For much of her life, Inez Cook knew nothing about her biological family. Though her birth certificate identified her as adopted, she had no idea that she was born a member of the Nuxalk Nation, one of the First Nations of Canada, until she reached adulthood. At the age of one, she was forcibly taken from her parents in Bella Coola by the Canadian government and given to a white family to raise. “I didn’t know anything about it growing up,” Cook says. “There was no information. Zero.” Although she…
