Based on first person reportage of the four months Shimo lived in Kashechewan First Nation reserve in northern Ontario, the book describes how inhuman conditions had decimated the local community and the legal, economic and political circumstances that trap many northern indigenous communities in poverty.
The book was longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize, and a finalist for the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.
[3] Shimo was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2014 Governor General's Awards as cowriter of Edmund Metatawabin's memoir Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History.
[4] The book describes Metatawabin's life during and after St. Anne's, a residential school in Fort Albany, northern Ontario.
[7] A former editor at Maclean's, Shimo is a freelance journalist who has contributed to The Guardian, the Toronto Star, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Maclean's, the National Post, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Life, she is also the author of The Environment Equation: 100 Factors That Can Add to or Subtract From Your Total Carbon Footprint.