Toronto Reference Library Blog

In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from his residential school. There was an inquest, but the four recommendations that were made were never applied. 

Between 2000 and 2011, seven indigenous high school students have died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The students were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.

Toronto Star award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga's new book, Seven Fallen Feathers, Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City, focuses on the lives of the students, and the small northern city that has come to manifest Canada's long struggle with human rights violations against indigenous communities.

Join journalist Tanya Talaga as she discusses her book:

Seven Fallen Feathers
Thursday, October 26, 7 p.m.
Toronto Reference Library, Beeton Hall

The program is free and all are welcome.

Talaga's book, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction has been described by reviewers as meticulous, uncompromising, hard and harrowing. Talaga makes the difficult connections between these tragedies and the systemic racism, poverty and powerlessness that contribute to the ongoing issues facing indigenous youth, their families and their communities. She listens to the families and shares their truths, concluding that we need to start listening, and demand that Canada act now.

Borrow some recent books on indigenous issues in Canada: