A young Cree woman is tormented by vivid dreams from before her sister's untimely death and wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands before returning to her rural hometown in Alberta seeking answers.

"Abandoned as a toddler, Jesse Thistle and his two brothers were placed in foster care. Eventually placed with their paternal grandparents, the children often clashed with their tough-love attitude. Soon, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, resulting in more than a decade living on and off the streets. Facing struggles many of us cannot even imagine, Jesse knew he would die unless he turned his...

"Ghosts aren't meant to stick around forever . . . Ghosts are everywhere in Shelly's life. Recently passed people, pets, and a boy who lives in the local graveyard and lends her Smiths tapes are all part of spirit world she and her grandmother are privy to. In the tradition of their Cree ancestors, Shelly and her grandmother help these lost souls transition to the next world by catching them in their hair. But when Shelly's mom dies, her relationship...

"Kazim Ali's earliest memories are of Jenpeg, a temporary town in the forests of northern Manitoba where his immigrant father worked on the construction of a hydroelectric dam. As a child, Ali had no idea that former town was located on the unceded lands of the Indigenous Pimicikamak, the "people of rivers and lakes." Northern Light recounts Ali's memories of his childhood and his return to Pimicikamak as an adult. During his visit, he searches for...

Tells the story of Larry Loyie, a Cree Indian in Canada who was sent to a government school and later became a writer.

The son of a Cree father and a non-Indigenous mother, Robertson was raised with virtually no knowledge or understanding of his family's Indigenous roots. His father, Don, spent his early childhood on a trapline in the bush northeast of Norway House, Manitoba, where his first teacher was the land. When his family was moved permanently to a nearby reserve, Don was not permitted to speak Cree at school unless in secret with his friends and lost the...