Description
From Lishamie is the engaging memoir of Albert Canadien, a Dene man who spent several years in Fort Providence's Sacred Heart residential school. Originally from Lishamie, the small village located approximately nine miles down river from Fort Providence; Canadien began school at the age of seven speaking only his Slavey language. He attended the school yearly until he was 13, at which point he went to residential schools in Fort Resolution and Fort Smith before finishing at Akaitcho Hall in Yellowknife. Albert Canadien began his writing project as a means to pass on the details of his residential school experience to his children. While he suffered abuse at the Catholic school he does not recount all of these painful events in his story. The memoir is direct and the message is moving and powerful. Albert J. Canadien was born on the land near Fort Providence, Northwest Territories, when most of the Dene people still lived in permanent traditional villages. Albert studied management at the University of Lethbridge and became a certified member of the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association of Canada. During the Berger Inquiry, he served as Chief of the Deh Gah Got'ie First Nation in Fort Providence.