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Jesse Thistle

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Jesse Thistle
BornPrince Albert Edit this on Wikidata
Alma mater
OccupationHistorian, teacher, writer Edit this on Wikidata
Employer
Awards
Websitehttps://jessethistle.com/ Edit this on Wikidata

Jesse Thistle (born 1976) is a Métis-Cree author and assistant professor in the department of humanities at York University in Toronto. He is the author of the 2019 memoir, From the Ashes, and 2022 poetry book Scars and Stars.[1][2] From the Ashes is considered one of the "most notable" 100 books Simon and Schuster U.S and all its 31 international imprints has published between 1924-2024, and the only Canadian book to make the list over the publisher's history.[3] Thistle is also a PhD candidate in the history program at York University, where he is working on theories of intergenerational, historic trauma, and survivance of road allowance Métis people.[4] This work, which involves reflections on his own previous struggles with addiction and homelessness, has been recognized as having wide impact on both the scholarly community and the greater public.[5]

Family and personal life

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Thistle was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. In 1979 he and his two brothers were removed from his family home and moved to Brampton, Ontario to be brought up by his paternal grandparents. During his late teens and twenties Thistle struggled with addiction, homelessness and served several brief stints in jail for petty theft. After an unsuccessful robbery attempt in 2006, Thistle turned himself in to police and entered a drug rehabilitation program.[4]

Much of Thistle's historical research is based on the stories and experience of his family and ancestors. His mother, Blanche Morissette, is Métis-Cree and was a member of the Park Valley road allowance community in Big River, Saskatchewan.[6][7][8] His father, Cyril "Sonny" Thistle, is of Scot-Algonquin ancestry and has been missing since 1982.[7] Thistle's maternal great-grandmother, Marianne Ledoux Morissette, was present and supported the Métis Resistance in 1885 during the Battle of Batoche.[9][10] The documentary Family Camera directed by Marc de Guerre for TVOntario includes images of the Morissette family and interviews with Thistle, his mother and aunts where they recount the history and experience of living in the road allowance community and the legacy of the Canadian government's treatment of the Métis people.[7]

Education

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Thistle obtained a Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies with a specialized honours in history from York University in 2015. His undergraduate thesis is entitled: James Bay and Mattawa as an Interconnected Fur Trade Region: Illuminating Lake Timiskaming’s Historic Metis Community and was supervised by York historian Carolyn Podruchny. He completed a Masters of History at the University of Waterloo in 2016, where his thesis was entitled: The Puzzle of the Morrissette-Arcand Clan: A History of Metis Historic and Intergenerational Trauma and where he worked with Susan Roy.[11] In the fall of 2016 Thistle began work on a PhD in the history department at York University.[11]

Thistle is a Trudeau Scholar, administered by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation,[12] a Vanier scholar and was awarded a Governor General's Silver Medal in 2016. He has won numerous other awards, including the Odessa Award in 2014 and the Dr. James Wu prize in 2015[13] for his paper "We are children of the river: Toronto’s Lost Metis History."

Professional work

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Thistle's use of academic research as a means of healing and understanding of his personal story as an Indigenous person growing up disconnected from his community and its history and his past experiences with homelessness, addiction and incarceration has formed the basis for his original and innovative research contributions.[4][14][11][15] Thistle's historical research has used his own past and identity as a way to examine the position of Metis people and culture within Canadian society, particularly around the idea of inter-generational trauma.[citation needed]

Early historical research Thistle conducted to argue in favour of the possibility of habitation of Métis people in the historic area of Toronto was revisited by Thistle in 2016 in the article "Listening to History: Correcting the Toronto Metis Land Acknowledgement."[16] Thistle's research now suggests there were no permanent Métis settlements in Toronto and he suggests the standard land acknowledgement text used in the Toronto area, in particular by the Toronto District School Board, that includes the Metis is incorrect. A position he reiterates in an article in the New Yorker magazine.[17]

The main thrust of Thistle's research involves research into the road allowance Métis in Saskatchewan through the research into his own family history. The recovery of his family history and making connections to his Indigenous culture through archival documents forms the backbone of his practice[18] and documented in the article "Archives as Good Medicine"[19] as well as in the short film kiskisiwin | remembering, a documentary film directed by Martha Stiegman.[20] Along with Podruchny, Thistle conducted a series of site visits and interviews in northern Saskatchewan and his PhD thesis is entitled: Indigence, Invisibility, and Indifference: Metis Life in Road Allowances Communities on the Canadian Prairies. His work on the Road Allowance Métis community has been featured on programs such as the CBC Radio's "Unreserved" program.[21]

He was the National Representative for Indigenous Homelessness (2015-2017) for the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness for their research priority areas and in that position he called for an Indigenous understanding of homelessness, arguing most current strategies for addressing homelessness do not account for the impacts of inter-generational trauma, the deep sense of loss of culture and connection to the idea of home for survivors of experiences such as residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, and that addressing Indigenous homelessness must take Indigenous worldviews into account. Thistle published a new definition of Indigenous homelessness in October, 2017.[22][23] Thistle no longer works directly in the homelessness or housing sectors as he believes since the CoVid crisis and opioid crisis the nature of homelessness in Canada has changed to the point that his knowledge is outdated.[24]

In 2019 Thistle published a memoir entitled From the Ashes.[25] The memoir detailed his childhood, youth, and early adulthood, dealing with issues such as foster care, homelessness and addiction, and his quest for higher education that led ultimately to a professorship and love and emplacement. The book was praised for its openness in expressing loss and pain, and for its eloquence, especially as it relates the multigenerational impacts of colonization and trauma. Among the book's champions are noted psychologist Gabor Mate, NYT bestselling authors Emma Donoghue and Amanda Lindhout, and the creator of Housing First Sam Tsemberis.[26][27] "From the Ashes" appeared on numerous bestseller lists since release and was Canada's bestselling title by a Canadian author in 2020, and was the best selling Indigenous memoir of the last 20 years.[28][29] In 2020 it was also selected by George Canyon as his choice for the CBC Canada Reads competition.

Awards and honours

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  • #1 Bestselling Indigenous memoir in Canada between 2005-2023 - From the Ashes.[30]
  • From the Ashes named one of the "most notable" 100 books Simon and Schuster has published over its one-hundred year history - 1924-2024. Notably, Thistle's memoir is the only Canadian authored book to make this list alongside authors Ernest Hewmingway, Margret Mitchell, Ray Bradbury, Friedrich Backman, Stephen King, Frank McCourt, and F. Scott Fitzgerald among others.[3]
  • #1 Bestselling Canadian book of 2020 (any genre or format) - From the Ashes[31]
  • #1 Most borrowed Canadian non-fiction book of 2021 - From the Ashes[32]
  • #1 Bestselling Canadian non-fiction book of 2020 - From the Ashes
  • #1 Bestselling two-year-old Canadian book; #2 bestselling two-year-old book in Canada (both domestic and international) - 2019-2021 (any genre of format) - From the Ashes[33]
  • Winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for non-fiction[34]
  • From the Ashes chosen #3 on Indigo's best books of 2019.
  • Scars and Stars chosen as #6 best book of 2022.
  • Named one of 50 most influential Torontonians of 2019.[35]

Selected works

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  • Jameson, Elizabeth; Podruchny, Carolyn; Thistle, Jesse A. (2018). "Women on the Margins of Imperial Plots: Farming on Borrowed Land". Journal of the Canadian Historical Association. 29: 158. doi:10.7202/1065722ar. hdl:10315/36849. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  • Thistle, Jesse (2019). From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781982101213.
  • Thistle, Jesse. The Puzzle of the Morrissette-Arcand Clan: A History of Metis Historic and Intergenerational Trauma. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
  • Thistle, Jesse A. The Definition of Indigenous Homelessness in Canada, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, Toronto: York University, 2017. http://homelesshub.ca/IndigenousHomelessness
  • Thistle, Jesse A. "We are children of the river: Toronto’s Lost Metis History," YOUR Review, vol 3 (2016).[1]
  • Thistle, Jesse A., "kiskisiwin – remembering: Challenging Indigenous Erasure in Canada’s Public History Displays," Active History (July 3, 2017).[2]
  • Thistle, Jesse A. "Listening to History: Correcting the Toronto Metis Land Acknowledgement," Active History (December 2, 2016).[3]
  • Thistle, Jesse A. "Dishinikawshon Jesse: A Life Transformed," Aboriginal Policy Studies 5, 1 (2015): 69-93.[4]
  • Podruchny, Carolyn, and Jesse Thistle. "A Geography of Blood: Uncovering the Hidden Histories of Metis Peoples in Canada." In Spaces of Difference: Conflicts and Cohabitation, edited by Ursala Lehmkuhl, Hans-Jurgen Lusebrink, and Laurence McFalls, 61–82. New York: Waxmann, 2016.

References

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  1. ^ "Toronto Star bestsellers for the week ending Nov. 27, 2019". OurWindsor.ca. 2019-11-27. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  2. ^ Editor, Deborah Dundas Books (2022-10-21). "In 'Stars and Scars,' Jesse Thistle shares even more of his heart". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2024-11-07. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ a b HILLEL ITALIE (2024-01-31). "Simon & Schuster marks centennial with list of 100 notable books, from 'Catch-22' to 'Eloise'". San Diego Union-Tribune. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2024-02-19. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  4. ^ a b c Winter, Jesse (2016-08-17). "He was once a homeless drug addict. Now he's one of York's top students". The Toronto Star. ISSN 0319-0781. Archived from the original on 2017-10-30. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  5. ^ Muzyka, Kyle (Oct 17, 2019). "How Jesse Thistle's deeply personal memoir 'happened by accident'". Unreserved, CBC. Archived from the original on November 29, 2019. Retrieved Nov 29, 2019.
  6. ^ Barkwell, Lawrence J. "Park Valley". Virtual Museum of Metis History and Culture. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  7. ^ a b c "Family Camera". familycamera.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-11-05. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  8. ^ "Poster #8: Batoche 1885: When Canada Opened Fire on My Kokum Marianne With a Gatling Gun - Graphic History Collective". Graphic History Collective. Archived from the original on 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  9. ^ Barkwell, Lawrence. "Women of the 1885 Resistance". Metis Museum. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
  10. ^ "Welcome to Back to Batoche / Bienvenue vers Retour à Batoche – VMC". www.virtualmuseum.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  11. ^ a b c "How one man went from being homeless to winning Trudeau scholarship". Waterloo Stories. 2016-08-22. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  12. ^ "Three York U graduate students become prestigious Trudeau Scholars | York Media Relations". York Media Relations. 2016-06-10. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  13. ^ "Undergraduate Research Fair 2015 Awards | Undergraduate Research Fair". undergradresearchfair.blog.yorku.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  14. ^ "From street to scholar: Jesse Thistle creates new definition of Indigenous homelessness". CBC Radio. Archived from the original on 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  15. ^ "Return of the Michif Boy: Confronting Métis trauma with PhD Student Jesse Thistle on CBC's Ideas | Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS)". laps.yorku.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  16. ^ Thistle, Jesse (2016-12-02). "Listening to History: Correcting the Toronto Metis Land Acknowledgement". ActiveHistory.ca. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  17. ^ Marche, Stephen (2017-09-07). "Canada's Impossible Acknowledgment". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  18. ^ Mercer, Greg (2017-04-10). "The healing power of public archives | TheRecord.com". TheRecord.com. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  19. ^ Thistle, Jesse (2015). "Archives as Good Medicine: Rediscovering Our Ancestors and Understanding the Root Causes of Intergenerational Trauma". Revue YOUR Review (York Online Undergraduate Research). 2: 140. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  20. ^ "kiskisiwin | remembering". National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI). 2017-04-21. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  21. ^ "From scrip to road allowances: Canada's complicated history with the Métis". CBC. April 28, 2019. Archived from the original on August 18, 2023. Retrieved August 3, 2019.
  22. ^ "Indigenous Homelessness Won't Be Solved Through Housing Alone". HuffPost Canada. 2017-10-27. Archived from the original on 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  23. ^ "From street to scholar: Jesse Thistle creates new definition of Indigenous homelessness". CBC Radio. Archived from the original on 2017-11-01. Retrieved 2017-11-04.
  24. ^ "CAEH – 'Back into the circle': Q&A with Jesse Thistle". 4 July 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-08-03. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  25. ^ "Books". Jesse Thistle. 2018-09-30. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  26. ^ "From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way". Quill and Quire. 2019-07-29. Archived from the original on 2020-01-30. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  27. ^ "Métis-Cree academic Jesse Thistle's memoir is a powerful cap to a remarkable comeback | The Star". thestar.com. 8 August 2019. Archived from the original on 2020-01-30. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  28. ^ Boon, Sonja; McNeill, Laurie; Rak, Julie; Rifkind, Candida (2022-12-29). The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-80094-4. Archived from the original on 2022-12-13. Retrieved 2022-12-13.
  29. ^ "Jesse's Thistle's "From the Ashes" climbs up the bestseller list". Archived from the original on 2020-01-30. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  30. ^ Boon, Sonja; McNeill, Laurie; Rak, Julie; Rifkind, Candida (2022-12-29). The Routledge Introduction to Auto/biography in Canada. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-80094-4. Archived from the original on 2022-12-16. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  31. ^ "From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle is the #1 bestselling Canadian print book of 2020 so far" Archived 2021-02-05 at the Wayback Machine. CBC Books, October 20, 2020.
  32. ^ "Most circulated books of 2021". BookNet Canada. 21 December 2021. Archived from the original on 2022-01-24. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
  33. ^ "The not-so-terrible twos: Backlist sales bumps". BookNet Canada. 4 November 2021. Archived from the original on 2022-01-27. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
  34. ^ Sue Carter, "Jesse Thistle, Zalika Reid-Benta, J.R. McConvey win Kobo’s Emerging Writer Prizes" Archived 2021-06-24 at the Wayback Machine. Quill & Quire, June 25, 2020.
  35. ^ "The 50 Most Influential Torontonians of 2019". Toronto Life. 2019-11-21. Archived from the original on 2020-11-25. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
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