The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential

This story of a child is heartbreaking and important. It brings into dramatic focus why we need reconciliation. - James Daschuk, author of Clearing the Plains

This memoir offers a courageous and intimate chronicle of life in a residential school.

Now a retired fisherman and trapper, the author was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of aggressive assimilation.

As Augie Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse.

But, even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty's sense of humour and warm voice shine through.