A string of trade beads is passed from generation to generation, from Captain Cook at Nootka Sound to a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry hearing in Northern British Columbia.
Through three hundred years of Canadian history, the beads bear witness to the story of a family who unwillingly play a central role in our collective record of assimilation, unbridled racism, colonialism, genocide-and of the ?rare acts of compassion and courage from the ?few settlers who saw injustice and risked their careers and even their lives- to end it.
Based on, and heavily inspired by, real events and real people, The Colour of Glass is a work of fiction. It chronicles the relationship between Indigenous people and the fur traders, politicians, judges, police, priests and school staff who looked to profit from, assimilate, or eradicate Indigenous people and their cultures, and it lays open the costs of those actions; costs we are still paying today.
The Colour of Glass is an unflinching account of three centuries of contact. It speaks uncomfortable and difficult truths about Canada's relationship with its Indigenous people, but it also speaks to the hope that with truth there will come understanding-and ultimately reconciliation.