National Network for Equitable Library Service

The goal of community-based research is to develop a deeper understanding of communities and to discover new opportunities for improving quality of life. The nine case studies in this diverse collection provide real life examples of community-based research in Aboriginal, urban, and rural communities. Journeys in Community-Based Research shows how taking into account socio-economic, geographic, and cultural contexts can lead to public policy that better serves the most vulnerable in our society.

Tanisi! With the help of this book, you can learn to speak Cree! Designed as an introduction for Cree language learners, maci-nehiyawewin: Beginning Cree acts as a self-study aid--a much-needed resource in today's world where few can speak Cree fluently. Basic grammar units and everyday vocabulary items guide the student through the building blocks of the language, and expansion drills and exercises reinforce lessons and prepare the student for further study. With over 100 illustrations, this text grounds the language in traditional and contemporary contexts.

As the first inland surveyor for the Hudson's Bay Company, Philip Turnor stands tall among the explorers and mapmakers of Canada. Accompanied by Cree guides and his Cree wife, Turnor travelled 15,000 miles by canoe and foot between 1778 and 1792 to produce ten maps, culminating in his magnum opus, a map that was the foundation of all northern geographic knowledge at that time. Barbara Mitchell's biography brings to life the man who taught David Thompson and Peter Fidler how to survey.

"So often, it is through humour that the big lessons in life are learned"--about adult responsibilities, honour, and respect. Cree people love to make jokes and laugh, so the tales in Woods Cree Stories are filled with wit. The book includes nine stories--including Boys Get Lost, Foolishness, and Animals Become Friends--and a Woods Cree-English glossary. All the stories are presented in Cree syllabics, standard Roman Orthography, and English translation.

Like all First Nations languages, Lillooet (Lil'wat) is a repository for an abundantly rich oral literature. In These Are Our Legends, the fifth volume of the First Nations Language Readers series, the reader will discover seven traditional sptakwlh (variously translated into English as "legends," "myths," or "bed-time stories"). The texts are presented in a technical transcription that can be used by linguists, and also in a practical orthography that can be used by Lillooet speakers themselves. An English translation is also given.

This memoir offers a courageous and intimate chronicle of life in a residential school. Now a retired fisherman and trapper, the author was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of "aggressive assimilation." As Augie Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse.

"Fascinating and impressive." Thomas Gunton, Director of Resource and Environmental Planning, Simon Fraser University and former Deputy Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks, Government of British Columbia. The Magnificent Nahanni extols the natural wonders of the South Nahanni Valley--its untamed waters, high, glaciated mountains, great falls, deep canyons, extensive forests, alpine tundra, and diverse wildlife, including caribou, wolf, Dall's sheep, and grizzly bear.

The remarkable story of Lanier Phillips and the shipwreck that changed his life. On February 18, 1942 the US Navy destroyer Truxton was shipwrecked off Newfoundland. 110 men died; of the 46 who survived one was black. The rescuers, never having seen a black man before, tried to scrub his skin clean and white. This is a story about growing up with fear in Klan-dominated Georgia, enlisting in a segregated navy, facing death in the icy North Atlantic, and a rescue which galvanised a man to fight racial discrimination.

When the North Atlantic cod fishery collapsed in the 1990's, it catapulted over 30,000 fishers out of work - the largest layoff in Canadian history. This is the story of two brothers in a remote community who had built their own fishing boat, cutting local trees and constructing the vessel entirely by hand. They christened it The Lifetime Struggle. Their fishing enterprise was in the black, but years later they accepted a government loan to install a larger engine - unfortunately the very year before the fish stock collapsed and the government shut the fishery.

A tale of two Jacks: one Jack the hero of traditional folktales; the other a retired fisherman passing the time in his fishing stage spinning tales of his youth. The documentary weaves together the real and the mythical Jack, and celebrates the role that stories play in accompanying us through life. "And if they don't live happily ever after, then may all of ye."