Shin-chi’s Canoe

Shi-shi-etko is about to return to residential school, but this time she is not alone — her six-year-old brother, Shin-chi, is going, too.

Book Genre:

Picture Books

Audience:

ages 4 to 7 / grades P to 2

Written by

Nicola Campbell

Illustrated by

Kim Lafave

Book Description
This moving sequel to the award-winning Shi-shi-etko tells the story of two children’s experiences at residential school. Shi-shi-etko is about to return for her second year, but this time her six-year-old brother, Shin-chi, is going, too.

As they begin their journey in the back of a cattle truck, Shi-shi-etko tells her brother all the things he must remember: the trees, the mountains, the rivers and the salmon. Shin-chi knows he won’t see his family again until the sockeye salmon return in the summertime. When they arrive at school, Shi-shi-etko gives him a tiny cedar canoe, a gift from their father.

The children’s time is filled with going to mass, school for half the day and work the other half. The girls cook, clean and sew, while the boys work in the fields, in the woodshop and at the forge. Shin-chi is forever hungry and lonely, but, finally, the salmon swim up the river and the children return home for a joyful family reunion.

Some of the major themes presented in this story are to remember your family and their teachings even when you are not with them, to always stay strong and true to yourself even when under adversity, and the importance of Indigenous cultures and what was lost during the residential school system.
Pre-Reading Activities/ Further Research
Read Shi-Shi-Etko
With students, read Shi-shi-etko, the first book of this set.
Pre-Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Compare Covers
As a class, look at the cover and predict what this story might be about. What similarities are there between the cover of this book and the cover of Shi-shi-etko?

Explain that this is the second book of the set and that the story is about Shi-shi-etko’s little brother’s first year at residential school.
Pre-Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Discuss the Rules
Read the introduction that Nicola I. Campbell wrote at the beginning of this story. Ask students: Why do you think the school wouldn’t allow the siblings to talk to each other? Imagine what that must have been like for the children and describe what emotions they might have felt (confused, sad, angry, hurt, challenged, etc.).
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Feelings in Images
Ask students: Looking at the first picture in the story, how do you think Shi-shi-etko is feeling about leaving? How can you tell?
During Reading Activities/ Integrated Learning
Growing Up
Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi want their father to build them a dugout canoe while they are away at residential school so that they can learn how to paddle on their own next summer. Ask students: Can you think of something that you used to have to do with an adult but now you can do on your own?
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Significance of Braids
Shi-shi-etko doesn’t want a repeat of what happened the previous year when the people at the residential school cut off her braids and threw them away. She asks her grandmother to cut them for her, and afterward she and Shin-chi go “up the mountain to put their braids away.” Ask students: What does this mean? Why would she return her braids to the earth? Why would Shi-shi-etko want to cut off the braids herself?
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Subtle Feelings
Ask students: Why do you think their father gave Shi-shi-etko a tiny canoe before they left? What evidence does the author give that lets you know how the adults are feeling about the two children leaving for residential school?
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
What does Shi-shi-etko Teach?
Ask students: What teaching does Shi-shi-etko tell her brother? Do you think he will remember?
During Reading Activities/ Key Ideas & Details
Comparing Siblings
Like his sister in the previous book, Shin-chi looks at everything. Ask students: Does he look at the same things that Shi-shi-etko did? Why do you think that Shin-chi memorizes different things than she did?
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
What’s in a Name?
Ask students: Why do the characters in the story have English names? How do you think they felt not being able to keep their own names? How would you feel if someone came and renamed you and you couldn’t be called your name anymore?
During Reading Activities/ Comprehension Strategies
Make Predictions
Ask students: What do you predict might happen to the special canoe that Shi-shi-etko gives to her little brother? Will that canoe help Shin-chi to remember his memories from home?
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
First Night at School
Have students imagine Shin-chi’s first night at the school.

Ask students: How might he be feeling? What about his older sister — how might she be feeling about sleeping there again? What might be different about this time? (Having her brother there now, having a year’s experience, etc.)
During Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Alone in a Crowd
In the story, it says that when winter arrives Shin-chi is feeling lonely. Ask students: How could he be feeling lonely when he is surrounded by so many other children? Can you think about a time when you were lonely? Share with the class.
During Reading Activities/ Key Ideas & Details
Excited to Go Home
Ask students: How do you know how Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi are feeling while they ride in the cattle truck back to their home? What evidence does the author give you to make you understand their excitement?
Post-Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Significance of the Dust
When Shi-shi-etko and Shin-chi are traveling to the residential school, the dust on the road hurts their eyes and noses and is said to be following them like a snake. On the way home from the school, the dust “rose around the cattle truck like a great big butterfly.” Ask students: Why is the dust depicted differently, when for both trips the children are in the same cattle truck traveling along the same roads?

Activity: Have students depict the two trips visually in a drawing, painting, collage, etc.

Curriculum Connection: the Arts
Post-Reading Activities/ Key Ideas & Details
Older Sister’s Responsibilities
Ask students: How does Shi-shi-etko show that she is a caring and loving older sister throughout the book?
Post-Reading Activities/ Integrated Learning
Is Stealing Okay?
When Shin-chi makes a friend named “John,” the boys start stealing food from the school. Ask students: Are they justified in their actions? Why or why not? You may wish to create a debate in class and have students defend each point of view.
Post-Reading Activities/ Critical Thinking in Literacy
Author’s Messages?
Ask students: What do you think is the underlying theme of the story? What do you believe the author is trying to teach us by writing this story? What is the author’s message?
Post-Reading Activities/ Integrated Learning
Create a Poster
Have students create an advertisement or poster to sell their own canoe.
Post-Reading Activities/ Integrated Learning
Special Sign Langauge
Ask students: What messages would you like to pass along to your friends without talking? Have students work with a friend to come up with their own special sign language for a few messages.
Post-Reading Activities/ Further Research
Web Resources
Losing their traditional names:

“The Indian Act Naming Policies.” Working Effectively with Indigenous People (blog), Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., March 11, 2014.
https://www.ictinc.ca/indian-act-naming-policies

Residential school history:

Hanson, Erin. “The Residential School System.” Indigenous Foundations (First Nations and Indigenous Studies, the University of British Columbia), 2009.
http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/

100 Years of Loss:

The Residential School System in Canada (an education program by the Legacy of Hope Foundation): https://legacyofhope.ca/home/exhibitions/100-years-of-loss-the-residential-school-system-in-canada/