In this poetic, poignant memoir, Dene artist and social activist
Antoine Mountain paints an unforgettable picture of his journey from
residential school to art school--and his path to healing.
In 1949, Antoine Mountain was born on the land near Radelie Koe, Fort
Good Hope, Northwest Territories. At the tender age of seven, he was
stolen away from his home and sent to a residential school--run by the
Roman Catholic Church in collusion with the Government of Canada--three
hundred kilometres away. Over the next twelve years, the three
residential schools Mountain was forced to attend systematically worked
to erase his language and culture, the very roots of his identity.
While reconnecting to that which had been taken from him, he had a
disturbing and painful revelation of the bitter depths of colonialism
and its legacy of cultural genocide. Canada has its own holocaust,
Mountain argues.
As a celebrated artist and social activist today, Mountain shares this
moving, personal story of healing and the reclamation of his Dene
identity.