The Knowing
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
From Tanya Talaga, the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of Seven Fallen Feathers, comes a riveting exploration of her family's story and a retelling of the history of the country we now call Canada For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, "Indian hospitals" and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are. This is one of Canada's greatest open secrets, an unhealed wound that until recently lay hidden by shame and abandonment. The Knowing is the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country as only she can--through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide. Deeply personal and meticulously researched, The Knowing is a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous People that continues to reverberate in these communities today.
Reviews with the most likes.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND for anyone who identifies as Canadian and thinks that history has value... So ideally, all Canadians. It's also just such a fascinating examination of how families with indigenous ancestors have to struggle for years against generations of government disregard and malevolence just to find out about their families' past.
Basically, this book is about the author, a prominent writer and former national journalist, trying to trace her indigenous roots to find out where her family came from and where her ancestors are now. She travels from James Bay to a Toronto Highway overpass to find them. Along the way, she learns the extent to which the Hudson's Bay Company (now known as HBC or The Bay) relied on slavery and thugs to keep a stranglehold on the Canadian North, the extent of the lies told to make treaties in Northern Ontario, the systematic incarcerations of indigenous children and women, and the extent to which this land is covered in unmarked graves of indigenous people that the Canadian government tried to erase from history.
She is also candid about the resistance Canadian media has to telling these stories and the skepticism, stonewalling and backlash she faces when trying to investigate and share them as a reporter, which was quite illuminating, but not so surprising in the 2024 media-scape.
It's a life changing read. It redefines what it means to be a Canadian. It cannot be overstated how important it is to read this story.
