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Without Reserve: Among the Northern Forest Indians
Book by Burnford, Sheila Every
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Sheila Burnford
23 books65 followersSheila Philip Cochrane Burnford, née Every, (11 May 1918 – 20 April 1984) was an English novelist.
Born in Scotland but brought up in various parts of the United Kingdom, she attended St. George's School, Edinburgh and Harrogate Ladies College. In 1941 she married Doctor David Burnford, with whom she had three children. During World War II she worked as a volunteer ambulance driver. In 1951 she emigrated to Canada, settling in Port Arthur, Ontario.
Burnford is best remembered for The Incredible Journey, a story about three animals traveling in the wilderness (1961), the first of a number of books she wrote on Canadian topics. The book was a modest success in 1961 but became a bestseller after it formed the basis of a successful Disney film. Although The Incredible Journey is marketed as a children's book, and in fact won the 1961 Canadian Children's Book of the Year award, Mrs Burnford has stated that it was not intended as a children's book.
She also wrote One Woman's Arctic (1973) about her two summers in Pond Inlet, Nunavut on Baffin Island. She traveled by komatik, a traditional Inuit dog sled, assisted in archaeological excavation, having to thaw the land inch by inch, ate everything offered to her, and saw the migration of the narwhals. This is a world that has experienced unlimited change, but Burnford saw the best and worst of Pond Inlet at a time gone forever.
She died of cancer in the village of Bucklers Hard in Hampshire at the age of 65.
Born in Scotland but brought up in various parts of the United Kingdom, she attended St. George's School, Edinburgh and Harrogate Ladies College. In 1941 she married Doctor David Burnford, with whom she had three children. During World War II she worked as a volunteer ambulance driver. In 1951 she emigrated to Canada, settling in Port Arthur, Ontario.
Burnford is best remembered for The Incredible Journey, a story about three animals traveling in the wilderness (1961), the first of a number of books she wrote on Canadian topics. The book was a modest success in 1961 but became a bestseller after it formed the basis of a successful Disney film. Although The Incredible Journey is marketed as a children's book, and in fact won the 1961 Canadian Children's Book of the Year award, Mrs Burnford has stated that it was not intended as a children's book.
She also wrote One Woman's Arctic (1973) about her two summers in Pond Inlet, Nunavut on Baffin Island. She traveled by komatik, a traditional Inuit dog sled, assisted in archaeological excavation, having to thaw the land inch by inch, ate everything offered to her, and saw the migration of the narwhals. This is a world that has experienced unlimited change, but Burnford saw the best and worst of Pond Inlet at a time gone forever.
She died of cancer in the village of Bucklers Hard in Hampshire at the age of 65.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 12, 2025
Again Sheila demonstrates her empathy and ideas that were ahead of her time in a lot of respects. Although she is still ignorant to a lot of what Indigenous peoples were going through at that time, she still manages to be insightful and questions a lot of the white peoples/ governments practices in their governing of the communities.
I’m intrigued by Sheila’s infatuation with and romanticized view of Indigenous people, and how upon immigrating to Canada realized that the white people here did not like them. Which led to her realizing she needed to take action.
Not loving the comparison between an Indigenous woman and a chimp.
Reading this really shows how simultaneously so much and yet not a lot has changed in 60 years in remote communities.
The postscript is really insightful and really does hit home how insidious the attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples really was and how easy it is to empathize with their rejection of white society.
I think what makes the colonization and assimilation of Indigenous people in North America so unique was that it was at a time of rapid societal and economic growth and change. Not only were the Indigenous people colonized but they also had to adjust to a rapidly changing white mans world.
I’m intrigued by Sheila’s infatuation with and romanticized view of Indigenous people, and how upon immigrating to Canada realized that the white people here did not like them. Which led to her realizing she needed to take action.
Not loving the comparison between an Indigenous woman and a chimp.
Reading this really shows how simultaneously so much and yet not a lot has changed in 60 years in remote communities.
The postscript is really insightful and really does hit home how insidious the attempts to assimilate Indigenous peoples really was and how easy it is to empathize with their rejection of white society.
I think what makes the colonization and assimilation of Indigenous people in North America so unique was that it was at a time of rapid societal and economic growth and change. Not only were the Indigenous people colonized but they also had to adjust to a rapidly changing white mans world.
August 10, 2026
Five stars on my own personal Thunder Bay scale. The considerable merits of this book will be elusive at best to anyone unfamiliar with Big Trout Lake and Sioux Lookout. I will refer to the residents of the reserves as Indians because this is the term used by the Federal Indian Act then in vigor.
Sheila Burnford who is the author of the wildly successful "Incredible Journey" which became the basis of not one but three Disney films insists throughout the book that the reader should think of her as an "immigrant housewife" from Scotland rather than as a writer. Her husband was an immigrant paediatrician practicing in Thunder Bay. Her best friend Susan Ross who accompanied her was a successful painter who did not think of herself as a housewife but was still nonetheless married to a judge.
"Without Reserve" describes the events of six summers in the 1960s during which the author and her friend lived on flie-in reserves (i.e. accessible only by air). The book provides an exquisite snapshot of life in these isolated communities during the 1960s. The author notes that at the end that the Federal Government had just ended the practice of sending children to remote residential schools run by the various churches in Canada to slightly less remote public high schools where they would be boarded with local families. I entered high school two years after the first cohort of these flie-in students, hence my great enjoyment of Burnford's book. It describes events that I had observed closely albeit through a glass darkly.
Burnford and Ross were sympathetic and, for their era, politically progressive observers. Burnford makes no effort to conceal the contradictions in her thinking. She is of the opinion that the residential schools were a bad idea and that the methods of the missionaries were profoundly flawed. At the same time she praises them for their commitment to the Indians. As well she acknowledges the help that she received from them. The priests found accomadations for them and tutored them in the languages (Cress and Ojibway) spoken on the reserves.
Burnford does not describe the reserves from either an historical or sociological perspective. She counts her personal experiences. Not too surprisingly the very best chapter "Ohnemoos: The Indian Dogs" is about the sad fate of the sled who were exepelled from the homes of the reserve residents to fend for themselves in nature as snowmobiles replaced the traditional dog-sleds.
Many things that Burnford says would be considered politically incorrect in today's world. For example, she reports that any Indian who secured employment would have to deal with hordes of scroungers from his reserve. I certainly heard stories of this sort growing up in the Thunder Bay region but have no way of knowing if they were true. Similarly, at another place, Burnford jokingly says that Oblate missionaries were frequently eaten by the native Canadians that they were trying to convert. My understanding is that there are documented cases of this having happened. However, in the 21st century one tries not to talk about them.
The reality of life on the reserves has changed a great deal since the publication of Burnford's book in 1969. It needs to be read as an historical document composed that describes live on the flie-in reserves of Northwestern Ontario at a very specific point in time .
Sheila Burnford who is the author of the wildly successful "Incredible Journey" which became the basis of not one but three Disney films insists throughout the book that the reader should think of her as an "immigrant housewife" from Scotland rather than as a writer. Her husband was an immigrant paediatrician practicing in Thunder Bay. Her best friend Susan Ross who accompanied her was a successful painter who did not think of herself as a housewife but was still nonetheless married to a judge.
"Without Reserve" describes the events of six summers in the 1960s during which the author and her friend lived on flie-in reserves (i.e. accessible only by air). The book provides an exquisite snapshot of life in these isolated communities during the 1960s. The author notes that at the end that the Federal Government had just ended the practice of sending children to remote residential schools run by the various churches in Canada to slightly less remote public high schools where they would be boarded with local families. I entered high school two years after the first cohort of these flie-in students, hence my great enjoyment of Burnford's book. It describes events that I had observed closely albeit through a glass darkly.
Burnford and Ross were sympathetic and, for their era, politically progressive observers. Burnford makes no effort to conceal the contradictions in her thinking. She is of the opinion that the residential schools were a bad idea and that the methods of the missionaries were profoundly flawed. At the same time she praises them for their commitment to the Indians. As well she acknowledges the help that she received from them. The priests found accomadations for them and tutored them in the languages (Cress and Ojibway) spoken on the reserves.
Burnford does not describe the reserves from either an historical or sociological perspective. She counts her personal experiences. Not too surprisingly the very best chapter "Ohnemoos: The Indian Dogs" is about the sad fate of the sled who were exepelled from the homes of the reserve residents to fend for themselves in nature as snowmobiles replaced the traditional dog-sleds.
Many things that Burnford says would be considered politically incorrect in today's world. For example, she reports that any Indian who secured employment would have to deal with hordes of scroungers from his reserve. I certainly heard stories of this sort growing up in the Thunder Bay region but have no way of knowing if they were true. Similarly, at another place, Burnford jokingly says that Oblate missionaries were frequently eaten by the native Canadians that they were trying to convert. My understanding is that there are documented cases of this having happened. However, in the 21st century one tries not to talk about them.
The reality of life on the reserves has changed a great deal since the publication of Burnford's book in 1969. It needs to be read as an historical document composed that describes live on the flie-in reserves of Northwestern Ontario at a very specific point in time .
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews