Can Indigenous and non-Indigenous people live in a treaty relationship despite over 200 years of social, cultural, and political alienation? This is the challenge of reconciliation – and its beautiful promise.

Twenty-five years after the Ipperwash crisis, writer and social activist Heather Menzies showed up in Nishnaabe territory in Southwestern Ontario, near where her forebears settled, hoping to meet her would-be treaty kin. She was invited to help document the broken-treaty story behind the crisis, as remembered by Nishnaabe Elders and other community members involved in reclaiming their homeland at Stoney Point. But she soon realized that even the most sincere intentions can be steeped in a colonial mindset that hinders understanding, reconciliation, and healing.

In this thoughtful, sensitive, nuanced account, Heather Menzies shares her own decolonizing journey. Her story shows how a settler, through respectful listening, can learn what being in a treaty relationship might mean, and what changes – personal and institutional – are needed to embrace genuine reconciliation.

Heather Menzies is an award-winning writer and scholar and the author of nine books, including Whose Brave New World? and No Time. She has been awarded an honourary doctorate and the Order of Canada for her "contributions to public discourse." A mother and grandmother, a gardener and social-justice activist, Heather regularly contributes to journals and newspapers, and is in high demand as a speaker, offering a thoughtful critique of our disintegrating social fabric.

Heather Menzies' profile page

"It is a book with important lessons for anyone living on stolen native land and wanting to advance the difficult work of reconciliation. While some readers may object to Menzies tone, finding it a shade too earnest, even bordering on twee, many other readers, including this reviewer, will be moved by the author’s honesty and eloquence."

Vancouver Sun