North of Nowhere

I found Marie Wilson’s North of Nowhere profoundly moving and surprisingly optimistic. With humility and wisdom, she takes us behind the scenes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As a non-Indigenous woman long settled in the North, she has a unique viewpoint, and she leavens an account of the traumatic intergenerational impact of residential schools with details from her own personal story. Wilson goes beyond the grief and misery triggered by the Truth aspect of the TRC to suggest the joy and laughter that true Reconciliation can produce in survivors. But reconciliation will be achieved only if we don’t look away. North of Nowhere is a powerful book that shifted my perspective, and, thanks to Wilson’s lucid prose, helps the rest of us glimpse what is needed.

For anyone wanting a front row seat to the Spirit, the vision, and the mechanics of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, North of Nowhere is definitely it. Commissioner Dr. Marie Wilson recounts and celebrates the courage of everyone involved in one of Canada’s most important chapters of coming to terms with residential school Survivors and their families and their communities forever changed with a policy of cultural genocide. I hope everyone reads this and finds their way to support Survivors, their families, and their communities as they continue to reclaim so much of what was stolen. What a profound and riveting read.

Canada needs this book. North of Nowhere brings us face-to-face with our buried past; it will make us stronger for the future. As a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner, Marie Wilson walks with us, guides us, and helps us see, hear, and accept the difficult truth of our country. As a former journalist whose own family has confronted the aftershocks of Indian residential schools, she brings both an insider and outsider eyewitness-soul-searching view of our painful past. With beautiful writing, superb insights, and sensitivity, she leaves readers not guilty or damaged but optimistic for a shared future as we travel a national road to reconciliation.

The long-matured work of a true elder, this magnificent book is a sober masterpiece of sacred activism. It deserves to be read by everyone aghast at the chaos and cruelty of our world. Its level decency of tone, its lucidity, its determined hope in terrible circumstances both transmit and model those qualities we all now need to build a new world out of the smouldering ashes of the old.

Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Marie Wilson has given Canadians a powerful, readable, personal, and uniquely informed review of the historic damage done to Indigenous people in Canada and a compelling reminder of how and why we can change that legacy. I strongly recommend this book.

This is a book for all Canadians. It presents an account of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work that is both painful and inspiring to read. The stories and experiences that Marie Wilson shares are deeply personal, and they call us each to look within ourselves to find the ways we can be part of the important work of reconciliation.

In North of Nowhere, Marie Wilson honours her vow to residential school Survivors to ‘do no harm’ and to bear witness to and honour their experiences. Marie has achieved her purpose to educate readers and inspire reconciliation and, most importantly, hope. ‘I see you. I hear you. I believe you. And I love you’—Marie’s words as a Commissioner to Survivors set the tone for this very important book.