publications

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Crossing the Red Line tells the story of the national tour of the Sioux Lookout Black Hawks hockey team. Working closely with surviving players and second-generation family members, we are incorporating their stories alongside other material evidence—most notably, a set of historically significant photographs taken by the National Film Board of Canada—to share this complex and compelling history in multiple forms: books, articles, media, photo exhibits, and school curricula. Using hockey as a lens to confront the legacy of residential schools, the project invites Canadians to engage in deeper, more honest conversations about truth and reconciliation in sport, in particular hockey.

Co-Authored Book with Survivors

Giancarlo, A., & Forsyth, J., Te Hiwi, B., with Kelly Bull, Chris Chromarty, & David Wesley (2025). Beyond the Rink: Behind the Images of Residential School Hockey. University of Manitoba Press. 

Articles & Book Chapters

Giancarlo, A. & Forsyth, J. (2024). Indigenous visual history: Remembering "us" in Indian residential school hockey photographs. Journal of the CHA, 34(1), 75-104.

• 2024 Fass-Sandin Prize (honorable mention), Society for the History of Children and Youth.

Giancarlo , A., Forsyth, J., Te Hiwi, B. & McKee, T. (2021). Methodology and  Indigenous memory: Using photographs to anchor critical  reflections on  Indian residential school experiences. Visual Studies, 36(4-5), 406-420. 

McKee,  T. & Forsyth, J. (2019). Witnessing painful pasts: Understanding  images of sports at Canadian Indian residential schools. Journal of Sport History, 46(2), 175-188.

Tehiwi,  B. & Forsyth, J. (2017). "A rink at this school is almost as  essential as a classroom": Hockey and discipline at Pelican Lake Indian  Residential School, 1945-1951. Canadian Journal of History, 52(1), 80-108.

Te Hiwi, B. (2017). “Unlike their playmates of civilization, the Indian children’s recreation must be cultivated and developed”: The administration of physical education at Pelican Lake Indian Residential School, 1926–1944. Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation, 29(1), 99-118.

Forsyth, J. (2013). Bodies of meaning: Sports and games at Canadian residential schools. In J. Forsyth & A. Giles (Eds.), Aboriginal Peoples and Sport in Canada: Historical Foundations and Contemporary Issues (pp. 15-34). Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

Popular Magazines

Giancarlo, A., & Forsyth, J., with Kelly Bull, Chris Chromarty, and David Wesley. (2022, September). We were the lucky ones. Three former players on a residential school hockey team recall the reality behind the snapshots of their 1951 exhibition tour. Canada's History, popular magazine (with online multimedia). 

Giancarlo, A., & Forsyth, J. (2022, April). Playing at the margins: Sports and visual histories of assimilation in Canada’s Indian residential school system. Intersections, a magazine of the Canadian Historical Association, 5(1), 5-6.  

Theses & Dissertations

Ba'abbad, F. (2017). History of Sioux Lookout Black Hawks Hockey team, 1949-1951 [Unpublished master's thesis]. Western University.

Te Hiwi, B. P. (2015). Physical Culture as Citizenship Education at Pelican Lake Indian Residential School, 1926-1970 [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Western University.