2025 CBC Canada Reads Winner: A Two Spirit Journey!

2SLGBTQIA+Announcement Public Education Updates

March 26, 2025

Local elder, author, activist Ma-Nee Chacaby’s book A Two-Spirit Journey, championed by Shayla Stonechild, was declared the winner of CBC Canada Reads 2025!

“I would urge Canadians and all listeners to take action, but also to open your heart like Ma-Nee’s,” said Stonechild. “There’s been so many strangers that have helped her along her journey and that’s what makes us Canadian and that’s what makes us unite as a country and as a nation.”

“Mary and I want to thank everyone who joined us on this journey and made it possible, especially our friends and loved ones, and the wonderful staff of the University of Manitoba Press and Canada Reads. We really appreciate all of the readers and the other writers that also joined us on this journey. Most of all we are grateful to Shayla Stonechild for choosing the book and championing it so well!” she said. “We hope the book will inspire other people to tell their stories, especially First Nations elders who have so much to share. I encourage everybody to just enjoy your life today and remember to love yourself.”

Mary Plummer, the book’s co-writer and Chacaby’s close friend, is a social scientist whose work focuses on public health and children’s rights. She collaborated with Chacaby, who only learned English later in life and is visually impaired, to tell Chacaby’s story in the most authentic possible way, drawing on academic research about Indigenous storytelling and years of friendship and mutual trust.

In A Two-Spirit Journey, published in 2016, Chacaby shares the story of her life, from her childhood in the remote community of Ombabika, Ontario, where she learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and practical survival skills, including trapping and hunting, from her Ojibwa stepfather, to fleeing an abusive marriage and moving to Thunder Bay with her children at the age of 20, and on to her work as an alcoholism counsellor and leader of Thunder Bay’s first gay pride parade in 2013. Read an excerpt here