Seven Fallen Feathers chronicles the events and context that occurred from 2000-2011 in Thunder Bay, Ontario; that is the deaths of seven indigenous high school students. It is impossible to read this book without thinking about Canada’s long history of violence against indigenous peoples and cultures. It is even more disheartening to fully realize and acknowledge that this violence has not stopped.
I remember learning about residential schools as if they were some far-off tragedy that would never occur in a modernized and diversified Canada, and yet this book is a blatant reminder that history always has a way of creeping nefariously into the present. Old ideologies, racist mindsets, and problematic stereotyping get passed down through generations and these regressive psychological pits are revealed magnificently in Talaga’s well-researched and beautifully constructed narrative.
I won’t lie this was a hard book to read. Don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly well written and the pacing is engaging, but this one hits you in the gut. I won’t spoil anything because you really should read it, but the way in which the Thunder Bay police conducted themselves and treated the families of these dead children is really abhorrent. It made me truly ashamed of Canada, that there could be such unregulated and systematic violations of human rights in a “developed” nation is baffling – though perhaps this is naive of me.
Of course, the topic of Seven Fallen Feathers is ultimately very sad but more than anything this is really just an excellent piece of investigative non-fiction. I would hate for people not to pick up this book because they believe it will be too depressing. While I don’t believe in sheltering oneself from uncomfortable truths – I get it – we all have differing capacities to handle difficult content. However, this book is really well balanced. The deaths are heart-wrenching but the call to action is inspiring and Talaga allows the reader to not only understand the deaths, but also the lives of these students and their families.
Every Canadian needs to read this book. I end up saying that about a lot of indigenous fiction and non-fiction – but it’s true. It is essential that every Canadian read this book so that they may better understand the indigenous experience in a colonized land, and how our past, however infrequently discussed, has come to affect our present and how it is up to us to decide that enough is enough, so that our future may be better.
VAN BIBLIO 