. And the jury was obviously moved. An Indian woman in an alcoholic stupor was on her hands and knees on the floor, trying to get out the door. That might have saved Charlie’s life. He carried an enormous, livid scar that ran in a loop from high on his right chest, down and up over his back. [1][2], His body was discovered beside the track at 11:20 am on October 23 by Elwood McIvor, a CN railway engineer on freight train number No. Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack (born 19 January 1954; died 23 October 1966 near Redditt, ON). The project began as ten poems written by Gord as he imagined what it would be like to be Chanie. #PARTOFOURHERITAGE . RELEASED 2016. Chanie Wenjack was a young Anishinaabe boy from Ogoki Post in Marten Falls In Northern Ontario, Canada. Burton was gentle enough, but the boys were withdrawn and for the most part monosyllabic in their answers. By Ian Adams If they had planned it a little better they could have taken along their parkas and overshoes. But if a snap was taken, nobody knows where it is now. An Anishinaabe boy, at age 12, he ran away from his residential school and subsequently died from hunger and exposure to the weather. Charlie Wenjack was an Ojibway Indian attending Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ont. All were caught within 24 hours.). Eddie later broke down on the stand and had to be excused. “I showed him a good trail down to the railroad tracks. We did so with the blessing and support of the Wenjack family and Grand Council Treaty #3. Chanie Wenjack. He has lived in them since he was a child, and taught in them. Charlie’s father, grief-stricken, was bewildered and angry as well. He died as the white world's rules had forced him to live—cut off from his people. So I let them stay. Elwood contacted the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) who recovered the body an hour later with help from a CN section crew. In his 50s, he is known as a good man who doesn’t drink and provides well for his family. The lonely death of Chanie Wenjack. Boyden's superb text is accompanied by outstanding illustrations. The crushed-rock ballast, so hard to walk on, is a pale-yellow supporting ribbon for the dark steel tracks. It started at the Cecillia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, ON, and continued to Redditt, ON for a ceremony representing Chanie's final resting spot near Farlane, ON. He had played hooky for one afternoon a week earlier, and for that he had been spanked by the principal, Colin Wasacase. The school was run by the Women’s Society of the Presbyterian Church. Topic. Kelly is a small man in his 50s. In the following days of loneliness that map was to become the focus of his longings to get back to his father. We have republished that cover story below in its original form, in which Chanie’s teachers misnamed him Charlie. From “ The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack ”: “All Charlie had was a common windbreaker. The frontman of the Tragically Hip worked with Toronto illustrator Jeff Lemire on Secret Path, which includes an album, graphic novel and animated film. Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) First Nations boy who ran away from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School where he boarded for three years while attending residential school in Kenora, Ontario, Canada. He died alone, frozen by the side of northern Ontario train tracks, hundreds of kilometres away from home, his body bruised by repeated falls. The village he came from, Ogoki Post on the Martin Falls reservation, didn’t have a day school. Charlie played outside for a while, then he came in and told Mrs. Kelly he was leaving and he asked for some matches. On the afternoon of Sunday, October 16, when Charlie had only another week to live, he was playing on the Cecilia Jeffrey grounds with his two friends, Ralph and Jackie MacDonald. He spent last year in what is called a junior opportunity class. On March 9, 2018 Trent University marked the official launch of the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. I never seen a kid before who was so quiet like that.”, Nobody told Charlie to go. They are large 8-by-10 prints, grey and underexposed, showing the thin, crumpled little body of a 12-year-old boy with a sharp-featured face. The jury found that “the Indian education system causes tremendous emotional and adjustment problems.” They suggested that the school be staffed adequately so that the children could develop personal relationships with the staff, and that more effort be given to boarding children in private homes. That the music was about the death of Chanie Wenjack was no surprise to some in the audience. This originally was published in the February 1967 issue of Maclean’s magazine. Kelly cooked and divided them among the four boys. He saw Charlie’s body lying beside the track. Bruises indicated that he fell several times. It was on the last part of this walk, probably by the tracks, that Charlie picked up a CNR schedule with a route map in it. “I never seen him again,” said Clara Kelly. He probably spent hours, huddled behind rocks to escape the wind, gazing at the railroad tracks. In fact, he was thin and sickly. “I just work here part-time,” he said. Charlie was 12, and Indigenous. The arm turned gangrenous and was amputated. He died as the white world's rules had forced him to live—cut off from his people. ... Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City, which won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction and the 2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. The Sunday they went to pick up Charlie’s body, intermittent snow and sleet blew through Kenora’s streets. No, they didn’t understand why they had to be at the school. At the age of nine, he was sent, along with his two sisters, to board at the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora. CHARLIE WENJACK would have been 13 years old on January 19, and it’s possible that during his short and disturbed life someone may have taken a snapshot of him — one of those laughing, open-faced, blurred little pictures one so often sees of children. At that time the staff were all new and still trying to match names to faces. Chanie Wenjack, 12, died from exposure and hunger. In one of the photographs an Ontario Provincial Police sergeant is pointing down at Charlie’s body, where it lies beside the CNR track. Mrs. Kelly gave him some wooden matches and put them in a little glass jar with a screw cap so they would keep dry. There were no Indians on the jury. Fifty years after Chanie Wenjack's tragic death while running away from residential school, his sister says it's time every First Nation had its own school. Would they run away again? They circled the Kenora airfield and struck out north through the bush over a “secret trail” children at the school like to use. Once there, he was given the name 'Charlie'. After hearing about Chanie Wenjack’s life and death, Gord Downie began a personal project to tell the story of Chanie and share it with other Canadians. He, too, had run away from the school. Ojibwe artist and curator from M'Chigeeng First Nation, Ontario. It was a sunny afternoon and they were wearing only light clothing. He was walking alone along a railway track, trying to make his way home to his father 600 kilometres away in northern Ontario. The earth and rocks are a cold brown and black. The 84th Heritage Minute in Historica Canada's collection. The three boys stayed with Ralph and Jackie's uncle, Charley Kelly, in Redditt. There is news today that this story is the inspiration for a new project from Gord Downie that will be released next month. Animation on the screen above the band showed Chanie’s terrifying experience at … It was a show in which a dying man acted out the dying moments of a child who froze to death, alone. by ahnationtalk on September 20, 2016 2095 Views. View Full Article. He was an Indian. It’s the only way you can get to Charlie’s home. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the death of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack, who died on October 22, 1966 after fleeing Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario. But Charlie didn’t ask anyone for anything. That means he was a slow learner and had to be given special instruction in English and arithmetic. “I told the boys they would have to go back to school. They are raising awareness and funds for the Walk for Chanie Wenjack. I didn’t know what to do. So it must have been with a defiant attempt to assert his own trail existence that he would take out his map and show it to his friend Eddie Cameron, and together they would try to make sense out of it. And when a snow squall comes tunnelling through a rock cut it blots out everything in a blur of whiteness. No, it was the higher-ups, the government,” replied the man. Chanie (misnamed Charlie by his teachers) was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who, along with two other classmates, ran away from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario in October 1966. A year after Wenjack's death an article written by journalist Ian Adams, "The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack," was published in February 1967 in Maclean's magazine. It is unlikely that Charlie ever understood why he had to go to school and why it had to be such a long way from home. His own parents kept him out of school for two years because another boy in the family died much the same way Charlie did. There were two housewives, a railroad worker, a service-station operator, and Robinson, who is a teacher at the Beaverbrae School in Kenora. Charlie wasn’t a strong boy. Chanie’s story sparked national conversation about the standards and practices of Residential Schools. On November 19, 2016, we set out from the former site of the Residential school and retraced the final journey of Chanie. When Eddie Cameron began to cry on the stand, the jury foreman, J. R. Robinson, said later, “I wanted to go and put my arms around that little boy and hold him, and tell him not to cry.”. Sometimes they lose a leg or an arm trying to climb aboard freight trains. The Feburary 1967 Maclean's article "The lonely death of Chanie Wenjack" Reading that Maclean’s story now, the most unsettling fact is just how familiar it seems. It was part of a collaborative effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Chanie's death. The kid behind the counter suddenly turned whitefaced and angry, “No, we did,” he said. An hour later a section crew and two police officers went out to bring Charlie’s body back. Chanie attended the school for two years and ran away on Oct 16, 1966. They were all dry. And Charlie would tell Eddie that he was going to leave soon to go home to his father. Secret Path Week is a national week to remember the death of Chanie Wenjack, a young Anishinaabe boy who died trying to run away from residential school and reunite with his parents. I told him to ask the sectionmen along the way for some food.”. Anong Beam. It started at the Cecillia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, ON, and continued to Redditt, ON for a ceremony representing Chanie's final resting spot near Farlane, ON. Published in October 2016, a novella by Canadian author Joseph Boyden focused on the suffering Wenjack endured and his state of mind during his ordeal. Chanie was born January 19, 1954. But the most poignant suggestion was the one that reflected their own bewilderment: “A study be made of the present Indian education and philosophy. If the worst comes to the worst you can always light a fire to keep warm. I couldn’t let them run around in the bush. “I never said nothing to that,” says Kelly. This fall he wasn’t quite good enough to go back into the grade system, so he was placed in what is called a senior opportunity class. “He was always looking at this map,” said Mrs. Kelly, “and you couldn’t get nothing out of him. That same morning Charlie’s best friend, Eddie Cameron, showed up at the Kelly cabin. Some 150 Indian children live at the school but are integrated into the local school system. The Kellys gave him some food and matches and suggested that he ask for help from the section maintenance crews stationed along the line. He attended Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario. The school, a bleak institutional building, stands on a few acres on the northeast outskirts of Kenora. The wind whines through the jackpines and spruce, breaking off rotten branches, which fall with sudden crashes. And though he stayed alive for the next 36 hours, nobody saw him alive again. The church services were over, and the congregations from Knox United Church and the First Presbyterian Church, which face each other at Second Street and Fifth Avenue, were spilling out onto the sidewalks. The album, dubbed Secret Path, was released on October 18, 2016,[7][8] along with a concurrent graphic novel of Wenjack's story by novelist Jeff Lemire and an animated film which aired on CBC Television. From Nakina they all flew 110 miles north to Ogoki. He had found a CN passenger timetable which included a map and was using it as guide to get back home. And that’s all he had. Chanie had frozen to death. Chanie was a young boy who died on October 22, 1966, walking the railroad tracks, trying to escape from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School to walk home. He died trying to walk 400 miles home to his father, who lives and works on an isolated reservation in northern Ontario. just four-and-a-half feet from the trains that carry the white world by in warm and well-fed comfort. In 1967, a Maclean’s cover story told the tragic tale of Chanie Wenjack, an Indigenous boy who died after running away from his residential school in northern Ontario. . Wenjack began his schooling at the age of nine and was put in remedial classes soon after. Consequently, Cecilia Jeffrey is, for 10 months in the year, really nothing more than an enormous dormitory. When they found Charlie he didn’t have any identification. Wikipedia. At 11:20 a.m. on Sunday, October 23, engineer Elwood Mclvor was bringing a freight train west through the rock cut near Farlane, 12 1/2 miles east of Redditt. The postmortem that was later performed on Charlie by Dr. Peter Pan. February 1, 1967. None of the half-dozen whites sitting at the counter even looked at her. Bruises indicated that he fell several times. The largest lecture hall on campus was subsequently named Wenjack Theatre in Wenjack's honour. Later he and his wife Clara would refer to Charlie as “the stranger.” The Kellys had no idea where Charlie’s reserve was or how to get there. © Copyright 2021 St. Joseph Communications. .I guess I’ll have to learn to keep my mouth shut. Coroner Dr. Glenn Davidson determined the cause of the death was attributed to exposure and hunger. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com: accessed ), memorial page for Chanie “Charlie” Wenjack (19 Jan 1954–23 Oct 1966), Find a Grave Memorial no. Common windbreaker fingers through his grey, shoulder-length hair were all new still. A snow squall comes tunnelling through a rock cut it blots out everything in a train two... 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