
Medicine River
A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
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Narrated by:
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Erin Tripp
About this listen
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life
From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.
Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember's own childhood and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.
©2025 Mary Annette Pember (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
One of The New York Times' Nonfiction Books to Read This Spring
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Ms. Magazine, The Orange County Register, Electric Literature
“Powerful. . . . An important work in the growing literature about the trauma those boarding schools inflicted on generations of Native peoples. . . . Pember’s journalism and advocacy [make] clear the scope and impact of one major pillar of this epochal injustice. . . . . It’s essential that stories like Pember’s stories are amplified and the momentum toward justice is sustained until such a time as it can be delivered.”—Los Angeles Times
“[Pember’s] expertise is on full display here. There’s no one more equipped to cover the tragedy of boarding schools, their lasting legacy and the survivance of those forced to attend.”—Ms. Magazine
“A searing account of Indian boarding schools and the impact they continue to have on families, communities and cultures. . . . Medicine River is [Pember’s] magnum opus, a must-read for all people who long to see justice flow. . . . An unforgettable read.”—BookPage (starred review)
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- A History of Sex and Christianity
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Length: 25 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.
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Brilliant book, charmingly narrated
- By Sean Robinson on 06-13-25
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God's Battalions
- The Case for the Crusades
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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A respected and controversial scholar argues that the Crusades were a justified war waged against Muslim terror and aggression. This book takes on the current vogue in liberal thinking to argue that, in fact, the Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s Battalions.
By: Rodney Stark
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The Fairbanks Four
- Murder, Injustice, and the Birth of a Movement
- By: Brian Patrick O’Donoghue
- Narrated by: Chris Henry Coffey
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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October, 1997. Late one night in Fairbanks, Alaska, a passerby finds a teenager unconscious, collapsed on the edge of the road, beaten nearly beyond recognition. Two days later, he dies in the hospital. His name is John Gilbert Hartman and he's just turned 15 years old. The police quickly arrest four suspects, all under the age of 21 and of Alaska Native and American Indian descent. Police lineup witnesses, trials follow, and all four men receive lengthy prison terms. Case closed. But journalist Brian Patrick O'Donoghue can't put the story out of his mind.
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Heartbreaking
- By Dean Cook on 06-02-25
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Education for Extinction
- American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928
- By: David Wallace Adams
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The last "Indian War" was fought against Native American children in the dormitories and classrooms of government boarding schools. Only by removing Indian children from their homes for extended periods of time, policymakers reasoned, could white "civilization" take root while childhood memories of "savagism" gradually faded to the point of extinction. In the words of one official: "Kill the Indian and save the man."
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missing sections from the text
- By Ayana Scott-Elliston on 09-18-24
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Medicine River
- By: Thomas King
- Narrated by: Wesley French
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother’s funeral. He doesn’t count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town’s only Native photographer. Somehow, that’s exactly what happens. Through Will’s gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve. And we meet its people: the basketball team; Louise Heavyman and her daughter, South Wing, and many more.
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Worth avoiding
- By Graham Findlay on 12-02-21
By: Thomas King
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America, América
- A New History of the New World
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 25 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.
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Our fates intertwined
- By Alex Scheel on 07-01-25
By: Greg Grandin
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The Acid Queen
- The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary
- By: Susannah Cahalan
- Narrated by: Susannah Cahalan
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut, and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time.
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Important story/History.
- By Frank Lucido on 07-01-25
By: Susannah Cahalan
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The Indian Card
- Who Gets to Be Native in America
- By: Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz
- Narrated by: Amy Hall
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Indian Card, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz grapples with these contradictions. Through in-depth interviews, she shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation, trying to define themselves outside of bureaucratic processes. With archival research, she pieces together the history of blood quantum and tribal rolls and federal government intrusion on Native identity-making.
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A passionate author
- By Gunny on 11-18-24
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When It All Burns
- Fighting Fire in a Transformed World
- By: Jordan Thomas
- Narrated by: Jordan Thomas
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In When It All Burns, wildland firefighter and anthropologist Jordan Thomas recounts a single, brutal six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots—the special forces of America’s firefighters. Being a hotshot is among the most difficult jobs on earth. Thomas viscerally renders his crew’s attempts to battle flames that are often too destructive to contain. He uncovers the hidden cultural history of megafires, revealing how humanity’s symbiotic relationship with wildfire became a war—and what can be done to change it back.
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Life as a Hotshot and impact of fire within our lands.
- By Willie on 07-02-25
By: Jordan Thomas
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The Determined Spy
- The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner
- By: Douglas Waller
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate and expertly researched biography of little-known early CIA leader Frank Wisner, whose behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War policy—and hundreds of highly secret anti-Soviet missions—resonates with the international crises we see today.
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Essential For Understanding The Cold War
- By Demetrius Walker on 05-13-25
By: Douglas Waller
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And If I Perish
- Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II
- By: Evelyn M. Monahan, Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In World War II, 59,000 women voluntarily risked their lives for their country as US Army nurses. For more than half a century these women's experiences remained untold, almost without reference in books, historical societies, or military archives. After years of research and hundreds of hours of interviews, Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee have created a dramatic narrative that at last brings to light the critical role that women played throughout the war.
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Mind blown! I learned so much!
- By Christine Ciana Calabrese on 05-08-22
By: Evelyn M. Monahan, and others
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Yellow Bird
- Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country
- By: Sierra Crane Murdoch
- Narrated by: Sierra Crane Murdoch
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher “KC” Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone.
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Interesting story, dull narration
- By Sophia Loch on 08-16-20
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The Hollow Half
- A Memoir of Bodies and Borders
- By: Sarah Aziza
- Narrated by: Sarah Aziza
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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“You were dead, Sarah, you were dead.” In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, is narrowly saved after being hospitalized for an eating disorder. The doctors revive her body, but it is no simple thing to return to the land of the living. Aziza’s crisis is a rupture that brings both her ancestral and personal past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a mysterious incident summons the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother.
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the incredible writing and touching while revealing story
- By Mayami Art on 07-02-25
By: Sarah Aziza
Great
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Medicine River really brought a lot of feelings to the surface from my own experience with my family.🪶💔🥀
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great!
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Government treatment of natives
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