Seven Fallen Feathers

In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied.

More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ont. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site.

Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the cold night. The body of celebrated artist Norval Morrisseau's grandson, Kyle, was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang's.

Robyn Harper died in her boarding-house hallway and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie's death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water.

Tanya Talaga's account of teen lives and deaths in and near Thunder Bay is detailed, balanced and heart-rending.- 2018 RBC Taylor Prize jury

Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada's long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.(From House of Anansi)

Seven Fallen Feathers won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize and was a finalist for the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

TanyaTalaga is an investigative journalist. In 2017, she was named the Atkinson Fellow for public policy. The work produced during this period form the basis of Talaga's 2018 CBC Massey Lectures,All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward.

• 48 books by Indigenous writers to read to understand residential schools
• CBC Books' 2017 winter reading list
• The best Canadian nonfiction of 2017
• The top 10 bestselling Canadian books of 2018
• Seven Fallen Feathers is on the Canada Reads 2018 longlist
• Award-winning Canadian books from the first half of 2018
• Why Tanya Talaga wrote a book about the lives and deaths of sevenIndigenous students in Thunder Bay
• Tanya Talaga's favourite book of 2017 was All We Leave Behind by Carol Off
• Tanya Talaga on writing from a place of heartache
• 35 books to read for National Indigenous History Month

Why Tanya Talaga wrote Seven Fallen Feathers

"I remember being at the command centre during the search for Jordan. It was an overwhelming feeling that this was a deeper story, more than just something for the newspaper. This is something so much more.

It was an overwhelming feeling that this was a deeper story, more than just something for the newspaper.- TanyaTalaga

"I think you have to be emotionally invested and the story of the seven students is pretty close to me for a variety of reasons. I was standing with Stan Beardy at the Kaministiquia River and I remember looking at Mount McKay just looming in front of us. That mountain is the spiritual centre for Fort William First Nation, which is where my own grandmother is from. Itwas like someone smacked mein the gut I was thinking about my mother's upbringing here and also about all the First Nation children who had to travel so far away.

"I was thinking about being a mother myself.I can't imagine having to send them 500 kilometres away to go to school. I find it incredibly difficult to fathom that we don't have school for Indigenous kids in their communities. This isn't right. I knew I had to write this book. Ihad to do it."

Read more in Tanya Talaga's interview with CBC Books.

From the book

Interviews with Tanya Talaga

Other books by Tanya Talaga