I've always been of the opinion that reading as a hobby shouldn't just be about fun fiction and exciting fantasy worlds, but also a way to keep educating myself. I try to pepper non-fiction books in on a pretty regular basis. Sometimes they're also fun and exciting - mountaineering expeditions, exploration, histories of the occult - and sometimes they're absolutely, brutally heartbreaking - though crucially important reads, that I'm glad I picked up. There's no doubt about which category this book falls into. This book is heartbreaking and infuriating in equal measure - a tale as old as colonialism, and still one that needs to be heard.
In Northern Ontario, Canada, on the shores of Gichigami (Lake Superior) and below the sleeping giant Nanabijou, lies Thunder Bay. A relatively small city of around 110,000 people, Thunder Bay is also the home of Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) High School, a school for Indigenous students run by the Northern Nishnawbe Education Council. The students of DFC travel hundreds of miles from their own small communities to Thunder Bay to complete their education, and have to live in boarding houses, far from their families and their homes, facing racism and loneliness. Between 2000 and 2011, seven students - six of them from DFC, died in Thunder Bay. Seven Fallen Feathers is an investigation into their deaths and the human rights failures of the Canadian Government that lead to such tragedies.
You can't consider the current issues that the Indigenous youth of Canada face without first addressing the generational trauma caused by the residential school system, and Talaga does just that. The stories and lives of each child, are framed within the wider context of the systemic neglect, abuse and cultural genocide of the residential schools, that will impart effects on the Native Canadian population for generations to come. Talaga attempts to piece together the final nights of all seven students as much as possible, while also discussing mistreatment of Indigenous communities, their mistrust of the government, and the failure to act on multiple official recommendations aimed at improving quality of life, and the disinterest of the justice system. However, the seven children, and their families' fight for justice are always at the centre of the narrative, along with the argument that there has to be a better way to educate Indigenous children in their own communities, without uprooting them to somewhere as terrifyingly different and distant as Thunder Bay.
The failure of the Canadian Government to protect and educate Indigenous children to the same standard as white children is nothing short of catastrophic. Many Indigenous communities lack basic infrastructure like clean water, flushing toilets, heating or affordable, readily available food. At home, the children of the First Nations of Ontario face an epidemic of suicides. If they want to finish High School, the chronic underfunding and straight up neglect of Indigenous education means they have to tear up their roots and move hundreds of miles away for education. DFC staff are on call 24/7, running safe spaces and patrols to support and protect the students, but even with the best intentions in the world, they're up against massive underfunding, and 100 years of generational trauma induced by the abuse and oppression of the residential school system, and the childhood addictions developed to deal with it. Even after death, these children have been the victims of systemic racism, failed yet again by the establishment. Investigations into their disappearances were delayed - despite the fact that every minute can count in missing person cases. Their deaths were rules as alcohol fuelled accidents with barely even a cursory investigation. Again and again recommendations for change are made, but nothing ever seems to happen. This might be the story of seven dead students but it's representative of the attitude with which Indigenous people are treated in colonised nations the world over.
Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese, Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau and Jordan Wabasse. We all owe it to every single one of the seven fallen feathers to read this book. To educate ourselves on issues that might not be trending in the news right now, but are not going away any time soon, not without a concerted and continuous effort for change.
If you would like to, donations to Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School can be made here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/northern-nishnawbe-education-council/
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