Roundtable on 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph

Born in 1991, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine is an Innu poet, performer, actor, visual artist, and activist for Indigenous and environmental rights from Pessamit in Côte-Nord. Now based in Montreal, she is one of the province’s most influential voices. 

Her debut poetry collection, N’entre pas dans mon âme avec tes chaussures (Mémoire d’encrier, 2012), which explores early questions of identity, was critically acclaimed and earned her the 2013 Prix d’excellence from the Société des écrivains francophones d’Amérique. Her second collection, Manifeste Assi (Mémoire d’encrier, 2014) was a finalist for the Prix Émile-Nelligan and gives voice to a land suffocating under natural resource exploitation, including Alberta’s oil sands. In 2016, she published Bleuets et abricots (Mémoire d’encrier), a third collection that carries “the voice of the Indigenous woman who returns to life to overturn history.” 

Translated into English by Howard Scott, Do not enter my soul in your shoes (2015) and Assi Manifesto (2016) have now enchanted audiences across Canada and internationally. 

Natasha Kanapé Fontaine later co-authored Kuei, je te salue (Écosociété), an exchange of letters with Deni Ellis Béchard exploring racism between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. An especially timely dialogue, given the current events of the last year. 

Part of a broader resurgence of Indigenous youth, she served as spokesperson for Quebec’s branch of the pan-Canadian Idle No More movement. Her artistic and philosophical work explores what she calls a “poetics of relationship to the land.” Natasha Kanapé Fontaine has also been invited as a guest poet in Belgium, Haiti, France, Germany and Scotland. In 2017, she represented the Innu and Quebec at the Ethnic Minorities Festival in Tibet. 

Through dialogue, exchange and shared values, her practice seeks to bring people together, metaphorically “tanning hides” to strip away the rough edges of thought and consciousness. Through poetry, she engages in a process of healing with the environment, while speaking out against racism, discrimination and colonial mindsets, leaving a lasting imprint for future generations in the ongoing work of decolonization. 

Jonathan Lainey joined the Museum in 2020. He studied anthropology and Indigenous studies and holds a master’s degree in history from Université Laval. His research interests include the social, political and cultural history of the Indigenous Peoples of Quebec and Canada as well as the history of objects and collections over time, particularly wampum belts. He has served as Curator, First Peoples, at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau as well as Archivist, Indigenous Archives, at Library and Archives Canada.

He has published two books, helped develop exhibitions, and written numerous articles, publications and research reports. He is also a sought-after speaker who has appeared not only in Canada, but also in the Netherlands, Japan and Australia at international conferences.