Indigenous storyteller Michelle Good honoured to be appointed to Order of Canada

Mick Favel brings you this week’s edition of Indigenous Circle.

Michelle Good, widely known for her debut novel, Five Little Indians, was one of 80 new appointees to the Order of Canada in 2025, and one of only two from Saskatchewan.

She joined philanthropist and businessman Wayne Brownlee in receiving the honour.

Five Little Indians focuses on five survivors as they struggle to rebuild their lives in Vancouver, after leaving Canada’s Indian residential school system.

“I got some pretty amazing feedback from readers about how it changed their point of view,” the author explained.

“... Hopefully that’s the kind of work that I can continue to do.”

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Good told CTV News that being appointed to the Order of Canada was a massive surprise as well as a tremendous honour.

“That really hits home when you realize that there are fewer than 8,500 people who have been honoured by admittance into the Order of Canada since its inception. It’s a tremendous honour and it’s one that inspires soul searching in terms of how I can continue to do positive, change-making work.”

Good followed up her debut novel with 2023’s Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada.

Tanya Rogoschewsky, the director of community engagement and programming for the Regina Public Library, said that as the province and the country move towards reconciliation, its important to hear about it from an Indigenous perspective like Good’s.

“I think Michelle Good is actually quite interesting because she approaches it both from the perspective of fiction, which can bring a lot of empathy to the conversation, but she also writes non-fiction. And she’s such an amazing researcher, so she really has all the facts and statistics that back up those personal experiences.”

Good has said its important to write the stories that she does, because it provides context for the Indigenous reality in Canada.

A reality that is dark, and includes the overincarceration of Indigenous people and the vast number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), according to Good.

“If we can get underneath that myth of Canadian history and experience or understand the precursors to these impacts, then I think we can have a far more meaningful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canada,” she added.

Good has said her next novel is coming out in August. It will be split into three parts, as it follows three generations of Indigenous women from colonial to modern times.