Seven Fallen Feathers

Racism, death, and hard truths in a northern city

The bestselling true-crime investigation by the author of All Our Relations.

In 1966, twelve-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks of a northern Canadian city after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied.

More than thirty years later, between 2000 and 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Each of them was hundreds of miles away from family, forced to leave home and live in a foreign, unwelcoming city in order to continue their education. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Jordan Wabasse, a gentle boy and star hockey player, disappeared into the freezing night. Kyle Morrisseau's body was pulled from a river, as was Curran Strang's. Robyn Harper died in her boarding-house hallway, and Paul Panacheese inexplicably collapsed on his kitchen floor. Reggie Bushie's death finally prompted an inquest, seven years after the discovery of Jethro Anderson, the first boy whose body was found in the water.

Using a sweeping narrative that focuses on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city, which has come to manifest Canada's long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities. In doing so, she illuminates the plight of Indigenous people all round the world who face similar dispossession, hostility, and neglect.