Small Ceremonies

A poignant coming-of-age story following the friendships, hopes, fears, and struggles of a group of Native high school students from Winnipeg’s North End illuminating what it’s like to grow up forgotten, urban, poor, and Indigenous.

Word on the street is that this is the Tigers’ last season. For Tomahawk ＂Tommy＂ Shields, an image-obsessed high school student from a northern Indian reserve, the potential loss of his hockey team serves as a stark reminder of the fact that he is completely uncertain about his future. He can’t help but feel that each of his peers has some skill or gift that he lacks, yet each of their perceived virtues hides darker truths too. Clinton is beloved by teachers, but his ＂good kid＂ disposition is a desparate attempt not to end up falling prey to the gang violence his older brother has become enmeshed in. Floyd has incredible talent on the ice, yet behind that talent lies deep insecurity about his multiracial background. And the adults that populate Tommy’s life--his mother who struggles with schizophrenia; Pete, the wayward Zamboni driver; and elders Maggie and Olga--offer a mixture of well-intentioned but often misguided support and a depressing portent of what the future could hold.

Set in Winnipeg’s north end, a remote neighborhood at the border of Canada’s eastern woodlands and central prairies, Small Ceremonies follows a community that both literally and figuratively straddles two worlds. As its richly drawn characters navigate the thrilling independence of adulthood and the loss of innocence that accompanies adolescence, one can’t help but root for Tommy and his community, even as Tommy himself reckons with his place in it.

Kyle Edwards grew up on the Lake Manitoba First Nation in Winnipeg’s North End. A graduate of Ryerson University, he has worked as a journalist for Native News Online, ProPublica and Maclean’s, and was a 2021 Nieman Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He has won two National Magazine Awards in Canada for his reporting, and was named Emerging Indigenous Journalist by the Canadian Association of Journalists in 2019. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Southern California.