The Indian Problem

I am the spirit of hunger, I am the spirit of never enough. And I am real. Pray that you are never me. -Wendigo. The Indian Problem is a novel based on the horrific practices that occurred during the early 20th century in which the children of indigenous tribes in Canada were forcibly taken from their villages and interred in residential boarding schools, where they were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse in an effort to "kill the Indian in the Indian." It's told through the eyes of the Ojibwe whose lives are upended by this program, as well as a Jesuit priest who tries to change the abhorrent practices, and a young nun with a checkered past who helps him. The Wendigo, a powerful demon of myth, is called down by a native woman to stop the men from stealing her child, but now released, it goes on to infest those running the boarding school, adding its own insatiable appetites to those of the aberrant nuns and headmaster. Eventually it controls the entire school, wreaking horror after horror on the innocent children, and its hunger never ends.....