Larry Loyie was an award-winning Canadian author and playwright of Cree ancestry. He was known for works about his residential school experience as a child.
Personal life
Loyie was born in Slave Lake, Alberta, Canada. His grandfather Edward Twin of Kinuso was a tribal elder who gave Loyie his Cree name of Oskiniko, meaning “Young Man.” At age nine Loyie was taken to the St. Bernand Indian Residential School in Grouard, Alberta. He attended St. Bernand's until age 14. Loyie worked in the fishery industry, logging and counselling. He also served in the Canadian Forces as a paratrooper. In 1992, he met his future partner Constance Brissenden at free creative writing class in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In 1993 the couple founded the Living Traditions Writers Group with his partner. In 2010 Loyie was diagnosed with cancer. He passed away at the age of 82 in Edmonton, Alberta on April 18, 2016. He had three sons: Edmund, Lawrence, and Brad. In 2019, the archives documenting work of Loyie was donated to the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia.
Writing
Loyie and Brissenden wrote eight books together based on Loyie's traditional Cree childhood and his six years in residential school. Loyie described his residential school experience in Ora Pro Nobis, 2006's When the Spirits Dance, 2014's Residential Schools: With the Words and Images of Survivors. Loyie's children's bookAs Long as the Rivers Flow recounts his last summer before entering residential school. It won the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's non-fiction. Loyie was the first First Nations author to win this award.
No Way to Say Goodbye, first performed for Aboriginal AIDS Conference, Alberta, Canada,.
Books
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Chapters in Books
Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences, 1979–2000. Edited by Margaret L. Archuleta, Brenda J. Child and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. Phoenix, Arizona: Heard Museum,. Includes excerpts from Oka Pro Nobis.
Loyie, Larry “First Nations People” in First Nations People in Vancouver Area. Vancouver BC: Linkman Press, Vancouver,.
Editorial Work
The Wind Cannot Read.
Awards
Canada Post Literacy Award for Individual Achievement, British Columbia.
Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction for As Long As The Rivers Flow.
Larry Loyie's works have frequently been used in classroom instruction around residential school history in Canada. Reviews of Goodbye Buffalo Bay have praised Loyie's open and candid writing style in a work while exploring his experiences in Canada's residential school system and after.
