Born on this Day: Richard Wagamese October 4, 1955

Richard Wagamese described himself as a second-generation survivor of Canada’s residential school system and used the trauma he experienced at the hands of his biological family and later his foster and adoptive families to fuel his writing career. Wagamese wrote 13 books which included fiction novels, children’s books, poetry, and non-fiction including two memoirs.

His most famous book, Indian Horse, published in 2012, won the Burt Award For First Nations (2013) and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Indian Horse was also a competing title in CBC’s Canada Reads in 2013. The book was adapted into a feature-length film of the same name in 2017.

In an essay titled “A Path to Healing”, Wagamese described his first home as a tent hung from a spruce bough. His parents had suffered abuse at the hands of schoolmasters in Canada’s residential school system. According to the executive summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, residential schools were designed with a “belief that the colonizers were bringing civilization to savage people who could never civilize themselves…a belief in racial and cultural superiority.”

Wagamese said his parents and many of his extended family members suffered greatly due to the treatment at residential schools, alongside thousands of other native children, and said: “each of the adults had suffered in an institution that tried to scrape the Indian out of their insides, and they came back to the bush raw, sore, and aching.” In the Northern Ontario wilderness, his family fished, hunted, and trapped, however, at the age of two, he and his three siblings were abandoned after the adults caring for him went on a drinking binge in Kenora. He and his siblings left the camp when they ran out of food and firewood and took shelter in a railroad depot where they were found by a policeman.

After a few years in foster care, Wagamese was adopted at the age of 9 by a Presbyterian family who lived in St. Catherines, Ontario. His adoptive family refused to allow him any contact with his First Nations heritage and identity. Eventually, Wagamese left the home at the age of 16, at times suffering homelessness while abusing drugs and alcohol. He was imprisoned several times.

Wagamese said it was during this time when he found refuge at public libraries, first to shelter and later to read.

After reconnecting with his native family at the age of 23, an elder gave him the name Mushkotay Beezheekee Anakwat meaning Buffalo Cloud. The elder also told him his role was to tell stories.

“I did not speak my first Ojibwa word or set foot on my traditional territory until I was twenty-six. I did not know that I had a family, a history, a culture, a source for spirituality, a cosmology, or a traditional way of living. I had no awareness that I belonged somewhere.”

Wagamese started writing for a Native publication titled New Breed and eventually, he began writing for the Calgary Herald. In 1991, he won a National Newspaper Award for his writing. His newspaper columns can be found in the book, The Terrible Summer. He stopped writing for newspapers full-time in 1993 but continued to freelance for specific publications such as The Globe and Mail. His first novel, Keeper ‘n Me was published in 1994. He went on to publish five other novels, children’s books, books of poetry, and non-fiction including memoirs.

In 2012, he was awarded an IndSpire Award for his representation in communications and media. That same year, Super Channel announced it was funding an adaptation of his best-known novel Indian Horse. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival in September, although Wagamese was not able to attend. He had died earlier that year on March 10 at his home due to natural causes.