Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun

“A revelatory work of astonishing grace, Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun encapsulates an invisible generation brought to glorious life. So many times the subject could have been my auntie, cousin or grandmother. When people ask why I live on the rez, I’ll point them to this book, this stunning reclamation of narrative, which so movingly shows the love of place, community and self.”
— EDEN ROBINSON, author of Monkey Beach and Son of a Trickster

“Paul Seesequasis’s Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun is a wonderful collection of found photographs and recovered histories that link us to a past as old as the land and as precious as breath.”— THOMAS KING, author of The Inconvenient Indian

Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities

by Paul Seesequasis

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40,000 words, 80 photos
Final books now available

RIGHTS SOLD

Canada: Knopf, October 2019
Germany: Luchterhand/Random House, October 2020

(Photo: Red Works Studio)

ABOUT PAUL SEESEQUASIS

Paul Seesequasis is a writer, editor, cultural activist and journalist. He was a founding editor of the award-winning Aboriginal Voices magazine, and was editor-in-chief at Theytus Books. He was the recipient of a MacLean-Hunter journalism award, and was a program officer for a number of years at The Canada Council for the Arts. His short stories and feature writings have been published in Canada and abroad. His novel, Tobacco Wars, was published by Quattro Books and his latest book, a collaboration with Mayan artist, Jesu Mora, pop wuj: An Illustrated Narrative of the Mayan Sacred Book, was launched in Mexico City in 2015. He lives in Saskatoon.

HONOURING THE RESILIENCE, RESOURCEFULNESS, AND DETERMINATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

FEATURED IN GRANTA, BRICK MAGAZINE, AND THE WALRUS

Blanket Toss under Midnight Sun consists of approximately eighty archival black-and-white and colour photographs of indigenous family life from 1925 to 1985, a period of sixty years. The images portray the resilience and resourcefulness of indigenous communities across Canada, and illustrate a way of life that has been diminished or lost in modern times and is little known today.

The book focuses on eight communities and includes high-resolution photos from the work of twelve photographers who spent significant time in one region.

Each photo was carefully selected for its relevance to the geography and history of the region. The communities are:

  • Chapter 1: Cape Dorset (Kinngait)

  • Chapter 2: Nunavik

  • Chapter 3: James Bay

  • Chapter 4: Hudson Bay Watershed

  • Chapter 5: Saskatchewan

  • Chapter 6: Montana and Alberta

  • Chapter 7: Northwest Territories

  • Chapter 8: Yukon

A narrative essay for each community focuses on its history, its families, and its cultural characteristics, including anecdotal stories, profiles of significant individuals, and analysis of how the community adapted to change. The essays concentrate on the human dimension and allow the sensual aspects of the photographs (the stories within) to speak for themselves. That sensuality captures the beauty and humanity of the subjects through the hardest of times and through tumultuous changes, while retaining their optimism and the resilience of the human spirit. To counter the preponderance of stories about oppression and misery, this collection presents positive stories celebrating indigenous experience, as well as the stories of the photographers themselves.

Paul Seesequasis on stage at Frankfurt Book Fair 2021, where Canada was the Guest of Honour