news | Wednesday June 5, 2024

Indigenous History Month Is Here!

June is Indigenous History Month! If you’re looking for book recommendations by Indigenous authors, here are a few recent powerhouse titles from across genres to add to your to-be-read pile.

Eight years in the making, Lha yudit’ih We Always Find A Way: Bringing the Tŝilhqot’in Title Case Home by Lorraine Weir with Chief Roger William is a community oral history of Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, the first case in Canada to result in a declaration of Aboriginal Rights and Title to a specific piece of land. Told from the perspective of the Plaintiff, Chief Roger William, joined by fifty Xeni Gwet’ins, Tŝilhqot’ins, and allies, this book encompasses ancient stories of creation, modern stories of genocide through smallpox and residential school, and stories of resistance.

An excerpt from Lha yudit’ih We Always Find a Way:

“By the time we found out that they were doing a bridge expansion at Henry’s Crossing so the big logging trucks could cross the river and go into Tachelach’ed and the Trapline, they’d taken the deck of the old bridge off. My older stepbrother, Gene Cooper, was on Council at that time, and we were both at the Tŝilhqot’in National Government office on May 6, 1992. We found out about the bridge when one of the operators at Henry’s Crossing messaged us at TNG about what was happening. They wanted to get heavy equipment like logging trucks over, and they needed to replace the centre beam of the bridge to do that. It’s amazing that they removed it without telling us. …So we said we were gonna roadblock. Like it or not, we’re gonna go, we’re gonna move to Henry’s Crossing and roadblock.”

Pick up a copy of Lha yudit’ih We Always Find A Way: Bringing the Tŝilhqot’in Title Case Home here.

A Family of Dreamers by Samantha Nock is an incredible debut. Longlisted for the 2024 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and a finalist for the 2024 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, A Family of Dreamers is an instantly memorable love letter to northern cuzzins, dive bars, and growing up.

An excerpt from “counting teeth”:

“i have tangled my fingers
in the hair of others
searching for signs of life.

i have followed capillaries
on the backs of arms
like a map.

this skin is where i call home,
but this skin has been loved
and unloved
into oblivion.”

Order your copy of A Family of Dreamers here.

Slow Scrape by Tanya Lukin Linklater is a brilliant collection of poetry that plays with form and draws on documentary poetics, concrete-based installations, event scores, and other texts. Slow Scrape cites memory, Cree and Alutiiq languages, and embodiment as modes of relational being and knowing.

An excerpt from “The Harvest Sturdies”:

“cheap memory foam cushions a cheaper mattress, under goose
down comforter and flannel I’m wrapped composing before I open
my eyes, there’s a woman whose name means to harvest, to provide.

a crimson ribbon skirt to ground, a down coat, tanned moose hide
mitts braided with yarn rest at her sides held at her neck. moose
hide, smoked and tanned, collide with red and white beads. those
hands pluck geese chop wood snare rabbits stoke fires lay spruce
boughs for warmth, the harvest sturdies.

here, I bleach black mould lines on window frames, scrub the septic
tank toilet, wash rewash bathroom countertops, he pine sols the
floors, stacks rugs on deck snow. together we dust scrub bleach to
prepare our home for visitors.”

Get your copy of Slow Scrape here.

A finalist for the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience by Daniel Arnold, Medina Hahn, and Darrell Dennis is an interactive play that gives audiences and readers a role in settling a land dispute between a settler couple and an Indigenous man.

An excerpt from Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience:

“ABBEY: No, I was thinking, like … it would be good if we could be
here … alone? (beat) Like, do you have anywhere else you could go?

…

FRANK: Listen, I understand it freaks you out to have an Indian
around –

NOAH: Hey, / whoa, whoa –

ABBEY: That has nothing to do with … / what I’m –

FRANK: But last I checked this wasn’t your house. It’s your dad’s. And
he said I should stay here, so that’s what I’m gonna do. So you can either
take your money and go back to a hotel yourself, and stop squatting
on my land. Or you can, you know, stay here and we can, like, all be
friends maybe.

Beat.

ABBEY: Your land.

FRANK: If you wanna talk about who should leave, I’d like to talk
about that.”

Pick up a copy of Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience here.

We so proud to have worked on these titles and are grateful for the opportunity to share these tremendous works with you. If you’re looking for even more Indigenous titles, we invite you to explore our Indigenous catalogue here. We hope this month (and all months) is full of excellent Indigenous reads.