Public Notices/Announcements - Sarnia - Marie Wilson, Author of North of Nowhere
Please join us at The Book Keeper on Sunday, May 26 for author, Marie Wilson. Marie will be discussing her new book, North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner.
Marie will also be accompanied by her husband, Stephen Kakfwi, the former premier of the Northwest Territories and author of Stoneface: A Defiant Dene.
DR. MARIE WILSON (CM, ONWT, MSC) spent six years crisscrossing the country as a commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. She has spoken throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on the potential of reconciliation. Born in Ontario, she has lived, studied, and worked as a journalist, teacher, professor, trainer, and executive in Canada, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, and parts of South America. She lives in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Wilson spent her childhood living in Petrolia and Sarnia, before attending university in London, ON.
North of Nowhere is the incomparable first-hand account of the historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada told by one of the commissioners who led it.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to record the previously hidden history of more than a century of forced residential schooling for Indigenous children. Marie Wilson helped lead that work as one of just three commissioners. With the skills of a journalist, the heart of a mother and grandmother, and the insights of a life as the spouse of a residential school survivor, Commissioner Wilson guides readers through her years witnessing survivor testimony across the country, providing her unique perspective on the personal toll and enduring public value of the commission. In this unparalleled account, she honours the voices of survivors who have called Canada to attention, determined to heal, reclaim, and thrive.
Part vital public documentary, part probing memoir, North of Nowhere breathes fresh air into the possibilities of reconciliation amid the persistent legacy of residential schools. It is a call to everyone to view the important and continuing work of reconciliation not as an obligation but as a gift.
Nora Sanders will be in conversation with Marie that day as a moderator.
Nora Sanders grew up in Union and after beginning her professional life practising law in St. Thomas, had a career that included several roles in the Northwest Territories Department of Justice, chairing a new province wide police complaints board in Ontario, serving as the first Deputy Minister of Justice in the new territory of Nunavut, moving to the role of Deputy Minister of the newly formed Department of First Nations and Metis Relations in Saskatchewan, and ending her working life as the General Secretary of the United Church of Canada. The United Church was one of the churches that operated residential schools, and one of the parties to the settlement agreement that led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Nora had a leadership role in the church’s engagement with the Commission and in the church’s fulfillment of its commitments under the agreement.
In 2002 Nora received the John Tait Award of Excellence from the Canadian Bar Association in recognition of her contributions to the legal profession in the public sector. Nora’s volunteer life has included refugee support work in the United Church, terms on the boards of the YWCA in St. Thomas and Yellowknife, and currently, the board of Family and Children’s Services of St. Thomas-Elgin, and the executive of the St. Thomas branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women.
This is a free event in the store and open to all.
