Seven Fallen Feathers

by Tanya Talaga

[clementine]

This is one of the most devastating books I've ever read. It's also one that I think every Canadian should read, if not everyone who benefits from the legacy of colonialism. Though the focus of the book is on the deaths of seven northern Indigenous students attending high school in Thunder Bay, Ontario, it contextualizes their lives and deaths through an exploration of the residential school system and the colonialism that produced it. It takes to task the absolute complacency of the provincial and federal governments and Canadians in general. Despite an eight-month inquest into the deaths, these students' families have little to no closure due to racist, indifferent police work that has left all seven deaths of indeterminate cause. It seems wildly unlikely that five different teenagers accidentally drowned in the river, but we will never really know what happened thanks to deliberately sloppy investigations that absolutely failed to take into account the humanity of the victims and their families. The callousness of the Thunder Bay police is disturbing to the highest degree. While I found the writing was at times a bit clunky or corny, this book is powerful and searing, a serious cry for change. "Shameful" doesn't even begin to cover how terribly Indigenous communities have been let down. Neocolonialism is alive and well in the shocking inequities that the government has done little to mitigate despite plenty of promises.