Canadian historical nonfiction

Essential Feminist Reads for International Women’s Month

/ Lynne Melcombe / Leave a comment

March 8 was International Women’s Day, and the month of March is International Women’s Month. With a nod to both, with this post I acknowledge several books from the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction program that further the cause of justice and equality for women. 

Cover of the book 'Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Women in North America' by Sheima Benembarek, featuring ripe figs and a 'Staff Pick' label.

It’s hard to pick just a few books. The program is dominated by women, all of whom I’d describe as feminist, and many of their stories are about women’s lives, whether their own or others. But if I’m going to stick strictly to books with a decidedly feminist theme, I’d choose these five:

Halal Sex: The Intimate Lives of Muslim Women in North America by Sheima Benembarek. This book was eye-opening for me. It honestly never occurred to me that a blue-haired, niqab-wearing, orthodox Muslim woman might be polyamorous. It doesn’t surprise me that a child from a Muslim family might be just as likely as a child from any other family to be transgender. But I have to admit some surprise—the good kind—in reading about a same-sex couple, both comedians, one a Palestinian-born Muslim the other a Jew from Montreal who perform individually and as a pair who starred in a Crave comedy special called Marriage of Convenience. The title of the book, Halal Sex, comes from a term for sex practiced within a heterosexual Muslim marriage. But Benembarek put a decidedly feminist twist on it by redefining it as “all consensual sex between adults.” 

Book cover featuring the title 'Every Boy I Ever Kissed' by Nellwyn Lampert, with a graphic design showing a woman in a red dress and hands embracing her.

Every Boy I Ever Kissed: A Memoir by Nellwyn Lampert. I started calling myself a feminist at the age of 13. I was in way too much of a hurry to lose my virginity, which I did at 14. I had no idea of the connection between the two. But there is a connection, a pretty important one. And that connection is a major part of what Lampert wrestles with in this coming-of-age memoir. As the cover blurb says, “for Nellwyn Lampert, losing her virginity would turn out to be anything but simple. Her chosen partners struggled with porn-induced erectile dysfunction and other crises of masculinity. And in the bedroom, nothing went according to plan.” So, in that regard, our experiences were entirely different. But in terms of “the realities of sexual liberation, female empowerment, and masculinity,” the issues are not that different at all than the ones I was too young to realize I was doing with more than 50 years ago that sexual freedom and gender freedom are two very different concepts. 

Cover of the book 'Highway of Tears' by Jessica McDiarmid, featuring an illustrated mask and a striking orange background. The subtitle highlights themes of racism and justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid. It’s a grim fact that Indigenous women make up only about 4% of the female population in Canada but accounted for 16% of all female homicides between 1980 and 2012. And a disturbing number of those women are abducted, raped, and murdered along a strip of highway in northern BC called the Highway of Tears. From the back cover: “Journalist Jessica McDiarmid investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected.” As difficult as this book was to read, it was just as difficult to put down. I can’t imagine a better lens through which to examine the intersection of racism and misogyny than through the horrific impacts of colonization by patriarchal white, European culture on Indigenous women and girls. 

Book cover of 'F Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism' by Lauren McKeon featuring bold black text and a pink graffiti-style accent.

F Bomb: Dispatches from the War on Feminism by Lauren McKeon. It’s always surprised me that when I say I’ve been calling myself a feminist since I was 13 but I haven’t always felt that feminism welcomed me, what many people seem to hear is that I don’t think feminism is necessary or relevant. In fact, I’m saying exactly the opposite—that feminism remains as relevant today as ever and that’s why it’s so important to ensure that ALL sorts of women feel a sense of belonging within the movement. That was my read on McKeon’s book. She recognizes that too many women have moved in the wrong direction instead of understanding that feminism is for every woman—that, indeed, until we are all free, none of us are free. Why has this happened? That, as McKeon points out, is a question for feminists to answer. And as women’s rights are being eroded daily, it’s becoming increasingly urgent that we answer it and ensure that all women feel that the arms of feminism welcome them. 

Book cover for 'Conspiracy of Hope' by Renée Pellerin, featuring stylized illustrations of a woman's chest with highlighted areas, and subtitle 'The Truth About Breast Cancer Screening'.

Conspiracy of Hope: The Truth About Breast Cancer Screening by Renée Pellerin. No woman in the western world isn’t familiar with the unique joy (she said sarcastically) of having her breasts pulled and twisted and squished between cold metal plates for their regular mammogram. In this book, Pellerin, an award-winning producer with the CBC, does a deep dive into the evidence supporting and opposing regular mammography screening. And her conclusion is that the evidence weighs strongly in favour of less screening. It’s supported by vested interests, false positives can lead to invasive overtreatment, false negatives can give women a false sense of security, its effectiveness differs significantly for different age groups, and regular exposure to radiation can, in a small number of cases, increase risk of cancer. It’s an eye-opening book that every woman should read and consider carefully before assuming that doctor’s orders should never be questioned. 

Happy International Women’s Month and enjoy the reading!

The Baby by the Roadside: A Remarkable Holocaust Story

/ Lynne Melcombe / Leave a comment

Having had three children of my own, I cannot imagine deciding that that only way to give at least one of them a chance to survive would be to abandon her at the side of a road and hope someone would save her. But that was exactly what Esther Silber did with her eight-month-old daughter, Rivka, right before she, her husband, and her older children were herded into train cars to join the ranks of the six million Jews whose lives and memories the Nazis attempted to erase from history in World War II. 

Cover of the book 'One in Six Million' by Amy Fish, featuring a light blue background with black and yellow text, highlighting themes related to the Holocaust and identity.

Miraculously, Esther’s baby girl survived. A Polish couple happened to be walking along the road where the baby had been abandoned. Following the sound of her cries, they found her, tightly swaddled, a note pinned to her blanket: Maria, November 25, 1941 (Esther had changed her name to something less Jewish-sounding). Approaching their forties, they’d always wanted but never conceived a child. So, despite the deadly risks to themselves for rescuing for what they knew was a Jewish infant, they took her home to raise as their own. 

From there, the story of Rivka’s/Maria’s life and her search, as an adult, to find clues to her origins or biological family only becomes more incredible. Yet it’s not only a true story; it’s also not entirely unique. Even seventy-five years after the war, Holocaust survivors continue to search for family members they believe to have been murdered but hope, on the slimmest of chances, might have lived. It’s amazing how many of them continue to find each other. 

Amy Fish’s (class of 2023) book, One in Six Million: The Baby by the Roadside and the Man Who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor’s Lost Identity (Goose Lane Editions, 2025) boasts a large cast of characters but just one real hero; a multitude of surprising plot twists and reversals of fortune; and tantalizing leads that compel the reader to keep turning pages but end up going nowhere. In her telling of a tale that could easily have been bogged down by extensive details, Fish endows this remarkable true story with all the hallmarks of a great British mystery.

It had been three years and two months since Maria first posted her question on JewishGen. It had been a year and eight months since Sarah told Stanley about the case. And it had been one year, eighteen weeks, and five days since Rabbi Kirchevsky packed Maria’s DNA packed Maria’s DNA in his suitcase and flew with it to New York. And finally, finally, after thousands of names of spreadsheets, hundreds of phone calls to complete strangers, and dozens of potential matches that turned out to be dead ends, they knew where to look.

Well, sort of. Sarah knew she could look at the Freund family in Krosno. But Sarah also logged onto Geni, a worldwide genealogical database, and ran a search for Freunds. She found a gaggle of them in Jaslo, a neighbouring town less than thirty kilometres from Krasno. Sarah promptly emailed Stanley, and Stanley immediately got to work. “With the kindness and cooperation of the Jaslo Urzad Stanu Cywilnego (Civil Registry Offices),” Stanley explained, “in combination with Ora’s input, it was possible to flesh out the entire family.”

Fish gives the bulk of the credit for the incredible research on this story to Stanley Diamond. A successful businessman, Diamond started a genealogical database when he retired twenty-some years earlier. His goal, at the time, was to warn Jewish relatives, close and distant, that the recessive gene for a serious genetic illness called beta thalassemia runs in the families of many Ashkenazi Jews, including theirs; they should have themselves tested before conceiving a child. But over the years, the work that became Stanley’s second career evolved. When Maria’s nearly impossible search came to his attention, he dug into it with fervour. 

But not all the credit goes to Diamond. As amazing as Maria’s story is, the details of a years-long genealogical investigation could become tedious in the wrong hands. (This is a challenge of creative nonfiction writing that the UKing’s MFA program in CNF teaches students to manage.) Fish seamlessly weaves in personal background of the key players in the search, the history of the Jewish people from millennia past to horrific details of the Holocaust, and facts about her own faith and culture as a Jew. 

An oft-related quote from the Talmud tells the faithful that: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” In an act of courage and faith that I cannot fathom, Esther Zilber saved Maria’s life by leaving her on a roadside. Vasili and Antonina Markovitch saved Maria’s life by picking up the abandoned infant and, at no small risk to themselves, raising her as their own. Stanley Diamond and the anonymous “Sarah” may not save lives, per se, but they enrich them by reuniting severed families in ways that make them feel whole again.

Finally, we can never know how many lives Amy Fish might be enriching, or even saving, by showing them that, even in a world apparently gone mad, there is still light. There is still hope. 

World War II: Dimensions of the Holocaust You Didn’t Learn in School

/ Lynne Melcombe / Leave a comment

Like many Baby Boomers, I grew up in the shadow of World War II. My father was a bomber pilot whose plane was shot down days after D-Day; he was MIA (missing in action) and a POW (prisoner of war) in a hospital in German-occupied France for three months, where the doctors did such a terrible job of setting his leg that they left him with a permanent disability. My mother was a nurse who, despite numerous traumatizing experiences, survived The Great Depression, graduated from nursing school, and worked in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy Hospital when it was a veterans’ hospital. That’s where they met, he in a hospital bed after surgeons rebroke and reset his leg, she a nurse on his ward over the months while his leg healed. I know this because my mother occasionally spoke of it; my father never did. 

Silence was the case for Marsha Faubert’s mother- and father-in-law, Wanda and Casey. It was as if their lives only began when they set foot in Canada—and maybe, in a way, they did. After they’d both died, while clearing out their house to sell it, Faubert (class of 2018) came across a tin of old photos and bits of memorabilia. She’d always been curious but never felt she should push them to talk, but now she began using those bits and pieces as starting points to explore and understand what happened to them.

The result is Wanda’s War: An Untold Story of Nazi Europe, Forced Labour, and a Canadian Immigration Scandal (Goose Lane Editions, 2023). This well-researched and compassionately written story describes aspects of World War II that I never learned about in school, including the cruelties inflicted by the Nazis against Polish people—and presumably other Slavs, a large ethnic and linguistic group that encompasses much of Eastern Europe, whom the Nazis considered subhuman. (Although their primary target was Jews, the Nazis persecuted and imprisoned millions more people: Roma, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people—anyone who didn’t fit their idea of a “master race.”) Like many other Poles, Wanda was taken from her home and deported to Germany, where she was forced into slave labour in factories. Others, like Casey, who lived in a part of Poland that was under Soviet control, were shipped off to gulags in Siberia, from which they were “liberated” two years later, only to be conscripted by the Soviets to fight the Nazis. 

Adding insult to injury, their introduction to Canada involved recruitment into two years of indentured servitude, living in restrictive conditions and working for minimum wage in factories (Wanda) and on farms (Casey). No doubt, conditions in Canada were better than under the Nazis or the Soviets, but as one Canadian official said (to deaf ears), these people, who had somehow survived six years of hell, went “From slave labour to slave labour” on government-sanctioned programs, as a condition of immigrating to Canada. By comparison, British men and women arriving in Canada at the same time with the intent of citizenship were not subjected to any such requirements. 

In a book this well researched and written, it’s nearly impossible to pick out a single passage to quote, and certainly not a short one. The paragraphs below describe a time long after the war when Wanda’s son George, the author’s husband, learned about a compensation fund for people who had been forced labourers in Nazi Germany:

George called Wanda to tell her about her right to make a claim for compensation. She was unenthusiastic. “What’s the point?” she said. “It was so long ago.” George prodded her. … To him, a busy arbitrator, accustomed to hearing labour grievances, it was simple: fill out the form, send it in, wait for the decision. It seems insensitive, in retrospect, that we didn’t consider that it might not have been simple to Wanda, digging up a memory that she preferred to leave undisturbed. …

The form asked for a description of what happened during her period of forced labour, including the conditions in which she was held. For the first and last time, she told George what had happened to her in Germany. He wrote it down for her:

We lived in a barracks behind barbed wire. Every morning the guards took us to work. We worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., I think. There were armed guards in the factory watching us while we worked. In the morning before we worked, they gave us one slice of bread and black coffee. For lunch we had kohlrabi soup and a slice of bread. For dinner, we had a slice of bread and black coffee. There was one Italian, two Russian, and four Polish barracks. There were 21 of us in a 25-foot by 12-foot room in three-high bunks. We were not ever allowed to go outside for any reason except to go to work. There were armed guards outside the barracks. We worked seven days a week. The guards would beat at us [sic] for no reason. The barracks were filthy and full of lice and bedbugs. When the Allies were bombing the area we were not allowed to leave the barracks and go to a bunker.

Wanda gave as little detail as possible. She didn’t tell George about the day she was taken and deported to Germany. They didn’t have a conversation about life during the Russian and German occupations or during her time in the camp. She didn’t talk about being hungry or afraid or how she felt about losing her home. She didn’t offer any of the details we later heard from Joe [George’s uncle]. The form didn’t require this information and she didn’t volunteer it.

I’ve wondered sometimes about my father’s silence about the war. I know he, like other military men, were told to forget their experiences and just live happy lives. I also know he suffered from PTSD, not clearly defined at the time, and went to therapy. But I wonder too, if, as Faubert concludes, “Silence was Wanda’s answer to the past and her protection in the present. Silence was her right. Who is to say that the burial of her memories, the simple life in a safe space, wasn’t justice for her?”

I’d never thought about it that way, but who indeed? 

Reviews of MFA alumni books on war and subsequent immigration:

How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty, by Bonny Reichert

Peace by Chocolate: The Hadhad Family’s Remarkable Journey from Syria to Canada, by Jon Tattrie

Must-Read Books from Recent Canadian Graduates: Part 2 of The List So Far

/ Lynne Melcombe / 1 Comment

So many new authors on this list! (For comparison, see the first list here.) Congratulations to all the newly published authors (at least since the first list), to all the authors who were published long before I reviewed your books, I’m reading as fast as I can, and to all the authors who’ve been published that I still haven’t got to … I’m reading as fast as I can! And to anyone reading this, if I’ve missed anything, gotten any details wrong, or in some cases don’t know the year you graduated, please let me know. And the winners are:

(Edited to add: Apparently I missed quite a few books that should go on this list. I’ve added them at the top of the list so you won’t miss them. There have been several more deals but the books aren’t out yet and I’m unable to find complete information about them.)

Barone, Rina (class of 20??) Art Always Wins: The Chaotic World of Avant-garde Pioneer Al Hansen, (press and year?)

Jaffer, Taslim (class of 2022) with Omar Mouallem, Back Where I Came From: On Culture, Identity, and Home. Book*hug Press, 2024.

Kierans, Kim (class of 2025), Journalism for the Public Good: The Michener Awards at Fifty. Bighorn Books, 2024.

Kuzmyk, Emma (class of 2025) with Addy Strickland, This Wasn’t On the Syllabus: Stories from the Front Lines. Simon & Schuster, 2024.

McKay, Lori (class of 2020) Searching for Mayflowers: The True Story of Canada’s First Quintuplets. Nimbus Publishing, 2024.

Moore, Chris (2024) The Power of Guilt: Why We Feel It and Its Surprising Ability to Heal. HarperCollins (Canada), BenBella (US), August Books (UK), 2025.

Moscovitch, Philip (2019) Adventures in Bubbles and Brine: What I Learned from Nova Scotia’s Masters of Fermented Foods—Craft Beer, Cider, Cheese, Sauerkraut and More. Formac Publishing, 2019.

Simpson, Sharon J. (class of 2021) The Kelowna Story: An Okanagan History, 2nd Edition. Harbour Publishing, 2025.

John Larsen’s (Class of 2023 I think) book is not out yet–due in 2026 I think. 

Book cover of 'Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas' by Gloria Blizzard, featuring a colorful abstract background with wavy lines.
Book cover for 'Press Enter to Continue: Scribes from Babylon to Silicon' by Joan Francuz, featuring an image of ancient scribes on a laptop screen.
Book cover for 'The View from Coffin Ridge: A Childhood Exhumed' by Gwen Lamont featuring a black and white photograph of a corridor with scattered leaves.

Book cover design for 'The Fruitful City' by Helena Moncrieff, featuring colorful illustrations of leaves and flowers, with the subtitle 'The Enduring Power of the Urban Food Forest'.
Book cover for 'Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis' by Andrew Reeves, featuring various species of fish against a light blue background.
Book cover of 'Peace by Chocolate' by Jon Tattrie, depicting the Hadhad family by the sea, highlighting their journey from Syria to Canada.

SwissAir Flight 111: A Tragic Tale Told with Skill and Compassion

/ Lynne Melcombe / Leave a comment

Full disclosure: Gina Leola Woolsey, author of Fifteen Thousand Pieces: A Medical Examiner’s Journey Through Disaster (Guernica, 2023) was a member of my cohort (class of 2015). That’s how I know that, before signing up for the MFA program in Creative Nonfiction Writing, she had already completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in creative writing at UBC. 

Gina’s extensive skill and training show in every word. From page 1, I’m hooked. It’s a rainy Wednesday evening—September 2, 1998—when the phone on Dr. John Butt’s bedside table rings. Swissair Flight 111 has gone down, killing all 229 souls aboard. Butt, Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Examiner, takes a moment to absorb the news.

“The information doesn’t go straight to the action center in his brain,” Gina writes. “His plausibility muscle bats away the news so his mind has a minute to rev the mental engines.” In a classic example of writing so well the reader forgets they’re reading, her use of metaphor is so smooth that, after forty years as a writer and editor, I barely notice it. And when I do, I’m impressed.

Within the first chapter, she’s laid down an immense amount of exposition without ever slipping into information dumping. In a scant seven pages, she introduces nine characters, including just enough about each to make them memorable. Throughout the book, she most often refers to the multitude of people she interviewed by their first names, no doubt a deliberate choice to create intimacy in a story that might more easily be kept at arm’s length. 

She uses verb tense to set mood: present tense when she writes about the disaster, conveying anguished immediacy, switching to past tense to for her present-day relationship with Butt. When done without thought, tense-switching can be jarring; I’ve critiqued dozens of editing clients for doing it unconsciously. In Gina’s hands, it’s as smooth as glass. 

Focusing on Gina’s facility with the small choices a writer makes is not intended to minimize the skill with which she tackles larger issues. I remember her talking in class about a unique problem this story presented. Invited by the central character to write this book, he requested that it tell not only about the disaster that ended the lives of 229 people, forever changing life for countless bereaved friends and family and leaving an indelible imprint on everyone involved in recovering and identifying 15,000 bits of bodies instantly torn apart on impact with the cold, dark Atlantic. He also wanted to share his own story, that of a sensitive but difficult man, raised in an oppressive environment, who repeatedly alienated friends, family, and colleagues until coming to terms, late in life, with his homosexuality. 

I recall wondering how she’d reconciled these two stories as I began reading. But I quickly forgot about it as I devoured the book, barely noticing the two disparate stories unfolding.

To say Gina’s writing is seamless, visually rich, alive with detail doesn’t do it justice. I wish I could find one passage, short enough to include in a blog post, that would show everything that impresses me about it. The following is just a taste:

A Sea King helicopter transports John from the morgue-in-construction at Shearwater to the Preserver. Above the scene of destruction, he gets the first glimpse of debris. Small boats dot the surface with larger boats stationed at the edges of the scene. The entire area, a portion of the sea that many fishermen call their workplace, is closed to all but those working on the recovery operation. 

The ship’s doctor shows John to the bridge where Commander Town is waiting. During the night, it was Commander Town who managed the fishermen, military personnel, and other helpers on the water. Rick Town was the beacon in the dark. After a night receiving one horror after another from the small vessels on the scene, Town might need a guiding light of his own. From the Preserver’s bridge, John gets a closer look at the water. To the untrained eye, it’s a largely unidentifiable mass of scattered debris, but John sees the human remains for what they are. Floating viscera mingles with hunks of caramel-coloured foam from the seat cushions, clothing, teddy bears, and luggage. Now he understands why they don’t know how to deal with the situation. It’s not as easy as putting bodies in bags and counting them off in whole numbers. 

In lesser hands, this could have been an impossible story to tell. Instead, it’s a deeply personal, profoundly compassionate, extensively researched, and intimately told tale of one of the worst air disasters in Canadian history, and the enigmatic man who had the grizzly task of sifting through the eponymous 15,000 pieces of humanity. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

For more on disaster, read my reviews of: 

Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire Memoir, by Aaron Williams.

On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Quake, by Gregor Craigie.

For more Canadian history, read my reviews of:

Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion, by Tyler LeBlanc.

Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, by Jenn Thornhill Verma.

Craigdarroch Castle in 21 Treasures, by Moira Dann.

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justic for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by Jessica McDiarmid.

Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary, by Catherine Fogarty.

Understanding the Acadian Expulsion: A Personal Journey

/ Lynne Melcombe / 2 Comments

It’s a story that’s been played out thousands—no, tens of thousands of times in thousands of locations over many centuries. It’s a story of imperialist colonization, most often in the last 500 years by the British Empire, that led to the expulsion or oppression of countless souls. 

Book cover of 'Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion' by Tyler LeBlanc, featuring a map background and illustrations of coral-like red branches.

I confess that, until I read Tyler LeBlanc’s (class of 2018) book, Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion (Gooselane Editions, 2020), I knew nothing about the Acadian expulsion. I can’t feel too badly about that as LeBlanc himself confesses to knowing little about it, much less his family’s connection to it. Then one day, a fellow bicycle tour guide along Nova Scotia’s South Shore who knew a lot about the subject, provided LeBlanc with enough information to pique his interest—especially about how his French surname suggested a very personal connection. 

LeBlanc’s subsequent historical and genealogical research led to his participation in the University of King’s College Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Nonfiction, and his writing of this book. In the introduction, the author describes the historical background:

“After more than one hundred years of successful settlement across a tract of land that spread over the modern-day Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island and part of the American state of Maine, the French-speaking settlers who called this place home had become a distinct people situation on the edge of what was quickly becoming the largest imperial battlefield of their time. Their realm was known as Acadia (Acadie in French) … They had forged positive relationships with the Indigenous People who had called the land home for thousands of years. Allies in battle, and friends and traders in times of peace, the two groups coexisted in greater harmony that nearly any other settler-Indigenous cultural interaction of the time.”

But Acadia sat on a piece of land inhabited by the French but coveted by the British in their ongoing quest to make the world English. 

“The land was British, at least on paper, given by the French to the king of England during the settlement of a war earlier in the century. Because of this legal ownership, and in response to the fear of an Acadian uprising against them [the Acadian settlers and the Mi’kmaq people greatly outnumbered the British], colonial administrators drafted a plan to remove all the French-speaking colonists—and waited for the opportune time to implement it. Toward the end of the hot summer days of 1755, the chance presented itself. After a brief battle on the border between Nova Scotia and New France … Charles Lawrence, the then lieutenant-governor of the British colony of Nova Scotia, set in motion a great crime against humanity, the after-effects of what are still felt today.”

The expulsion was brutal: men were called to meetings and imprisoned. Women and children were burned out of houses they’d called home for generations and forced to flee, often with little more than the clothes they were wearing. According to this short video, “half of the total Acadian population were of starvation, drowning, and violence,” while this longer video describes this event as the “first state-sponsored ethnic cleansing on the continent.” 

The survivors were scattered elsewhere in North America, many ending up in Louisiana (where they became known as Cajuns, giving rise to a whole new culture, language, and cuisine), while others sailed back across the ocean to France. The author’s family were among those who survived and stayed in what is now Nova Scotia, where their history was obscured until LeBlanc’s encounter with a co-worker, who happened to be an Acadian historian. 

LeBlanc tells this story in ten chapters, each one sharing a part of the overall story from the perspective of one of the ten siblings who lived through this dreadful period in their previously unremarkable lives. It would be a compelling piece of historical nonfiction regardless, but telling the story from ten different personal perspectives makes it all the more so. 

LeBlanc received multiple honours for this book: in the Nova Scotia Book Awards, he won the Evelyn Richardson Award for Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction and the Margaret and John Savage Award for Best First Book (non-fiction). He won the Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing. And he was selected for the Hill Times’ 100 Best Books in 2020 list and was included on Canada’s History’s Bestseller List. 

National Acadian Day is celebrated annually on August 15.

Here’s another book about injustices done in Canada’s history:

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by Jessica McDiarmid.

And a book about trying to do things differently:

Ring of Fire: High-Stakes Mining in a Lowlands Wilderness. by Virginia Heffernan.