Indigenous Interest
Read the powerful stories and rich history of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and North America with the books listed below.
There are, of course, hundreds, if not thousands of titles that we could include in this list, however we wanted to focus primarily on recent titles as well as those that have a strong legacy.
We are also continually updating this list as we discover new books by or about Indigenous Peoples, and if you feel that we should include a particular title or author we encourage you to contact us with more information.
Indian Burial Ground
-
Hardcover
$37.99
Reader Reward Price: $34.19
A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.
All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on--just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her--things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend's apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.
But the facts about Roddy's death just don't add up, and Noemi isn't the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.
After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy's true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers...but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.
Wînipêk
-
Hardcover
$36.00
Reader Reward Price: $32.40
NATIONAL BESTSELLER o Winner of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction o Named a Best Book of 2024 by Audible, Spotify, and Winnipeg Free Press o One of CBC's Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2024
From ground zero of this country's most important project: reconciliation.
Niigaan Sinclair has been called provocative, revolutionary, and one of this country's most influential thinkers on the issues impacting Indigenous cultures, communities, and reconciliation in Canada. In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls "ground zero" of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity. It is here, in the place where Canada began--where the land, water, people, and animals meet-- that a path "from the centre" is happening for all to see.
At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance.
Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.
Sinclair uses the story of Winnipeg to illuminate the reality of Indigenous life all over what is called Canada. This is a book that demands change and celebrates those fighting for it, that reminds us of what must be reconciled and holds accountable those who must do the work. It's a book that reminds us of the power that comes from loving a place, even as that place is violently taken away from you, and the magic of fighting your way back to it.
"Indian" in the Cabinet
-
Trade paperback
$21.00
Reader Reward Price: $18.90
THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A compelling political memoir of leadership and speaking truth to power by one of the most inspiring women of her generation--now in paperback
Jody Wilson-Raybould was raised to be a leader. She was inspired by the example of her grandmother, who persevered throughout her life to keep alive the governing traditions of her people. And as the daughter of a hereditary Chief and Indigenous leader, Wilson-Raybould always knew she would adopt leadership roles and responsibilities. But she never anticipated these roles would take her from her community of We Wai Kai in British Columbia to Ottawa as Canada's first Indigenous minister of justice and attorney general in the Cabinet of then newly elected prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Wilson-Raybould's experience in Trudeau's Cabinet reveals important lessons about strengthening our political institutions and culture, and making the changes necessary to confront challenges like racial justice and climate change. As her initial optimism about the possibilities of enacting change while in Cabinet shifted to struggles over inclusivity, deficiencies of political will, and concerns about adherence to core tenets of our democracy, Wilson-Raybould stood on principle, and ultimately, resigned. In standing her ground, both personally and professionally, and telling the truth in front of the nation, she demonstrated the need for greater independence and less partisanship in how we govern.
"Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power is the story of why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader sitting at the Cabinet table, her proudest achievements, the SNC-Lavalin affair, and how she got out and moved forward. Wilson-Raybould believes there is a better way to govern and a better way for politics to function--one that will make a better country for all.
The Great Bear
-
Children's paperback
$12.99
Reader Reward Price: $11.69
In this second book in the Narnia-inspired Indigenous middle-grade fantasy series, Eli and Morgan journey once more to Misewa, travelling back in time.
Back at home after their first adventure in the Barren Grounds, Eli and Morgan each struggle with personal issues: Eli is being bullied at school, and tries to hide it from Morgan, while Morgan has to make an important decision about her birth mother. They turn to the place where they know they can learn the most, and make the journey to Misewa to visit their animal friends. This time they travel back in time and meet a young fisher that might just be their lost friend. But they discover that the village is once again in peril, and they must dig deep within themselves to find the strength to protect their beloved friends. Can they carry this strength back home to face their own challenges?
The Barren Grounds
-
Children's paperback
$12.99
Reader Reward Price: $11.69
Narnia meets traditional Indigenous stories of the sky and constellations in an epic middle-grade fantasy series from award-winning author David Robertson.
Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home -- until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything -- including them.
The Honourable John Norquay
-
Hardcover
$39.95
Reader Reward Price: $35.96
The life and times of the Premier from Red River
John Norquay, orphan and prodigy, was a leader among the Scots Cree peoples of western Canada. Born in the Red River Settlement, he farmed, hunted, traded, and taught school before becoming a legislator, cabinet minister, and, from 1878 to 1887, premier of Manitoba.
Once described as Louis Riel's alter ego, he skirmished with prime minister John A. Macdonald, clashed with railway baron George Stephen, and endured racist taunts while championing the interests of the Prairie West in battles with investment bankers, Ottawa politicians, and the CPR. His contributions to the development of Canada's federal system and his dealings with issues of race and racism deserve attention today.
Recounted here by Canadian historian Gerald Friesen, Norquay's life story ignites contemporary conversations around the nature of empire and Canada's own imperial past. Drawing extensively on recently opened letters and financial papers that offer new insights into his business, family, and political life, Friesen reveals Norquay to be a thoughtful statesman and generous patriarch. This masterful biography of the Premier from Red River sheds welcome light on a neglected historical figure and a tumultuous time for Canada and Manitoba.
Teeth
-
Trade paperback
$19.95
Reader Reward Price: $17.96
This is a book about grief, death and longing. It's about the gristle that lodges itself deep into one's gums, between incisors and canines. Teeth details not only the symptoms of colonization, but also the foundational and constitutive asymmetries that allow for it to proliferate and reproduce itself. Dallas Hunt grapples with the material realities and imaginaries Indigenous communities face, as well as the pockets of livability that they inhabit just to survive. Still this collection seeks joy in the everyday, in the flourishing of Indigenous Peoples in the elsewhere, in worlds to come. Nestling into the place between love and ruin, Teeth traces the collisions of love undone and being undone by love, where "the hope is to find an ocean nested in shoulders--to reside there when the tidal waves come. and then love names the ruin."
Medicine Wheel for the Planet
-
Hardcover
$34.00
Reader Reward Price: $30.60
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"This beautiful book can completely change how we approach science, using both Indigenous and Western perspectives, and how we can work collaboratively to help foster balance in nature." --Suzanne Simard, bestselling author of Finding the Mother Tree
A farm kid at heart, and a Nlaka'pamux woman of mixed ancestry, Dr. Jennifer Grenz always felt a deep connection to the land. Which is why, after nearly two decades of working as a restoration ecologist in the Pacific Northwest, she became frustrated that she and her colleagues weren't making the meaningful change needed for plant, animal and human communities to adapt to a warming climate. She began to question the central conceit of restoration ecology: that somehow, we must return the natural world to an untouched, pristine state, placing humans in a godlike role--a notion at odds with Indigenous histories of purposeful, reciprocal interaction with the environment. This disconnect sent Dr. Grenz on a journey of joining her head (Western science) and her heart (Indigenous worldview) to find a truer path toward ecological healing.
In Medicine Wheel for the Planet, building on sacred stories, field observation and personal experience, Dr. Grenz invites readers to share in the teachings of the four directions of the medicine wheel: the North, which draws upon the knowledge and wisdom of elders; the East, where we let go of colonial narratives and see with fresh eyes; the South, where we apply new-old worldviews to envision a way forward; and the West, where a relational approach to land reconciliation is realized.
Eloquent, inspiring and disruptive, Medicine Wheel for the Planet circles in on an argument that a multiplicity of worldviews are required to safeguard our Earth.
Coexistence
-
Hardcover
$29.95
Reader Reward Price: $26.96
A collection of intersecting stories about Indigenous love and loneliness from one of contemporary literature's most boundless minds.
Across the prairies and Canada's west coast, on reserves and university campuses, at literary festivals and existential crossroads, the characters in Coexistence are searching for connection. They're learning to live with and understand one another, to see beauty and terror side by side, and to accept that the past, present, and future can inhabit a single moment.
An aging mother confides in her son about an intimate friendship from her distant girlhood. A middling poet is haunted by the cliché his life has become. A chorus of anonymous gay men dispense unvarnished truths about their sex lives. A man freshly released from prison finds that life on the outside has sinister strictures of its own. A PhD student dog-sits for his parents at what was once a lodging for nuns operating a residential school--a house where the spectre of Catholicism comes to feel eerily literal.
Bearing the compression, crystalline sentences, and emotional potency that have characterized his earlier books, Coexistence is a testament to Belcourt's mastery of and playfulness in any literary form. A vital addition to an already rich catalogue, this is a must-read collection and the work of an author at the height of his powers.
Wandering Stars
-
Hardcover
$35.00
Reader Reward Price: $31.50
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER o Longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize o Longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal in Excellence for Fiction o A New York Times Editors' Choice o An NPR Book of the Day o Named a Best Book of 2024 (So Far) by the New York Times, Esquire, Vulture, W Magazine, Indigo, Audible, and Barnes & Noble o One of Oprah Daily's Best New Novels to Read in Spring 2024 o An Audacious Book Club Pick o Named a Most Anticipated Book by TIME, Real Simple, Oprah Daily, Vulture, NPR, and The Millions o Named a Best Book of 2024 by Kirkus Reviews, New York Times, NPR, Winnipeg Free Press, Barnes and Noble, The Guardian, and Indigo o One of Kobo CA's Top 20 Ebooks of 2024 and A Top Fiction Ebook of 2024
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange's breakout best seller There There--winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize, the American Book Award, and one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year--Wandering Stars traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Redfeather's shooting in There There.
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father's jailer. Under Pratt's harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodline.
Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals which he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.
Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage--a masterful follow-up to his already--classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America's war on its own people.
Early Days
-
, ,Hardcover
$70.00
Reader Reward Price: $63.00
Winner of the 2023 Canadian Museum Association award for Outstanding Achievement in Research
A landmark publication bringing together more than seventy voices illuminating the rich array of Indigenous art held by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Under the editorial direction of Anishinaabe artist and scholar Bonnie Devine, Early Days gathers the insights of myriad Indigenous cultural stakeholders, informing us on everything from goose hunting techniques, to the history of Northwest Coast mask making, to the emergence of the Woodland style of painting and printmaking, to the challenges of art making in the Arctic, to the latest developments in contemporary art by Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island.
Splendidly illustrated, Early Days not only tells the story of a leading collection but traces the emergence and increasing participation of many Indigenous artists in the contemporary art world. This publication will be the largest in the history of the McMichael, and represents a vital acknowledgment of the place of Indigenous art and ways of knowing in global art history.
Featured contributors: Barry Ace, Pierre Aupilardjuk, Leland Bell, Dempsey Bob, Violet Chum, Hannah Claus, Dana Claxton, Taa.uu Tuuwans Nika Collison, Alan Ojiig Corbiere, Marcia Crosby, Ruth Cuthand, Mique'l Dangeli, Sarah Florence Davidson, Robert Davidson, Blake Debassige, Bonnie Devine, Tarralik Duffy, Norma Dunning, David Garneau, John Geoghegan, Janice Grey, Haay'uups (Ron Hamilton), Jim Hart, Emma Hassencahl-Perley, Emily Henderson, Lynn Hill, Richard William Hill, Maria Hupfield, Heather Igoliorte, Luis Jacob, Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, William Kingfisher, Jessica Kotierk, Robin Laurence, Duane Linklater, Ange Loft, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Jean Marshal, Michael Massie, Kaitlin McCormick, Gerald McMaster, Ossie Michelin, Sarah Milroy, Antoine Mountain, Nadia Myre, Wanda Nanibush, Jeneen Frei Njootli, Ruth B. Phillips, Jocelyn Piirainen, Ryan Rice, Carmen Robertson, Paul Seesequasis, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Wedlidi Speck, Michelle Sylliboy, Snxakila Clyde Tallio, Drew Hayden Taylor, Nakkita Trimble, Jesse Tungilik, Camille Georgeson-Usher, William Wasden Jr., Jordan Wilson, Jessica Winters.
Cold
-
Trade paperback
$24.95
Reader Reward Price: $22.46
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER o One of Kobo CA's Top Horror Ebooks and Top Horror Audiobook of 2024
A tragic plane crash that leaves two women stranded and fighting for their lives kicks off this sweeping and hilarious novel from award-winning writer Drew Hayden Taylor that blends thriller, murder mystery, and horror with humour and spectacle.
Elmore Trent is a professor of Indigenous studies who finds himself entangled in an affair that's ruining his marriage; Paul North plays in the IHL (Indigenous Hockey League), struggling to keep up with the game that's passing him by; Detective Ruby Birch is chasing a string of gruesome murders, with clues that conspicuously lead her to both Elmore and Paul. And then there's Fabiola Halan, former journalist-turned-author and famed survivor of a plane crash that sparked a nationwide tour promoting her book.
What starts off as a series of subtle connections between isolated characters quickly takes a menacing turn, as it becomes increasingly clear that someone--or something--is hunting them all.
Taking tropes from the murder mystery, police procedural, thriller, and horror genres, Drew Hayden Taylor weaves a pulse-pounding and propulsive narrative with an intricate cast of characters, while never losing the ability to make you laugh.
Decolonizing Sport
-
, ,Trade paperback
$29.00
Reader Reward Price: $26.10
Decolonizing Sport tells the stories of sport colonizing Indigenous Peoples and of Indigenous Peoples using sport to decolonize. Spanning several lands -- Turtle Island, the US, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and Kenya -- the authors demonstrate the two sharp edges of sport in the history of colonialism. Colonizers used sport, their own and Indigenous recreational activities they appropriated, as part of the process of dispossession of land and culture. Indigenous mascots and team names, hockey at residential schools, lacrosse and many other examples show the subjugating force of sport. Yet, Indigenous Peoples used sport, playing their own games and those of the colonizers, including hockey, horse racing and fishing, and subverting colonial sport rules as liberation from colonialism. This collection stands apart from recent publications in the area of sport with its focus on Indigenous Peoples, sport and decolonization, as well as in imagining a new way forward.
Mind Over Matter
-
,Hardcover
$34.00
Reader Reward Price: $30.60
Following the bestselling success of the inspiring All the Way, pioneering Inuit NHLer Jordin Tootoo begins the process of healing in the wake of the suicide and violence that marks his family, only to discover the source of all that trauma in his father's secret past.
For some hockey players, retirement marks the moment when it's all over. But Jordin Tootoo is not most hockey players.
Having inspired millions when he first broke into the league, Tootoo continued to influence people throughout his career--not only through his very public triumph over alcoholism, but also his natural charisma. And now, years after hanging up his skates, he is more committed to doing things the right way and speaking about it to others, whether it's corporate executives or Indigenous youth.
But the news of unmarked graves on the grounds of residential schools brought back to life many of the demons that had haunted his family. In a moment of realization that left him rattled and saddened, Tootoo fit the pieces together. The years that were never spoken of. The heavy drinking. The all too predictable violence. His father was a survivor, marked by what he had survived.
As he travels back to Nunavut to try to speak with his father about what haunts him, he encounters the ghosts of the entire community. Still, as Tootoo says, we are continuously learning and rewriting our story at every step. He has learned from his mistakes and his victories. He has learned from examples of great courage and humility. He has learned from being a father and a husband. And he has learned from his own Inuk traditions, of perseverance and discipline in the face of hardship.
Weaving together life's biggest themes with observations and experiences, Jordin shares the kind of wisdom he has had to specialize in--the hard-won kind.
This is a selection of our current Indigenous Interest titles. To find other titles or authors, or just to browse, please use the search box.