Promotional Information

The Fire Still Burns is a tale of survival and redemption through which Squamish Elder Sam George recounts his residential school experience and how it led to a life of addiction, violence, and imprisonment until he found the courage to face his past and begin healing.

Table of Contents

Preface / Sam GeorgeAcknowledgmentsA Note on the Text1 Your Name Is T'seatsultux2 In Them Days3 Our Lives Signed Away4 The Strap5 A Girl Named Pearl, a Boy Named Charlie6 Runaway7 I Tried to Be Invisible8 Finding Ways to Feel Good9 On Our Own10 Oakalla11 Haney Correctional12 Longshoreman13 Misery Loves Company14 Drowning15 Tsow-Tun Le Lum16 I'm Still HereAfterword: On Co-Writing Sam George's Memoir / Jill Yonit GoldbergReader's GuideAbout the Authors

About the Author

Sam George is a Squamish Elder and a survivor of the Canadian Indian Residential School system. A retired longshoreman and semi-retired drug and alcohol counsellor, Sam now works as an educator with the Indian Residential School Survivors Society and speaks with students and community groups about his experiences. Jill Yonit Goldberg is a writer, and a literature and creative writing instructor at Langara College in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches the Writing Lives course in which students collaborate with Indian Residential School survivors who are writing their memoirs. She worked with Sam George to bring his story to the page. Liam Belson, Dylan MacPhee, and Tanis Wilson are students who participated in the Writing Lives class where they worked with Sam George to write his story.

Reviews

"I urge everyone who reads this review to buy a copy of The Fire Still Burns, read it, and share it with friends and family." -- "rabble.ca"
"The Fire Still Burns. . . shares [George's] journey of healing and self-love with astonishing candor, and is dedicated to 'all those who didn't make it.'"-- "Global News"
"For too long, Canadian history erased the story of Canada's Indian residential schools. Thanks to the efforts of Indigenous peoples and their allies, that shameful silence is being ended. . . . Sam George was a student who survived, although, as his powerful memoir The Fire Still Burns painfully illustrates, not without scars. . . . But he is also able to tell the story of how reconnecting with his Indigenous roots and culture helped him heal and become a loving, contributing elder in his community. He counsels on addiction and hears his grandchildren speaking the language he was beaten for. Cultural genocide has not triumphed."-- "The Vancouver Sun"