Most people do not fully understand the trauma and pain that resulted for thousands of children who were taken from their parents and placed in mission residential schools by the Canadian Government in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are over 80,000 Aboriginal people who lived in these institutions and are still alive today.

Alice Blondin-Perrin, the author of “My Heart Shook Like a Drum” was only four years old when she was separated from most of her family members and put into the St. Joseph’s Mission School at Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories. Her book outlines the experiences and abuse that she encountered during the years that she was forced under Canadian legislation to live in four different residential schools and the negative affects that have plagued her as a result.

Ms. Blondin was born into a Dene family who lived at Cameron Bay in the Northwest Territories. Her parents, … Read More

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