Stolen: Multiple Seasons
4.9/5
Critic Rating
Season 2: Last May, investigative journalist Connie Walker came upon a story about her late father she'd never heard before. One night back in the late 1970s while he was working as an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he pulled over a suspected drunk driver. He walked up to the vehicle and came face-to-face with a ghost from his past—a residential school priest. What happened on the road that night set in motion an investigation that would send Connie deep into her own past, trying to uncover the secrets of her family and the legacy of trauma passed down through the generations. In Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's, Connie unearths how her family's story fits into one of Canada's darkest chapters: the residential school system. Season 1: Stolen is an investigative podcast that follows the mysterious disappearance of a young Indigenous woman in Montana. In this audio documentary, Jermain Charlo’s family, law enforcement and private investigators struggle to find her. As we follow the search for clues and leads, it reveals a larger story of what it means to be an Indigenous woman in America.
Critic Reviews
Score: 5
Nicholas Quah • Vulture • Dec 13, 2022
"(Season: Surviving St. Michael's)...both an expansion and a deepening of her project with Walker turning inward to explore a story in her own family. What emerges is a moving investigation via oral history and an affecting recognition of the close relationship between the personal and the political."
Score: 5
Lauren Passell • Podcast The Newsletter • Jun 20, 2022
"(Season: Surviving St. Michael's)...a deep personal and gripping story about Connie tracing her family’s history to residential schools in Canada...Connie goes full in, cracking open a conversation that is eye-opening whether Gauthier can be “trusted”..."
Score: 5
Marsha Lederman • The Globe and Mail • May 23, 2022
"(Season: Surviving St. Michael's)...the stories come to life, and the trail gets warmer. It’s revealing, riveting. Walker delivers it all with such openness, even as devastating details emerge. Walker, who lives in Toronto, employs trauma-informed reporting, approaching her interview subjects with extreme sensitivity."
Score: 5
Hannah Verdier • The Guardian • May 19, 2022
"(Season: Surviving St. Michael's) ...disturbing catalogue of what went on at St Michael’s school in Saskatchewan from the 1950s to the 70s and the effects it had on families."
Score: 5
Wendy J. Fox • PodcastReview.org • Apr 14, 2021
"Stolen is extremely well produced, balanced between Walker’s narration and source audio. Underscoring the very real threat of trafficking faced by Indigenous women in Montana and across the US and Canada, the podcast is urgent and compelling. Stolen has received much-deserved praise from many media outlets, so it seems clear that the episodes are being listened to. What’s less clear is if the stories of women like Charlo are, within the larger cultural landscape, truly being heard."
Score: 4.5
Nicholas Quah • Vulture • Mar 3, 2021
"I’ve listened to the first two episodes, and the transition is pretty smooth: It has the same high level of dogged reporting, the same compelling rhythms of chasing down leads in a case, and the same determined perspective of a reporter staring down a long history of violence. As it turns out, the change in locale doesn’t end up meaning much, as colonialism affects indigenous people on both sides of the border in much the same way. …"
