Upon its release it was named a CBC Canada Reads Finalist, OLA Evergreen Award and a KOBO Emerging Writer Prize.

Birdie has ventured to Gibsons to find Pat John (Jesse from the Beachcombers) who she views as representative of a healthy Indigenous man.

Lindberg, in the author interview, explains that Pimatisewin is a Cree word that roughly translates to "the good life" in English.

[8] Auntie Val, when she tells a bit of her story, relates that her grandmother's people had not signed their rights away to the Treaty Commissioner.

.have not been colonized or 'Indian Acted' to death, but because they did not sign any treaties their family was not legally allowed to live on the reserve in Loon Lake.

[4] Lindberg expands on this point in the author interview when she states that Bernice's family had a home on the reserve but they could not inhabit that house because they were not status Indians.

[13] At CBC Canada Reads in 2016, 10,000 copies of Birdie were donated to Canadian schools by Bruce Poon Tip, the defender of Lindberg's novel.