Unreserved

Host Rosanna Deerchild speaks with Tomson Highway, a world-renowned Cree playwright, novelist, and concert pianist, about his new memoir Permanent Astonishment, which just won the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction worth $60,000.

These Inuit leaders from across Inuit Nunangat bring different experiences of language, geography and time spent on the ice, but they're coming together with one particular shared understanding — the disproportionate effect of climate change on their communities.

Indigenous knowledge is more than beads, drums and sweetgrass — it's also science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). You'll hear from Anishinaabe landscape architect, David Thomas; Wolastoqey language app-developer Diego Bear and Wolastoqey Elder Imelda Mary Perley who narrated all the words and phrases on the app; and Bryan Bellefeuille, an Ojibwe educator who teaches Indigenous math.

This week on Unreserved, Indigenous women who are telling their own stories on big and small screens and breaking barriers for other Indigenous storytellers.

Jennifer Podemski took the long way to success in her TV, film and theatre career. Now she wants to make the path easier for others by producing Indigenous-led shows. Her latest TV show, Unsettled, was shot on Nipissing First Nation in northern Ontario and debuted this September on APTN.

And Sherry Mckay didn’t let failure get in the way of her media dream. She simply changed the medium to become a social media star. Mckay goes by the nickname Nish Bish on TikTok. Her following on the video-sharing app sits at more than 490,000 and her biggest video has 12 million views. As an Anishinaabe comedian and influencer, Mckay uses the platform to educate and inspire, and to show the world that Indigenous people are so much more than stereotypes.

Grab your helmet and your water bottle, Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild takes you on a bike tour through Winnipeg to explore how Indigenous people are using public art to restore their stories.

This legislation — originally passed in 1878 — governs everything on Reserves, from the current band structure to the creation of residential schools. Bob Joseph, author of 21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act, walks you through its continuing impact and you’ll meet First Nation people who are challenging what it means to be a status Indian.

This week on Unreserved, stories about Indigenous people who are guarding their culture, taking back their history, transforming their cityscapes, and breaking barriers in health care.

Join Rosanna Deerchild for a revealing, poignant and emotional conversation with Murray Sinclair, former Senator and Lead Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In this intimate, hour-long interview ⁠— recorded in his backyard gazebo ⁠— they discuss reconciliation: how far we’ve come, how far we have left to go and who is responsible for taking the journey.

Find out what kept him going during the TRC and what reconciliation looks like to him.

Through re-enactments and author interviews, This Place's 10-part series shares stories of Indigenous heroes, battles, triumphs and traditions. In this episode of Unreserved, you'll hear the story of Nimkii, a young girl who was taken from her family and who, years later, joined the resistance against the Children's Aid Society at Wabaseemoong in northwestern Ontario. And you’ll journey 330 years forward into an imagined Indigenous future.

Rosanna Deerchild is back in the host seat for the 8th season of Unreserved.

In this episode, we showcase the CBC podcast This Place, which tells the stories of Indigenous people who shaped the course of history in Canada.

You'll journey back to the shores of the Red River in 1868 and meet Annie Bannatyne, a formidable Métis woman who was the muse for Louis Riel's resistance.

Then you'll travel deep into the boreal forest of northwest Ontario... back to a time when the Oji-Cree people still lived by their own laws and customs... and hear the story of Wahsakapeequay, a woman who was possessed by the greedy dark spirit Windigo.