Shayla Stonechild brings an Ojibwa-Cree elder's message of hope and healing to Canada Reads
CBC Books | Posted: January 23, 2025 2:32 PM | Last Updated: 8 hours ago
The podcaster and wellness advocate will champion A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby
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 was 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 an advocate 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, which will tell her life story and tie together Cree concepts and yogic philosophy.
WATCH | Meet Shayla & Joel on The Amazing Race Canada:
An elder's story
A champion of Indigenous storytelling, it's no surprise that Stonechild was excited to bring elder Chacaby's story to Canada Reads 2025.
"Not a lot of elders have had the chance to write a book and to share their experiences in such detail, especially someone that's two-spirit," said Stonechild in an interview with CBC Books. "I don't think that's a perspective that we've ever really heard before."
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Ma-Nee Chacaby, an Ojibwa-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.
"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."
Chacaby is a two-spirit Ojibwa-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 and close friend, Mary Louisa Plummer, is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children's rights. She collaborated with Chacaby, who only learned English later in life and is visually impaired, to tell Chacaby's story in the most authentic possible way, drawing on academic research about Indigenous storytelling and years of friendship and mutual trust.
"We often talk about reconciliation, but we actually don't see it happening," said Stonechild. "So the fact that Mary is not Indigenous and she just wanted to support Ma-Nee and knew the power that lies in her story and gave her a platform, I was like, 'Oh wow, I've actually never seen this happen before.'"
A message of hope and healing
When deciding which book to champion, Stonechild knew she wanted to pick a book rooted in reality, as someone who has always preferred memoirs and documentaries to fiction.
After reading A Two-Spirit Journey, she knew that Chacaby's story needed to be shared with a wider audience.
"It makes you feel and makes you question your beliefs and it makes you open your heart and your mind a little bit more to maybe a perspective that's different than your own."
I think more people in this world need to be like her. - Shayla Stonechild on Ma-Nee Chacaby
A Two-Spirit Journey's powerful message of optimism despite a life full of challenges really resonated with Stonechild.
"Chacaby had every chance to become bitter and resentful to the world around her and for her to continuously just see how can she support others ... I think more people in this world need to be like her," she said.
The power of vulnerability
Stonechild said that A Two-Spirit Journey is unifying in its portrait of grief, which is something that everyone, no matter their background, can relate to. But for Chacaby, it's about letting the grief transmute so that it doesn't feel as heavy.
"At the end of each day, Ma-Nee's goal is to just let that all go so that she can feel lighter and so that when she goes to the next realm, she doesn't have to carry that weight anymore. We can all resonate with needing to release and transmute that grief that we all collectively feel right now. And the only way that we can do that is coming together and listening to stories like this."
We can all resonate with needing to release and transmute that grief that we all collectively feel right now. - Shayla Stonechild
In A Two-Spirit Journey, Chacaby doesn't hold back when talking about all her experiences, however painful they are, which to Stonechild, is a testimony to Indigenous peoples' strength, resilience, perseverance and love.
"There's a lot of power in people's vulnerability. And that's something that I'm inspired by Ma-Nee is her ability to be so raw, real and honest, in a world that isn't built on that."
LISTEN | Shayla Stonechild on Up North