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Returning home [videorecording] / by Stiller, Sean,film director.; Webstad, Phyllis,on-screen participant.; McIntyre Media,film distributor.;
Phyllis Webstad.Skilfully intertwining narratives concerning residential school survivors and Indigenous peoples' relationship with imperiled wild Pacific salmon, Sean Stiller's stirring documentary is a revelatory testament to strength and resilience. At the heart of the film is Phyllis Jack-Webstad, the survivor who founded the Orange Shirt Day movement. While Phyllis recounts her childhood trials to youth across the country, her relations in the Secwépemc territory near Williams Lake are contending with another outcome of colonialism: the upper Fraser River's lowest salmon runs in Canadian history. In observing the interconnection between the Secwépemc and salmon, Stiller lays bare the impacts of overfishing on these communities. The first production by Canadian Geographic Films, Returning Home balances Stiller's stunning cinematography with clear-eyed testimonies to the unforgivable transgressions endured by Phyllis and other survivors within the walls of residential schools. Likewise, it effectively illustrates what it means to truly be in good relationship with the land and shares how, for the Secwépemc, healing people and healing the natural world are synonymous.E.DVD.
Subjects: Biographical films.; Documentary films.; Historical films.; Environmental films.; Personal narratives.; Webstad, Phyllis; Pacific salmon; Pacific salmon; Overfishing; Migratory fishes; Nature; Human-animal relationships; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous peoples; Secwepemc; Secwepemc; Residential schools;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Noopiming : the cure for white ladies / by Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake,1971-author.;
"Noopiming is Anishinaabemowin for "in the bush," and the title is a response to English Canadian settler and author Susanna Moodie's 1852 memoir Roughing It in the Bush. Set in the same place as Moodie's colonial memoir, this genre-fluid novel is offered as a cure for Moodie's racist treatment of Mississauga Nishnaabeg in her writing. The giant Sabe meditates on the gifts and challenges of their recent sobriety. Migrating geese make a case for coordinated formation as a way to get out of "one's own cycling head." Racoons turn Bougie Kwe's Zen-garden pond into their personal urban spa. This is a world alive with people, animals, ancestors, and spirits who are all busy with the daily labours of healing -- healing not only themselves, but their individual pieces of the network, of the web that connects them all together. These stories gather up tiny pieces, one at a time, as they slowly circle through the perspectives of different characters, in a breathtaking act of world-building that rewards patience and deep listening. This is the real world, the one where meaning accumulates through close observation and relationship. Enter and be changed."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Listening; Patience; Healing; Nature;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How beautiful we were [sound recording] : a novel / by Mbue, Imbolo,author.; Onayemi, Prentice,narrator.; Edwards, Janina,narrator.; Graham, Dion,narrator.; Jackson, JD,narrator.; Johnson, Allyson,narrator.; Pitts, Lisa Renee,narrator.; Random House Audio Publishing,publisher.;
Read by Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, JD Jackson, Allyson Johnson, and Lisa Renee Pitts."'We should have known the end was near.' So begins Imbolo Mbue's exquisite and devastating novel How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells the story of a people living in fear amidst environmental degradation wrought by a large and powerful American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of clean up and financial reparations to the villagers are made--and ignored. The country's government, led by a corrupt, brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interest. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight the American corporation. Doing so will come at a steep price. Told through multiple perspectives and centered around a fierce young girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, Joy of the Oppressed is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghosts of colonialism, comes up against one village's quest for justice--and a young woman's willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people's freedom"--
Subjects: Ecofiction.; Political fiction.; Audiobooks.; Corporations; Environmental degradation; Oil spills; Villages;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Devil makes three / by Fountain, Ben,author.;
"Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been toppled in a violent coup d'état, bringing to power a brutal military dictatorship. With turmoil in the streets and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country's most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in chaos--and others are just looking to make it through another day. American expat Matt Amaker, forced out of his beachfront scuba shop by a drug-smuggling operation, turns to hunting colonial Spanish treasure off a remote section of Haiti's southern coast. Misha Variel, a Haitian-American scholar, returns to Haiti to care for her aging parents, and soon stumbles onto an arms-trafficking ring masquerading as a U.S.-government humanitarian aid office. Rookie CIA case officer Audrey O'Donnell finds herself managing a grabbag of intelligence assets in an assignment more difficult and more dubious than she could have imagined. All are embroiled in a game of deceit that culminates in a vicious, zero-sum scramble for survival. Devil Makes Three's depiction of blood politics, the machinations of power, and, most of all, a country in the midst of upheaval is urgently and insistently resonant."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Political fiction.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Americans; Crime; Intelligence officers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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In my own moccasins : a memoir of resilience / by Knott, Helen,1987-author.; Robinson, Eden,writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references."Helen Knott, a highly accomplished Indigenous woman, seems to have it all. But in her memoir, she offers a different perspective. In My Own Moccasins is an unflinching account of addiction, intergenerational trauma, and the wounds brought on by sexual violence. It is also the story of sisterhood, the power of ceremony, the love of family, and the possibility of redemption. With gripping moments of withdrawal, times of spiritual awareness, and historical insights going back to the signing of Treaty 8 by her great-great grandfather, Chief Bigfoot, her journey exposes the legacy of colonialism, while reclaiming her spirit. Helen Knott is a Dane Zaa, Nehiyaw, and mixed Euro-descent woman living in Fort St. John, British Columbia. In 2016 Helen was one of sixteen global change makers featured by the Nobel Women's Initiative for being committed to end gender-based violence. Helen was selected as a 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Author. This is her first book. Eden Robinson is the award-winning author of Monkey Beach, Son of a Trickster, and other novels. She is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Knott, Helen, 1987-; Recovering addicts; Victims of crimes; Native peoples; Indigenous women ; Indigenous women ;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Canada's place names and how to change them / by Beck, Lauren,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The first book to demonstrate how inadequately place names and visual emblems represent the presence of women, people of colour, and people living with disabilities, Canada's Place Names and How to Change Them provides an illuminating overview of where these names came from and what they reflect. This book disentangles the distinct cultural, religious, and historical naming practices and visual emblems in Canada's First Nations, provinces, territories, municipalities, and federal lands. Starting with a discussion of Indigenous place knowledge and naming practices from several Indigenous and Inuit groups spanning the country, it foregrounds the breadth of possible ways to name places. Lauren Beck then illustrates the naming practices introduced by Europeans and how they misunderstood, mis-rendered, and appropriated Indigenous place names, while scrutinizing the histories of Columbian names, missionary names, and the secular and commemorative names of the last two centuries. She studies key symbols and emblems such as maps, flags, and coats of arms as visual equivalents of place names to show whose identities powerfully inform Canada's place nomenclature. This book also documents the policies and authorities that have traditionally governed the creation and modification of names and examines case studies of institutions and communities who have changed their names to demonstrate pathways to change."--
Subjects: Emblems; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical; Names, Geographical;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Di-bayn-di-zi-win : to own ourselves : embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe ways / by Fontaine, Jerry,1955-author.; McCaskill, Don N.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An indigenized, de-colonized world view for Indigenous leaders and academics seeking a path to reconciliation. Indigenization within the academy and the idea of truth and reconciliation within Canada have been seen as the remedy to correct the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canadian society. While honourable, these actions are difficult to achieve given the Western nature of institutions in Canada and the collective memory of its citizens, and the burden of proof has always been the responsibility of Anishinabeg. Authors makwa ogimaa (Jerry Fontaine) and ka-pi-ta-aht (Don McCaskill) tell their di-bah-ji-mo-wi-nan (personal stories) to understand the cultural, political, social, and academic events in the past fifty years of Ojibway-Anishinabe resistance in Canada. They suggest that Ojibway-Anishinabe i-zhi-gay-win zhigo kayn-dah-so-win (Anishinabe ways of doing and knowing) can provide an alternative way of living sustainably in the world. This distinctive world view as well as values, language, and ceremonial practices can provide an alternative to Western political and academic institutions and peel away the layers of colonialism, violence, and injustice, speaking truth and leading to true reconciliation."
Subjects: Decolonization; Reconciliation; First Nations; First Nations; First Nations;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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It was dark there all the time : Sophia Burthen and the legacy of slavery in Canada / by Hunter, Andrew,1963-author.;
Includes bibliographical references."'My parents were slaves in New York State. My master's sons-in-law ... came into the garden where my sister and I were playing among the currant bushes, tied their handkerchiefs over our mouths, carried us to a vessel, put us in the hold, and sailed up the river. I know not how far nor how long--it was dark there all the time.' These words, recorded by Benjamin Drew in 1855, provide Sophia Burthen's account of her arrival as an enslaved person into what is now Canada sometime in the late 18th century. In It Was Dark There All the Time, writer and curator Andrew Hunter builds on the testimony of Drew's interview to piece together Burthen's life, while reckoning with the legacy of whiteness and colonialism in the recording of her story. In so doing, Hunter demonstrates the role that the slave trade played in pre-Confederation Canada and its continuing impact on contemporary Canadian society. Evocatively written with sharp, incisive observations and illustrated with archival images and contemporary works of art, It Was Dark There All the Time offers a necessary correction to the prevailing perception of Canada as a place unsullied by slavery and its legacy"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Burthen, Sophia.; Freedmen; Slave trade; Slavery; Slaves; Slaves; Slaves; Women slaves; Imperialism; Postcolonialism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Code noir : by Lubrin, Canisia,1984-author.;
"Eagerly awaited debut fiction from one of Canada's most exciting and admired young writers. A daring and inventive reimagining of the infamous set of laws, the "Code Noir," that once governed Black lives. Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art: a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple and ingenious: it is modeled on the infamous real-life "Code Noir," a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. In other words, the Code that contained and restricted the activities of Black people in the Caribbean. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine short, linked fictions that present vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments of Black life as it really existed and still exists, winding in and around, over and under the official decrees, refusing to be contained or "ruled." Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from fantasy to historical fiction, this loosely linked stream of 59 irrepressible stories comments on, underscores, undermines, mocks, breaks and redefines the Code's intent. An original, timely, culturally daring, virtuoso performance by a rising literary star."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Short stories.; African Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The lover : a novel / by Sacks, Rebecca,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.The story of Allison and Eyal unfolds primarily in Tel Aviv where Allie, a thoughtful and intelligent academic searching for a sense of where she belongs in the world, falls deeply and unexpectedly in love with a young Israeli doing his military service. Their love story is sensual, filled with pleasure, longing, fear, moments of deep connection, failures of communication, and ultimately, a quiet and devastating betrayal. Their romance has a rhythm private and unique to them: when he is away on military missions, they write love letters; when he returns home for weekends, they are entwined and inseparable. Allie is embraced by Eyal's family, and their acceptance is very important to her. But when Eyal returns home from an invasion of Gaza, to which he has a surprising emotional response, Allie has changed so radically that her betrayal of her lover feels both shocking and tragic. The Lover is a provocative, immersive, gorgeously written love story reminiscent of Marguerite Duras' classic novel. Both books portray a seductive love affair in a colonial setting, atmospheric and rich with foreign detail, that raises unsettling questions about inequality, conflict, intensity, war, and danger. At once beautiful and disturbing, propulsive and poignant, The Lover will entrance readers and hold them spellbound.
Subjects: Political fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Love-letters; Man-woman relationships; Soldiers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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