educators, parents and contributors to society. Their potential was lost to the river, to substances and their families were denied answers, investigation and closure. This is a book that Canadians need to read and is a well-written narrative which makes me think about the difficult choice of indigenous families to choose keeping their family together or sending their children away for education at a time when young adults need their family support the most. I hope that this book makes a difference and that no more lives are lost to the river because of racism and indifference.

[Beth Nickel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is completely biased, it might have been a decent book had the author not injected things from decades ago, and provinces away.
What the author fails to mention is that some of these kids were staying with family, and as such were not alone as she keeps portraying.

One example of her time hopping is when she talks about a little boy who died in Manitoba, who had run away with his buddy- to his buddy's Uncle- who then kicked the little boy out- in the middle of winter- with a map and a few matches.

Yes residential school was a horrible thing, and yes we have ways we can improve, I've seen improvements since I went to school on reserve in the 70's.

If her actual focus was those 7 kids she should have stayed on topic, but with her hopping around it is clear her focus was on placing blame on others.

[Chloe Halpenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

(hi I’m back)

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Thunder Bay has always been a city of two faces.’

In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks of a northern Canadian city after running away from residential school. He was trying to walk 600 kilometres to his home. An inquest was called, leading to four recommendations which were made to try to prevent another tragedy.

Not one of those recommendations was adopted.

‘The white face of prosperity built its own society as the red face powerlessly stood and watched.’
More than thirty years later, between 2000 and 2011, seven First Nations high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Like Chanie Wenjack, each of these students was hundreds of kilometres away from their families, trying to continue an education unavailable to them in the remote settlements where their families lived. The seven students, attending the Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School which opened in 2000, were: Jethro Anderson, whose body was found in the Kam River in 2000; Curran Strang, found in the McIntyre Rier in 2005; Paul Panacheese, who collapsed and died on his kitchen floor in 2006; Robyn Harper, who died of acute alcohol poisoning in her boarding-house hallway in 2006; Reggie Bushie, found in the McIntyre River in 2007; Kyle Morriseau, found in the McIntyre River in 2009; and Jordan Wabasse, found in the Kam River in 2011.

‘Seven is a highly symbolic number in Indigenous culture.’

Ms Talaga documents the history of Thunder Bay and the lives of these students, demonstrating Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against First Nations communities. It is uncomfortable reading, and much of what Ms Talaga writes is relevant to other dispossessed Indigenous people around the world including here in Australia.

Ms Talaga argues that the Canadian government has engaged in the systematic elimination of First Nations culture – cultural genocide. The 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 all children up to 16 years at one of 137 residential schools. These schools were run by Christian churchs – hardly culturally appropriate. The schools were notorious for their violence, for inadequate food and clothing, and for rampant disease, especially tuberculosis. Education for First Nations children continues to be inadequately funded.

An inquest into the seven deaths made open findings about the causes of these deaths. One hundred and forty-five recommendations were made: I wonder how many have been implemented? And, in 2017, two more dead teenagers, Tammy Keeash and Josiah Begg were found in different parts of the McIntyre River. According to Thunder Bay Police, there was ‘no evidence to indicate criminality’.

‘And still the inequities rage. Northern First Nations families are faced with the horrific choice of either sending their children to high school in a community that cannot guarantee their safety, or keeping them home and hoping distance education will be enough.’
This is an uncomfortable and confronting read. All of us, who live in countries where First Nations peoples have been dispossessed should read this book and seek change.

Tanya Talaga is an Anishinaabe journalist and speaker. Talaga's mother's family is from Fort William First Nation and her father was Polish-Canadian.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga other than GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW. The book tells the story of the lives and deaths of seven Indigenous teens, all students from remote communities in northern Ontario, who had to leave home without their families to complete their educations in Thunder Bay. The book is an exploration of the social, cultural, and structural inequities that have defined colonialism in Canada from contact, and that have left these children and so many more without infrastructure to thrive in their own communities, or resources to protect them from a violent and racist society that at best allowed their deaths to happen, and at worst, fostered an environment where these children were murdered. The lack of police support, in fact, the blatant disregard for these children and their safety, and a total disinterest in investigating their deaths has led to no resolution for families, and multiple recommendations from the inquests that families and loved ones of these children have had to endure. This story starts before these children were born and ends after they had died, and it’s thoroughness and unflinching call for accountability is really a song of love and honour from Talaga herself, who is also Indigenous to those territories. The audiobook narrator, Michaela Washburn, Métis, speaks this story with such grief and anger and compassion, and as such she also honours Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese, Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau, and Jordan Wabasse, as well as so many other missing, murdered, and stolen children. Christian Morrisseau, father to Kyle also screams this loss with his painting that is now the cover of this book. Read this book now.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very important story. So why was I so disappointed? First (and this could be my problem), the author assumes that the reader knows nothing about the residential school system in Canada. Second, although the writer is a journalist, the writing is quite bad. I would have expected more from a professional. And finally, as noted in some other reviews, the author makes sweeping statements such as "any indigenous person will tell you" and other generalizations that just undermine the truths she is trying to bring to light. I know that this was a highly rated book but I now see why it didn't win any of the awards it was nominated for.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know what to say, other than we need to do better. We need to demand better. No segment of our communities has had more promises broken to them by successive governments of all stripes than Indigenous communities. We are failing Indigenous children. Residential schools are not the past. The Sixties Scoop is not the past. The harm and the genocide underpinning both live on in the ways our government provides (or refuses to provide) the basic right to education for Indigenous children. This book is infuriating and sad and so necessary.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 2 out of 5]

A subpar book about several important topics. Although it has an extraordinarily high rating, so my reaction may be down to the fact that I am not Canadian and that I read a fair amount of social-justice-oriented nonfiction. This is solidly in the bottom quarter, which is a shame because the communities written about deserve a great book.

When I try to describe what it’s about, its biggest problem emerges. Is this a true crime story about seven indigenous high school students who died in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in the 2000s? Or about deprivation on the small, remote, often fly-in-only reserves they come from (which have no in-person high schools of their own, forcing students to decide between remote learning and boarding in a distant city)? Or about the Canadian government’s racial discriminatory practices? In a way it’s about all of these things, but in the least immersive, insightful, or analytical way.

Talaga is a newspaper journalist, and this book reads more like newspaper journalism than book-length nonfiction. There’s no immersion in the places discussed, no getting to know the people, no questioning or closer analysis of anything she’s told; she seems to have interviewed everybody once or twice, taken them all at face value, and moved on. When she writes about the reserves in general terms, it’s as hellholes of deprivation, addiction, and cycles of abuse, but when she writes about each individual family, it’s in glowing if superficial terms: the family was loving, the kid loved hockey and hanging out with friends, etc. There’s no delving deeper, no exploration of contradictions, of people’s individuality or flaws. Especially so soon after a fabulous work of narrative nonfiction like There Is No Place for Us, it’s hard not to regret the missed opportunity.

Of course, Talaga’s options for immersion in the lives of willing individuals and communities were limited by the fact that she’d chosen to focus on seven high school students who had already died, and whose families might not be interested in more than a single interview (if that—one of the stories seemed to use another student as its primary source). But again, her account is limited by a newspaper-style, just-the-facts approach: there’s more lists of names of people who last saw a kid alive than there is analysis of what is likely to have happened.

As far as the cases, the main focus is on five teenage boys found dead in the river in Thunder Bay. (There’s also a teenage girl who died of alcohol poisoning in her first week in town, and a young man who suddenly dropped dead while preparing a meal in his mother’s kitchen, with the coroner unable to find any cause. These two aren’t exactly crime stories, albeit the negligence of everyone around that girl seems almost criminal.) It’s unclear what happened: four of the five boys were last seen drinking at popular student hangouts along the river, but no one saw any of them fall (although in one case the boy’s brother “woke up” also in the water and claimed to remember nothing). None were restrained or had obviously fatal injuries, although the coroner and police had so little interest in investigating that it’s hard to say for sure. Certainly the high number of fatalities (and this later happened to two more teens, mentioned in the epilogue) is highly suspicious, although the author never seems to ask how often (if ever) people do just accidentally fall into this river, which was the top question on my mind. To call her analysis half-baked would be to oversell it: she’ll just say something like “he couldn’t have drowned because he knew how to swim” (but it was winter in Ontario and he was stumbling drunk; how about interviewing an expert who could comment on that?) or “people hardly ever drown on the reserves” (but do they get drunk beside major rivers there?) and then move on with no further comment.

Perhaps the author’s ultimate purpose is not to solve these particular cases, but to highlight how law enforcement’s mishandling them destroys trust, while also pointing out how hard it is for already traumatized teenagers to leave home, often to board with strangers, and attend high school in the racism capital of Canada (passersby yelling slurs and throwing trash at them out of car windows is apparently the norm). No wonder they drink. It just would’ve been nice to dig deeper into the human stories, while as someone unfamiliar with Canadian government a lot of the policy stuff left me confused. Why are these kids attending segregated schools, especially when we learn toward the end that in some cases there are high schools close to home? Why is the author mad that the (white) government isn’t providing a culturally appropriate curriculum for the (indigenous) schools, isn’t the real problem that they have not or are not allowed to create that for themselves? Also, what’s up with these reserves that haven’t had potable water for decades? Perhaps the intended audience would already know the answer to all these questions, but it does seem like you need to come in already familiar with the context. And then too, it would’ve been nice to see some analysis of practical solutions. How to get specialized high school teachers for tiny numbers of students in remote places? Has anyone else solved this type of problem?

At any rate, I did learn some things from this book, and thought the author did a good job of tracing the history from residential schools (which often malnourished indigenous children to the point of doing starvation experiments on them—what the actual fuck) to today’s situation where many kids still have no good option for an education. But I thought the students deserved a better book.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought of Canada as a racist country. I've never been so wrong. This book made me incredibly sad, and angry, and disappointed in my country.