The Last Six Years Old Is Martha To The Nun

In 1962, when young Martha is only six years old, she is taken from her home on the Cat Lake Indian Reserve in northern Ontario to attend a residential school at James Bay. When first arriving she is taken back at the sight of the nuns. She believes they are monsters from the stories she was told as a kid by the elders on the reserve. During her hysterical cry for help a nun named Sister Angelica, who herself was Native and spent time at a residential school, slapped Martha across the face for daring to disobey the nuns. This abuse carried on during her stay at the residential school for even the slightest offences. As well as receiving abuse from the nuns she is also being sexually abused by the priest who honestly thought he was just “showing them his affection”. During her late teens, after returning home from residential school, Martha and her mother’s relationship is weary, especially since the death of her father. Martha slips into depression and has trouble doing the simplest of tasks. She then starts hanging out with another group of former Residential school attenders. At the same time period she also succumbs to alcoholism and has a baby boy with
another drunk from the reserve. Child services eventually comes and takes away her child because of her alcohol addiction. After this Martha moves in with her mom and slowly rebuilds their relationship. She also decides to stop drinking. She then haves another child, a girl, whom she names Raven. Martha leaves her little girl with her mother while she goes to Toronto to try and find her way in life and find her first child. A dozen years later Martha’s mother passes away and Martha decides to move back to Cake Lake to be with her daughter, who is about to turn 13, but she won’t move until she finds her some.
She does and it turns out he is a homeless drunk sleeping under a bridge. She moves back to Cat Lake with her son and her daughter. After her son steals a canoe and goes down the river in it Martha falls into the depression she was in when she was in her teens again. She also succumbs to alcoholism again. During this time, she doesn’t notice many of the young First Nations children are committing suicide on their 13th birthday, along with many of her daughter’s friends. What no one knows is that there is a suicide pact among the young teen that they will all kill themselves on their 13th birthday and Raven is part of that
pact. During his expedition down the river Martha’s son, Spider, rids himself of alcohol and learns more about the land he comes from. The chief of the land notices the recent amount of suicide in the teens and decides he has to do something about it. He invites Father Antoine, the priest who sexually abused Martha all those years ago, to a healing circle in hopes that it will bring some peace between the people of Cat Lake. Fortunately, the healing circle works and Martha is able to rid herself of the nightmare she has been having of the priest all those years ago and that night, before the people went to bed, they told their children that they loved them.