Tanya Talaga reflects on truth and family history in new book The Knowing and its accompanying documentary
The award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker discussed The Knowing on Bookends with Mattea Roach
When author and journalist Tanya Talaga inherited a brown file folder filled with old documents from her uncle, it sparked an investigation into her family's experience through the Indigenous residential school system and the impacts decades of oppression have on one family.
The folder contained information about Talaga's great-great grandmother, Annie Carpenter, an Ininiw woman originally from the James Bay Coast. From the documents, Talaga's family knew that she ended up in Toronto — but not how she got there and where she was buried.
"I had to find out about Annie," said Talaga on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "I was just enraptured by her. I mean, she's been a mystery for my entire family for over 80 years."
In uncovering Annie's story, Talaga wrote and created a book and four-part documentary called The Knowing, charting the life of Talaga's great-great grandmother Annie and the violence she and her family suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church and Canadian government.
She's been a mystery for my entire family for over 80 years.- Tanya Talaga
Talaga's quest to find her family matriarch is visualized through intimate interviews with Survivors, archival visuals and Ininiw poetic narration.
The book and documentary aim to show Canadian history in its reality, focusing on how decades of government-sanctioned violence have generational effects.
"Every Indigenous family shares part of the same story. We all have been touched by Indian Residential Schools, Indian Day Schools, Indian Hospitals and sanitariums — we've had family, community members or friends who were taken away or forced to attend," Talaga said in an email.
"We have all heard of someone who didn't come home — this is The Knowing. It is Canada's shame. If every Indigenous person looked for our missing family, found out what happened to them, we could change the narrative of the story of Canada. Family by family. Truth by truth."
Uncovering lost truths
As an investigative journalist, Talaga told Roach that finding people and truths is what she does for a living — but when looking for information about her great-great grandmother Annie, she wasn't sure where to start.
"Every time I looked at my Uncle Hank's folder, I would just be filled with sadness because I'm just like, he was sort of spinning in all these different directions and he just didn't know where to look in the age before the Internet and now I've got this and I don't know where to look and I don't know what to do."
With her journalist skills and connections to professional archivists, Library and Archives Canada, community members and other key people with access to government documents, Talaga was able to find what she needed.
But with records destroyed, withheld and incomplete at the hands of the government or the Church, there were so many barriers to finding her great-great grandmother's history. She explained that other families, without her skills and connections, might have even more trouble learning about their own families.
"It just breaks my heart that our people have all of these barriers ahead of them when they're trying to find out information about their own family," she said. "We need, in this country, an easy way for our people to find our records."
We're going to find those people that are crying out to be found. They need to be recognized and heard.- Tanya Talaga
"Part of the reason why I wrote this book ... was to empower other First Nations people to do the same thing, to try and look back. And by looking back in our family trees, we're going to find those people that are crying out to be found. They need to be recognized and heard."
Talaga is a journalist, author and filmmaker of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and a member of the Fort William First Nation. Talaga also wrote the nonfiction work Seven Fallen Feathers, which received the RBC Taylor Prize, the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
In her 2018 CBC Massey Lectures series, titled All Our Relations, Talaga explored the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.
LISTEN | Tanya Talaga on what Canada can learn from the stories of Indigenous peoples:
The docuseries was produced by Makwa Creative in association with CBC. Makwa Creative is a fully Indigenous owned production company dedicated to telling Indigenous stories and platforming Indigenous perspectives to a wider audience.
The Knowing was released as a book on Aug. 27, 2024 and the docuseries premiered on CBC and CBC Gem at 8 p.m. on Sept. 25.
A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour service at 1-866-925-4419.
Mental health counselling and crisis support are also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or by online chat.
