What this is

awâsisak / Pathways is a curated index of resources on Indigenous histories, struggles, and self-determination in Canada. It collects roughly eighty books, reports, films, podcasts, organizations, and academic articles in one place, organized by category and topic, with brief annotations.

It is an index. It does not reproduce or host the work itself. Every entry links out to the source — the publisher, the filmmaker, the Indigenous-led organization, the archive. The point of the site is to direct your attention there, not to keep it here.

The name

awâsisak (ah-WAH-sih-suck) is a Cree word meaning "the children." Cree is one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in Canada and is used across many Indigenous communities and traditions, including by many Métis families.

The name honours the children whose lives shaped the history this site catalogues — the children of the residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, the Millennium Scoop, the children of MMIWG, and the children still in the care of a system that has been ruled to discriminate against them.

Choosing a Cree name does not mean this site speaks for Cree communities, or that this site belongs to any one Indigenous nation. The name is a dedication.

Who built it

This site is curated by an Indigenous person.

That is the only thing about the curator that appears on this site, and that is deliberate. The authority of the resources catalogued here belongs to the people who made them — the survivors, the writers, the scholars, the filmmakers, the organizations. Not the curator.

No individual speaks for all Indigenous peoples. No curator's reading list is definitive. This is one route in. There are many.

How resources were chosen

Three principles guided the selection:

First, Indigenous voices are prioritized. Most resources here are by First Nations, Métis, or Inuit authors, filmmakers, scholars, or organizations. Where a non-Indigenous source is included — for example, John S. Milloy's archival history of the residential school system, or James Daschuk's work on starvation policy — it is flagged clearly and included because Indigenous scholars and historians have endorsed it as important reading.

Second, distinct nations are kept distinct. First Nations, Métis, and Inuit are three different peoples with three different histories, three different legal relationships to the Crown, and three different bodies of literature. The site keeps them separate where possible. There are Métis-specific resources, Inuit-specific resources, and First Nations-specific resources, alongside the broader pan-Indigenous material.

Third, contested sources are flagged. Several prominent authors whose Indigenous identity has been publicly challenged remain on the site — Joseph Boyden and Thomas King, for example. Their work is listed because it has shaped the conversation, but their entries note the controversy. Readers should know.

How to use this site

Start with the Start Here section on the home page if you are new.

Browse by category if you know what format you want (a book, a film, a podcast).

Browse by topic if you know what subject you want (residential schools, MMIWG, treaties).

Use the curated reading paths if you want a short, designed sequence of resources rather than a list.

When you find something that interests you, leave this site. Follow the link out. The resource itself is where the value is.

What this site will not do

It will not summarize books in place of you reading them. The annotations are brief by design.

It will not host or reproduce copyrighted material. Cover images, article PDFs, video embeds — none of those appear here.

It will not rank resources against each other. There is no five-star rating system. There are priority tiers — Essential, High, Medium, Reference — but those reflect editorial judgment about where to start, not which voices matter more.

It will not run ads, accept sponsorship, collect personal data, or use analytics that track Indigenous users. It does not have a comments section. It does not have user accounts.

It will not stay still. Resources will be added. Some will be removed if circumstances change — for example, if an author's identity claims are discredited and the curator decides their work no longer belongs here. The "Last updated" date on the home page is real.

Limitations

A curated list is always limited. This one is:

Canada-focused. US, Australian, Aotearoa, and global Indigenous scholarship appears only where the work is widely used in Canadian Indigenous studies.

Print- and English-language-biased. Most resources listed are in English and most are written. Significant Indigenous scholarship is published only in Indigenous languages, only in oral tradition, or only within communities. None of that is captured here.

Subject to one person's judgment. A different curator would make different choices. The site is a starting point, not a closed canon.

Citation and use

You are welcome to share this site, link to it, recommend it, or use it to build reading lists for classes, book clubs, or your own learning.

If you cite a resource you found here, cite the resource — not this site. The resource is the authority. This site is a directory.

Contact and corrections

This site does not maintain a direct contact channel. The curator is anonymous by design, and an open inbox would put that anonymity at risk.

However, if you have spotted a broken outbound link, a factual error, a misidentified nation, or a contested-source flag that should be on a resource but isn't — those are the kinds of corrections that matter. If you have one of those to share, the site will, over time, add a private correction channel. Until then, the "Last updated" date on the home page is when the curator last reviewed and revised the site.

A closing note

This site exists because the resources it catalogues exist. Survivors testified. Scholars wrote. Filmmakers filmed. Organizations were built and maintained. The work was already done.

This site just collects the doors.

Walk through them.