An introduction to reading stories by Indigenous Peoples in Canada

We’re starting easy here with this brief (and I mean BRIEF) Indigenous history in Canada. Michelle Good is of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She is a writer of short stories, poems, and essays.

Truth Telling is the perfect place to start when it comes to learning about the past and understanding a better way of moving forward. The chapters are broken down into easy-to-digest essays about racism, treaties, culture, and history. If you have no idea where to start, start here. 

This is the second book by Cherie Dimaline that I will be sharing. The Marrow Thieves is a young adult dystopian, science fiction set in the Canadian wilderness. Fifteen-year-old Frenchie is on the run with his family. After global warming has destroyed the social order, dreams are in high demand. 

Now that Indigenous Peoples are the only ones left who can dream, they are being hunted and having their bone marrow harvested so that white people can dream again. This book is fast-paced and heartbreaking, filled with found family and ancestral wisdom. 

Wab Kinew is the current Premier of Manitoba. He is an Ojibway of the Onigaming First Nation in Northwestern Ontario and Canada’s first provincial premier of First Nations descent. Walking in Two Worlds introduces us to Bugz and Feng.

Bugs is a shy girl who lives on the Rez and spends all her time in a virtual reality game where she is confident and has friends. Feng is sent from China to live with family on the same Rez; he also spends all his time playing the same game as Bugz. The two become friends inside and outside the game, but after some family challenges and community trauma, they may have to fight for the friendship they had or lose it completely. 

Katherena Vermette is of Metis descent from Winnipeg. In this historical fiction graphic novel, we meet Echo, who is thirteen and just moved to a new home and a new school. While struggling to find her place and make new friends, she accidentally travels back in time to the center of a bison hunt on the plains of Saskatchewan.

Echo continues to jump back and forward through time, and as she does so, she learns of her Metis heritage and the history of her people. From fur trading to hunting to the titular Pemmican Wars, readers can get a creative dose of Indigenous history. 

What’s in a Bead? follows Tessa as she learns from her grandmother the artistry and history that go into traditional beading. With bright and colorful illustrations, a sweet story about the celebration of Cree craftsmanship is told. Kelsey Borgford is Nbisling Nishnaabe from the Marten clan and Couch family in the territory of Nipissing First Nation, Ontario. 

This beautifully illustrated book by David Alexander Robertson, a member of the Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, follows siblings Lauren and James as they travel with their Moshom (grandfather). While out on a lake canoeing, the siblings fall overboard and are taken through a magical portal full of mythical creatures. In order for them to find their way back to the surface, they must listen to the call of their ancestors.