Podcaster and wellness advocate Shayla Stonechild champions A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby
Canada Reads will air March 17-20 on CBC TV, CBC Radio and CBC Books
Podcaster and wellness advocate Shayla Stonechild is championing the memoir A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby, with Mary Louisa Plummer, on Canada Reads 2025!
Stonechild is a Red River Métis and Nehiyaw iskwew (Plains Cree woman) from Muscowpetung First Nations. The founder of the Matriarch Moment, she is a strong voice for Indigenous empowerment.
The great Canadian book debate will take place on March 17-20. This year, we are looking for one book to change the narrative.
The debates will be hosted by Ali Hassan and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Listen, YouTube and CBC Books. Canada Reads airs at 10 a.m. ET (11 a.m. AT, 1:30 p.m. NT) on CBC Radio One and 1 p.m. ET (2 p.m. AT, 2:30 p.m. NT) on CBC TV. You can tune in live or catch a replay on the platform of your choice.
Amplifying Indigenous voices
Stonechild founded the Matriarch Movement, an online platform, podcast and nonprofit that amplifies Indigenous voices and provides wellness opportunities for Indigenous women and two-spirit individuals.
She is also a global yoga ambassador for Lululemon and is the first Indigenous person featured on Yoga Journal's cover. Stonechild has hosted APTN's Red Earth Uncovered, appeared on Season 9 of The Amazing Race Canada and co-hosted ET Canada's Artists & Icons: Indigenous Entertainers in Canada for which she won two Canadian Screen Awards.
She has collaborated with over 50 brands, including Adobe and Peloton, and is a strong voice fighting for language revitalization and Indigenous rights. She won the 2022 Indspire Award for First Nations Youth and the 2024 Dreamcatcher Charitable Foundation's Health and Wellness Award for her continued advocacy. To further her reach, she's currently writing her first book.
An elder's story
A champion of Indigenous storytelling, it's no surprise that Stonechild was excited to bring an elder's story to Canada Reads 2025.
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Objibwe-Cree lesbian who grew up in a remote northern Ontario community, tells the story of how she overcame experiences with abuse and alcohol addiction to become a counsellor and lead Thunder Bay's first gay pride parade.
Chacaby is a two-spirit Ojibwe-Cree writer, artist, storyteller and activist. She lives in Thunder Bay, Ont., and was raised by her grandmother near Lake Nipigon, Ont. Chacaby won the Ontario Historical Society's Alison Prentice Award and the Oral History Association's Book Award for A Two-Spirit Journey. In 2021, Chacaby won the Community Hero Award from the mayor of Thunder Bay.
Her co-writer, Mary Louisa Plummer, is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children's rights.
"I want to leave something for my kids. My great-granddaughter and my great-grandsons," said Chacaby in an interview on The Next Chapter. "I want them to know what I was about, what I was made of, what I stood for. Because there is so much violence in the communities up north and around us."
We are storytellers. That is our gift.- Ma-Nee Chacaby
"I wish more Native women and older women, even the ones that are older than me, could write their story about their life to share it with other people so their kids can grow to understand them and learn from them.
"We are storytellers. That is our gift. And if they share their real stuff, what really happened in the past, the kids will learn from it."
