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.

James Bacque was a novelist, book editor, essayist, and historian whose work has helped raise awareness in human rights issues associated with war crimes, particularly spurring debate on and research into the treatment of German POWs at the end of World War II.Bacque was the founding partner and president of new press book publishers from 1969–1975. He also worked as a reporter for the Stratford Beacon-Herald; as an assistant editor for Saturday Night magazine and for Canadian Homes magazine; and as an editor for Macmillan of Canada and for Seal Books.His fiction titles include The Lonely Ones, 1969 (Big Lonely in the paperback edition, 1970); A Man of Talent, 1972; Creation (with Robert Kroetsch and Pierre Gravel), 1972; The Queen Comes to Minnicog, 1979; and Our Fathers’ War, 2006.His history titles include Crimes and Mercies, which was an immediate bestseller when first released in the U.K. by Little, Brown, and Other Losses, which has been published in Canada, the U.K., the U.S., Germany, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Korea, and Hungary.Bacque was the subject of a one-hour BBC TV documentary in 1990 and has also been featured in four TV documentaries in France, Germany, and Canada. He has appeared on the CBS Evening News; Good Morning America; and CBC TV’s The Journal.He has given readings and lectures across Canada and Europe, and his articles have been published in many magazines and anthologies, including Saturday Night, Books in Canada and the Globe and Mail.

James Bacque's profile page

At a time when non-indigenous Canadians struggle to build new and more just relationships with First Nations people, this title is a valuable contribution that celebrates a success story whose template—though created over half a century ago—holds valuable lessons for the future.

Publishers Weekly