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Black water : family, legacy, and blood memory / by Robertson, David,1977-author.;
"David A. Robertson, the son of a Cree father and a white, settler mother, grew up with virtually no knowledge or understanding of his family's Indigenous roots. His father, Dulas, or Don as he became known, had grown up on the trapline in the bush only to be transplanted permanently to a house on reserve in Manitoba, where he was not permitted to speak his language--Swampy Cree--and was forced to learn and speak only English while in day school, unless in secret in the forest with his friends. Robertson's mother, Beverly Eyers, grew up in a small town in Manitoba, a town with no Indigenous families, until Don came to town as a United Church minister and fell in love with her. Robertson's parents made the decision to raise their children, in his words, "separate from his Indigenous identity." He grew up without his father's teachings or knowledge of his life or experiences. All he had left was blood memory, the pieces of who he was engrained in the fabric of his DNA. Pieces that he has spent a lifetime putting together. Black Water is a family memoir of intergenerational trauma and healing, of connection, of story, of how David Robertson's father's life--growing up in Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, then making the journey from Norway House to Winnipeg--informed the author's own life, and might even have saved it. Facing a story nearly erased by the designs of history, father and son journey together back to the trapline at Black Water, through the past to create a new future."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Robertson, David, 1977-; Robertson, Don, 1935-2019.; Authors, Canadian (English); Cree;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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River Mumma : a novel / by Reid-Benta, Zalika,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.'River Mumma' is an exhilarating magical realist novel about a millennial Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a quest through the streets of Toronto. It is a homage to Jamaican storytelling by one of the most invigorating voices in Canadian literature. Zalika Reid-Benta lives in Toronto, ON. From the author of 'Frying Plantain', which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. A Dewey Diva Pick. #diversity.
Subjects: Magic realist fiction.; Novels.; Friendship; Quests (Expeditions); Young women; Jamaican Canadians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Willie : the game-changing story of the NHL's first black player / by O'Ree, Willie,1935-author.; McKinley, Michael,1961-author.; Iginla, Jarome,1977-writer of foreword.;
"An inspiring memoir that shows that anyone can achieve their dreams if they are willing to fight for them. In 1958, Willie O'Ree was a lot like any other player toiling in the minors, waiting for his chance to play in the best hockey league in the world. He'd grown up playing in small towns, working his way up the complicated hierarchy of junior and minor leagues, losing teeth and dropping the gloves along the way. He was good. Good enough to have been signed by the Boston Bruins, good enough to have been invited to training camp twice. In a six-team league, that meant he was one of the best players in the world. Just not quite good enough to play in the NHL. Until January 18 of that year. The call came, and Willie O'Ree was told he'd be suiting up against the Montreal Canadians. The next morning, he opened the paper to see if his name showed up in the box score. Instead, he found it on the front page, in the headline. Without even realizing it, Willie O'Ree had broken hockey's colour barrier, just as his hero, Jackie Robinson, had done for baseball. In 2018, O'Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in recognition not only of that legacy, but of the way he has built on it in the decades since. He has been, for twenty years now, an NHL Executive. As Director of Youth Development, O'Ree has helped the NHL Diversity program expose more than 40,000 boys and girls of diverse backgrounds to unique hockey experiences. Over the past decade, O'Ree has traveled thousands of miles across North America helping to establish 39 local grassroots hockey programs, all geared towards serving economically disadvantaged youth. While advocating strongly that "Hockey is for Everyone," O'Ree stresses the importance of essential life skills, education, and the core values of hockey: commitment, perseverance, and teamwork."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; O'Ree, Willie, 1935-; Hockey players; Black Canadian hockey players;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Saga boy : my life of Blackness and becoming / by Downing, Antonio Michael,1975-author.;
Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines. He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah", a punk rock rapper, "Molasses", a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus", a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy", a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself. Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Authors, Canadian (English); Musicians; Musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Refuge in the black deck : the story of ordinary seaman Nicola Peffers / by Peffers, Nicola,author.; reprint of (manifestation):Peffers, Nicola.Black deck.;
"Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers exposes ongoing harassment from her male colleagues, despite Canadian Forces' "zero-tolerance policy" and chronicles PTSD survival experience. When Ordinary Seaman Nicola Peffers boarded the HMCS Winnipeg in 2009, she was embarking on her first deployment with the Canadian Navy. At twenty-six years old, one of the few women on the boat, and one of the top students in her training class, Nicola began her career with a sense of optimism and hope towards seeing the world and serving her country. Rather than finding the teamwork and belonging she had hoped for, Nicola endured constant sexualization by the men she worked with. Along with the rigors of an intense military training process, she also faced sexual harassment and mistreatment from her superiors, meanwhile bound by rigid hierarchies and the physical distance between home and life at sea. Socially isolated, Nicola's only refuge, at times, was hiding in the black deck, a dark and cramped area of the ship that no one visits unless they absolutely have to. Refuge in the Black Deck is about physical and emotional strength, the failures of the justice system in the face of sexual harassment, and the harmful effects of trauma that continue even after having left the site of the experience."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Peffers, Nicola.; Post-traumatic stress disorder; Sexual harassment in the military; Women sailors; Women sailors;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The girl in the middle : growing up between black and white, rich and poor / by Granofsky, Anais,author.;
"A moving and vivid memoir of a young girl switching between worlds, wanting only to be loved. When Anais Granofsky's parents met at Antioch College in Ohio in the early 1970s, they were each foreign and fascinating to the other - he, Stanley, the son of fantastically wealthy Jewish family from Toronto and she, Jean, one of 15 children from a poor Black Methodist family who are the direct descendants of the freed Randolph slaves. When they became pregnant at 19 and 22, they didn't anticipate being cut off by the wealthy Granofskys. Neither did they anticipate that Stanley, soon to rename himself Fakeer, would find his calling in the spiritual teaching of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (subject of the Netflix doc Wild, Wild Country) and leave his family for the ashram in India. The Girl in the Middle is the story of the child that was born into these two, very different worlds and who spent her life navigating between them. Alone, Anais and her mother teetered on the poverty line, sharing a mattress in a single room in social housing in Toronto, while her grandparents lived a twenty-minute car ride away on the mansion-lined Bridle Path. As Anais grew up, she was invited to spend weekends with her wealthy grandmother, putting on special clothes when she arrived and being served lunch by the pool, while often she and her mother did not know where their next meal would come from. Anais soon realized that if she wanted to be loved, she had to learn to live two lives. Anais's memoir offers a powerful lens into how these two families, one white and one Black, faced systematic oppression spanning multiple generations and came out at opposite economic classes-and how they clashed when they shared a granddaughter. With compassionate and vivid storytelling, Granofsky shares her experiences of living with each foot in opposing worlds and explores generational shame, grief, and prejudice, and ultimately love and forgiveness. Based on the viral Toronto Life article."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Granofsky, Anais; Granofsky, Anais; Poor; Television actors and actresses; Black Canadians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Great Canadian ghost stories : legendary tales of hauntings from coast to coast / by Smith, Barbara,1947 April 19-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A compelling collection of iconic ghost stories from all across Canada. Time and place are infused with ghosts and hauntings. From coast to coast to coast, Canada's provinces and territories teem with the supernatural-phantoms obscured in the mists of time, spectres that delight in wreaking terror, and spirits destined to linger forever at the edge of the veil. Visit the far-flung corners of Canada to discover the folklore and legends behind: the ghost of a Newfoundland outlaw that leads blizzard-blind men to safety A poltergeist infestation that gleefully tortured an entire Nova Scotia family A fleet of phantom ships that haunt the coastline of New Brunswick the haggard spectre of a murderous witch in historic Quebec City Saskatchewan's ghost-ridden military cadet academy an Alberta cabbie's encounter with a silent shadow of a man in black the headless railway brakeman of Vancouver a moaning, man-shaped mist that haunts a Yukon cabin From east to west to way up north, bestselling author and renowned storyteller Barbara Smith traverses Canada's provinces and territories to unearth more than 100 supernatural tales that careen between heartwarming, horrifying, sorrowful, and spine-chilling."--
Subjects: Ghost stories.; Ghosts; Haunted places;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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How to survive a bear attack : a memoir / by Cameron, Claire,1973-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."In this debut memoir from the bestselling author of The Bear and The Last Neanderthal, Claire Cameron confronts the rare genetic mutation that gave her cancer by investigating an equally rare and terrifying event ... a predatory bear attack. When Claire Cameron was nine years old, her father, a professor of Old English, told her he was dying. In the years after he was gone, she found a way to overcome her grief among the rivers and lakes of Algonquin Park, a vast Canadian wilderness area. Around that same time, in 1991, a couple was killed by a black bear in a rare predatory attack in the park. Claire was shocked, and never fully sure of what happened, the attack haunted her. Now older, with children of her own, Cameron was diagnosed with the same kind of deadly skin cancer as her father. Caught in a second wave of grief, she was told by her doctor, "the ideal exposure to UV light is none." No longer able to venture into the wilderness as she once had, with long scars on her back, she became obsessed with the bear attack in Algonquin Park again. How could terror rip through such a beautiful place? Could she separate truth from fiction? She headed north to investigate. Gripping and heart-rending, Claire seamlessly weaves together nature writing and true crime investigation with an unflinching account of grief, trauma, and recovery. How to Survive a Bear Attack is at once an intimate portrait of an extraordinary animal, a bracing chronicle of pain, obsession, and love, and a profoundly moving exploration of how we can understand and survive the inextricable wildness that lives inside us and in nature"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Case studies.; Personal narratives.; Cameron, Claire, 1973-; Bear attacks; Skin; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Oceans of fate : peace and peril aboard the steamship Empress of Asia / by Black, Dan,1957-author.; Delgado, James P.,writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The remarkable story of how one ship -- doomed by war -- intersected lives and crossed into history. Completed in 1913 for Canadian Pacific, the Empress of Asia plied the oceans for nearly thirty years. Built for peacetime travel, she saw wartime service as an armed merchant cruiser and troopship before Japanese dive bombers destroyed her off Singapore in 1942. Through the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression, she brought continents and people together, delivering mail and multi-million-dollar consignments of silk. As a luxurious passenger liner, she was a "Greyhound of the Pacific," encountering enormous storms and smashing transpacific speed records. From stokehold to bridge, steerage to first-class staterooms, she steamed with a kaleidoscope of lives, including courageous and recalcitrant crew, immigrants and refugees seeking a better life or relief from disaster, drug smugglers and weapons dealers, and the idle and not-so idle rich. This is the dramatic story of how one ship -- and the lives of her passengers and crew -- intersected during a tumultuous period of world history, culminating in her destruction off Singapore at the height of the Second World War"-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Empress of Asia (Steamship); Armed merchant ships; Merchant marine; Ocean liners; Passenger ships; World War, 1914-1918;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The imitation game [videorecording] / by Cumberbatch, Benedict,1976-; Dance, Charles.; Goode, Matthew,1978-; Knightley, Keira,1985-; Moore, Graham,1981-; Strong, Mark,1963-; Tyldum, Morten.; Black Bear Pictures.; Elevation Pictures.;
Director of photography, Oscar Faura ; film editor, William Goldenberg ; music by Alexandre Desplat.Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance.During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality. Little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing.Canadian Home Video Rating: PG.DVD ; widescreen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Turing, Alan Mathison, 1912-1954; Biographical films.; Enigma cipher system; Feature films.; Gay men; Mathematicians;
© c2015., Disbtributed by Elevation Pictures,
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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