How Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga opened folk musician Tiffany Ayalik's eyes
Tiffany Ayalik is part of the Juno Award-winning band Quantum Tangle. Ayalik is Inuk and her bandmate, Grey Gritt, hails from Sudbury, Ont. Together, their music combines Inuit throat singing with rock and spoken word. Speaking with The Next Chapter, Ayalik says she's been swept by the scope of Tanya Talaga's Seven Fallen Feathers and its investigation into the deaths of Indigenous students from Northern Ontario. The book won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize for nonfiction.
A story of loss
"There are seven high school children who have died in Thunder Bay, Ont. between 2000 and 2011. Each of the feathers in Seven Fallen Feathers represents a child who has died while going to school trying to get an education and do what every kid in Canada should be doing safely. If you're from a community where the highest level of education goes to Grade 5 or 8, you're forced by a system to be removed from your community and taken away from your parents to go to high school in places where teenagers are looking after other teenagers. There's a lot of time spent alone and not a lot of connection to your culture."
Closed, but not gone
"We like to think, as Canadians, that residential schools were closed in 1996 and we're so much further ahead, that we've progressed in our education and how we treat Indigenous people. We think residential schools are black and white photos and pictures of starving kids and nuns and priests. But the reality for a lot of people, especially in remote northern communities, is that this is still happening. It's nice to know that there's an amazing writer like Tanya, who is really good at finding these facts and laying things out in a way that's easy to read."
An honest portrayal
"Coming from a remote community in Yellowknife... I see there are many parallels with smaller places in Northern Ontario. It's a tale of two cities within one city — depending on how you look, you're going to experience Thunder Bay in a different way. I'm enjoying Seven Fallen Feathers a lot. It's heartbreaking, but also something we need to look at and be honest about. It's not going to get better if we're awkward and uncomfortable, and we won't know what to get over until we know how bad the problem is."
Tiffany Ayalik's comments have been edited and condensed.