Larry Loyie (''Oskiniko'') (November 4, 1933 – April 18, 2016) was an award-winning Canadian author and playwright. He was known for several children's books about his residential school experience as a child and for his plays. His books were written with his partner Constance Brissenden. In 1993 the couple founded the Living Traditions Writers Group, to encourage Indigenous writers in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

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Early life and education

Loyie was born into a

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

family in

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, Canada. His maternal grandfather Edward Twin of

Kinuso Kinuso ( cr, script=Cans, ᑭᓄᓭᐤ, ) is a hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada within Big Lakes County, and surrounded by the Swan River First Nation reserve. It is located approximately west of Slave Lake and 71 km east of High Prairie ...

was a tribal elder who gave Loyie his Cree name of ''Oskiniko'', meaning “Young Man.” At age nine, when his father was serving in World War II, Loyie was sent to the St. Bernand

Indian Residential School In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school sys ...

Grouard Grouard, also known as Grouard Mission, is a hamlet in northern Alberta within Big Lakes County. It was previously an incorporated municipality between 1909 and 1944. Grouard is located north of Highway 2, approximately northeast of Grande ...

, Alberta. Separated from his family for long periods, he attended St. Bernand's through age 14.

Work and career

After leaving school, Loyie started working. He first worked in the fishery industry and logging. Later he studied to become certified as a counsellor. He served in the

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as a

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. By 1992, he had moved from the interior to Vancouver, British Columbia. There he met his future partner

Constance Brissenden Constance may refer to: Places *Konstanz, Germany, sometimes written as Constance in English *Constance Bay, Ottawa, Canada *Constance, Kentucky *Constance, Minnesota *Constance (Portugal) *Mount Constance, Washington State People *Constance ( ...

, a writer and editor, at a free creative writing class in the city's

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neighbourhood. In 1993 the couple founded the Living Traditions Writers Group, to encourage Indigenous writers. In 2010 Loyie was diagnosed with cancer. He died at the age of 82 in

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, Alberta on April 18, 2016. He had three sons: Edmund, Lawrence, and Brad. In 2019, Loyie's archive was donated to the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the

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. It has become a major resource for oral and written histories, and creative works related to the residential schools.

Writing

Loyie and Brissenden wrote eight children's books together that were drawn from Loyie's traditional Cree childhood and his six years in residential school. Loyie explored his residential school experience in a variety of genres: his play ''Ora Pro Nobis (Pray for Us)'' (published in 1998 with one by Vera Manuel), ''When the Spirits Dance'' (2006), and ''Residential Schools: With the Words and Images of Survivors'' (2014).

Legacy and honours

Loyie's children's book ''As Long as the Rivers Flow'' (2005) recounts his last summer before entering residential school. It won the

Norma Fleck Award The Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction is a lucrative literary award founded in May 1999 by the Fleck Family Foundation and the Canadian Children's Book Centre, and presented to the year's best non-fiction book for a youth aud ...

for Canadian Children's

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

. Loyie was the first

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

author to win this award.

Published writing

Plays

* ''Ora Pro Nobis, Pray for Us'' (1994), first performed in Vancouver, British Columbia. * ''Fifty Years Credit'' (play, 1998), first performed at

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, Canada. * ''No Way to Say Goodbye'' (play, 1999), first performed for Aboriginal

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

Conference, Alberta, Canada.

Books

* * * * * * * . * *

Chapters in Books

* ''Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1979–2000''. Edited by Margaret L. Archuleta, Brenda J. Child and

K. Tsianina Lomawaima K. Tsianina Lomawaima (born 1955) is an interdisciplinary researcher of Indigenous Studies, anthropology, history, and political science. She is a professor in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She specializes in th ...

. Phoenix, Arizona: Heard Museum, (2000). Includes excerpts from ''Oka Pro Nobis.'' * Loyie, Larry. “First Nations People”, in ''First Nations People in Vancouver Area''. Vancouver BC: Linkman Press, Vancouver, (2000).

Editorial Work

* ''The Wind Cannot Read'' (Province of British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology, 1992).

Awards

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Literacy Award for Individual Achievement, British Columbia (2001). *

for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction for ''As Long As The Rivers Flow'' (2003). * Moonbeam Children's Silver Book Award for Health Issues, for ''The Gathering Tree'' (2012).

Reception

Larry Loyie's works have frequently been used in classroom instruction related to the history of residential schools in Canada. Reviews of ''Goodbye Buffalo Bay'' have praised Loyie's open and candid writing style in a work that explores his experiences in Canada's residential school system and after.

References

External links

Larry Loyie's Author Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loyie, Larry 1933 births 2016 deaths 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers 21st-century First Nations writers Cree people