Short-listed for the 2011 Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical Writing

Josephine Mildred Curl Penny grew up in Labrador during the 1940s and 1950s. Like many Metis, she and her family lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, moving inside to the primitive settlement of Roaches Brook each fall to hunt and trap, and outside to Spotted Islands in the spring to harvest the rich fishing grounds.

Sent away to hospital at age four, to boarding school when she was seven, and forced out to work at age eleven, Josie lost the family bond so important to a...