Rocky Mountain Books is pleased to announce the upcoming release of Spirit Builders: Charles Catto, Frontiers Foundation and the Struggle to End Indigenous Poverty by James Bacque, the inspiring true story of how one organization has tried to alleviate the struggles faced by indigenous peoples in Canada by building houses and developing livable communities for those in desperate need.
The people who were living here on Turtle Island (North America) before us have been pushed aside from their own land for decades. Mining companies, lumber companies, railways, governments and fisheries have all taken away First People’s land and resources while dishonouring the treaties that were supposed to protect them.
Spirit Builders is the story of indigenous peoples in Canada, their ruined villages and the broken promises that have led to tragic circumstances for many thousands of citizens. It is also the story of Charles Catto and Frontiers Foundation, a volunteer and co-operative movement that has built over 2,000 houses, community buildings and schools as a practical way of addressing and solving many of the problems that Canada’s indigenous people face as they seek to create a new relationship with the colonizing societies around them.
The culmination of seven years of research, James Bacque’s new book addresses directly and unflinchingly the dangerous deprivation and shame that haunt Canada’s aboriginal reserves.
Release Date: 16/01/2017 | 9781771601368 | Paperback | $25
James Bacque was an editor at Macmillan for eight years and was a co-founder and partner in New Press. The author of nine works of fiction, history and biography, and even a very successful satirical play on Conrad Black, Bacque is widely known for his two bestselling books Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, about the treatment of German POWs and citizens respectively by Allied Forces at the end of the Second World War. Together, these books have sold over 250,000 copies in 10 languages and 13 countries around the world. He lives in Penetanguishene, Ontario.
Please contact Rick at RMB if you would like to view a print copy of Spirit Builders upon release or if you require any additional information or files to support your work. We’d also be happy to arrange an interview with the author or provide an excerpt for publication. We appreciate receiving notification of any published reviews or articles, with links when possible, so we can share to our networks.
