Description

In 1976, John Rager, the newly arrived Indian Affairs Nakina District commerce officer lives alone in a rooming house with a deep secret. He soon discovers that many other people within the agency have secrets – in a district with mostly fly-in villages, the district manager has a terrible fear of flying; the former commerce officer and the current district supervisor of construction and capital projects take bribes; and the owner of a district air charter company is a racist who was once a member of the murderous Waffen SS.

What changes everything is the arrival of a Catholic nun’s letter sent to the Ontario Indian Affairs regional director general and copied to the district manager that outlines the horrors in one of the district fly-in villages.

How Rager formulates a plan with the help of the now ex-Catholic nun, Marie Brunelle, to reveal these secrets, constitutes the story of a man’s struggle to seek redemption and bring justice to a long neglected and forgotten people.

Shuniah-Ogama is set within the vast region of northwestern Ontario above the rail line – often referred to as the ‘Blue Forest’ for the blue of the many lakes, rivers, creeks, and bogs within the green of the coniferous forest, bush, and eskers – it is one of the most remote and isolated regions of Canada.