North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner

Marie Wilson’s newly-published “North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner” is a tour de force.
Richly woven, it is part memoir, part documentary. It’s also the kind of book you’ll want to read more than once – not only because it reveals an important part of Canadian history, but because the overall story is so compellingly told.
The book starts with a story about Wilson’s mother-in-law watching Canadian TV at home in the Northwest Territories.

Indigenous peoples no longer invisible

Most Canadians are not aware that the overwhelming majority of people who identify as Indigenous in this country are more than likely their neighbours.

The most recent census figures revealed that over one million of the 1.8 million people in Canada who identify as First Nations, Inuit, and Metis are now living in urban centres. Only about one third of registered Indians still live on the reserve lands of 634 First Nations.

Once out of sight and out of mind, the result of assimilationist government policies for most of Canada’s first century, Indigenous peoples are becoming much more visible.