Valley of the Birdtail

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Winner – 2023 Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize

Winner – 2023 John W. Dafoe Book Prize

Winner – 2023 High Plains Book Award for Indigenous Writer

Winner – 2022 Manitoba Historical Society Margaret McWilliams Book Award for Local History

Winner – 2023 Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction and Concordia University First Book Prize

Finalist – 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize

Finalist – Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing

Finalist – 2023 Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading Evergreen Award

Finalist and Honourable Mention – Canadian Law and Society Association Book Prize

Longlisted – 2023-2024 First Nations Communities Read

A heart-rending true story about racism and reconciliation

Divided by a beautiful valley and 150 years of racism, the town of Rossburn and the Waywayseecappo Indian reserve have been neighbours nearly as long as Canada has been a country. Their story reflects much of what has gone wrong with relations between Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous Canadians. It also offers, in the end, an uncommon measure of hope.

Valley of the Birdtail chronicles how two communities became separate and unequal—and what this means for the rest of us. In Rossburn, which was once settled by Ukrainian immigrants fleeing poverty and persecution, family income is near the national average and more than a third of adults have graduated from university. In Waywayseecappo, the average family lives below the national poverty line and less than a third of adults have graduated from high school, with many haunted by their time in residential schools.

This book follows multiple generations of two families, one white and one Indigenous, weaving their lives into the larger story of Canada. It is a story of villains and heroes, irony and idealism, racism and reconciliation. Valley of the Birdtail has the ambition to change the way we think about our past and light a path to a better future.