Wînipêk
Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre
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Narrated by:
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Niigaan Sinclair
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Written by:
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Niigaan Sinclair
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction • Named a Best Book of 2024 by Audible, Spotify, and Winnipeg Free Press • One of CBC's Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2024
From ground zero of this country's most important project: reconciliation.
Niigaan Sinclair has been called provocative, revolutionary, and one of this country's most influential thinkers on the issues impacting Indigenous cultures, communities, and reconciliation in Canada. In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls "ground zero" of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity. It is here, in the place where Canada began—where the land, water, people, and animals meet— that a path "from the centre" is happening for all to see.
At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance.
Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.
Sinclair uses the story of Winnipeg to illuminate the reality of Indigenous life all over what is called Canada. This is a book that demands change and celebrates those fighting for it, that reminds us of what must be reconciled and holds accountable those who must do the work. It's a book that reminds us of the power that comes from loving a place, even as that place is violently taken away from you, and the magic of fighting your way back to it.
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Who We Are
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Judge, senator, and activist. Father, grandfather, and friend. This is Murray Sinclair’s story—and the story of a nation—in his own words, an oral history that forgoes the trappings of the traditionally written memoir to center Indigenous ways of knowledge and storytelling. As Canada moves forward into the future of Reconciliation, one of its greatest leaders guides us to ask the most important and difficult question we can ask of ourselves: Who are we?
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Becoming Kin
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An excellent read!
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In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.
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Essential reading for Canadians
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Who We Are
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Canada's Indigenous Constitution reflects on the nature and sources of law in Canada, beginning with the conviction that the Canadian legal system has helped to engender the high level of wealth and security enjoyed by people across the country. However, longstanding disputes about the origins, legitimacy, and applicability of certain aspects of the legal system have led John Borrows to argue that Canada's constitution is incomplete without a broader acceptance of Indigenous legal traditions.
Written by: John Borrows
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Becoming Kin
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The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home." Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps listeners see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer.
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A Wise Author, Wisdom Filled Book
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The Serviceberry
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An excellent read!
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Written by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Reclaiming Two-Spirits decolonizes the history of gender and sexuality in Native North America. It honors the generations of Indigenous people who had the foresight to take essential aspects of their cultural life and spiritual beliefs underground in order to save them.
Written by: Gregory Smithers, and others
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- Unabridged
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Thank you for this tribute to #MMIW
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Fantastic historical account that all Canadians should be acquainted with.
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The Medicine you have been searching for lives within you. Follow the path of the 13 Ojibwe Moons with Animal Spirits and Ancestors as your guides as you unlock your connection to your own unique, inherent healing power. Through storytelling, ceremonies, and Shamanic journeys, learn to apply ancient wisdom to your life in ways that are respectful and conscious of the stolen lands, lives, and traditions of Indigenous peoples.
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Setting the record straight
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The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings
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- Unabridged
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Discover indigenous wisdom for a life well lived in "The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings." Based on ancient teachings from the Anishinaabe / Ojibwe people, this spiritual translation of the sacred laws guides us toward Mino-bimaadiziwin, "the good life" – a life of harmony, free from contradiction or conflict.
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Absolutely loved this audible!
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Written by: James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw
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Indigenous Writes
- A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada
- Written by: Chelsea Vowel
- Narrated by: Brianne Tucker
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- Unabridged
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Are you familiar with the terms listed above? In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, opens an important dialogue about these (and more) concepts and the wider social beliefs associated with the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. In 31 essays, Chelsea explores the Indigenous experience from the time of contact to the present, through five categories - Terminology of Relationships; Culture and Identity; Myth-Busting; State Violence; and Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties.
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MUCH Better as a hard copy!
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Written by: Chelsea Vowel
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A Two-Spirit Journey
- The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder (Critical Studies in Native History, Book 18)
- Written by: Ma-Nee Chacaby, Mary Louisa Plummer
- Narrated by: Marsha Knight
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby’s extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.
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Amazing audio!
- By Desiree McCarthy on 2023-04-13
Written by: Ma-Nee Chacaby, and others
What the critics say
"A deep dive into the city of Winnipeg through the lives and worlds of its original inhabitants, Wînipêk is a necessary and important book: profound, difficult and expansive. Niigaan Sinclair accomplishes the near impossible by creating a compelling and nuanced whole out of a series of newspaper columns. Wînipêk unearths histories of colonial violence, grounded in the wisdom and experiences of those who survived and survive it."
—Jordan Abel, Roby Maynard, and Mary Soderstrom, the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction peer assessment committee
“Weaving together a quilt of his work in journalism, Wînipêk is at once eloquent, powerful, thematically rich, and a beacon on this path to reconciliation.”
—David A. Robertson, author of The Theory of Crows
“If you want to understand how Canada came to be and how a reconciled future might be charted, you’ve got to understand Winnipeg. To understand Winnipeg, you have to read Niigaan Sinclair.”
—Shawn Micallef, author of Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness and Stroll
What listeners say about Wînipêk
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 2025-01-25
“Femininity is chaos”. Hmm
This book in a structural way is a little journalistic/editorial and with the first person of the author Niigaan Sinclair. If you like Angela Sterritt’s book “Unbroken” as companion pieces. I think there’s a similar structure from semi-memoir or autobiographical perspective but also based on the issues that are going on all around us while we try to move forward. There are specific examples of Indigenous people’s interactions with the police, the public, the justice system and the education system. It’s a great love letter to Wînipêk and a treasure to those who pick up the book because of the historical context and brief look back into history.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2024-08-10
important learning for all Canadians
Niigaan Sinclair presented thought provoking information that sparked important conversation while we listened together. His insights, presented in a frank but non judgemental way, invited us to be reflective and motivated us to become better allies. we will listen, learn, commit and act.
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- Joan Jack
- 2024-06-21
Truth - uncomfortable truth
An absolutely must listen. as an indigenous person myself, my experience was affirmed and I also learned so much!
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