Chanie died because of government policies meant to exterminate all traces of his indigenous culture and traditions. Chanie died because he was taken from his home when he did not want to leave. As with most stories, though, Chanie’s has layers, has depth and context–it has truth–that can’t be cropped out and edited away.Ĭhanie died because he froze to death following a railway he hoped and believed would take him home. Chanie Wenjack died 50 years ago, cold and alone as he fled the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School, an institution he was forced into attending. He wanted to be where he felt safe, surrounded by his familiars. Chanie Wenjack just wanted to go home, too. The next hundred years are going to be painful as we come to know Chanie Wenjack and thousands like him – as we find out about ourselves, about all of us – but only when we do can we truly call ourselves, “Canada.When I get scared, tired, or sick, I want to go home. I have always wondered why, even as a kid, I never thought of Canada as a country – It’s not a popular thought you keep it to yourself – I never wrote of it as so. Because at the same time that aboriginal people were being demeaned in the schools and their culture and language were being taken away from them and they were being told that they were inferior, they were pagans, that they were heathens and savages and that they were unworthy of being respected - that very same message was being given to the non-aboriginal children in the public schools as well…They need to know that history includes them.” (Murray Sinclair, Ottawa Citizen, May 24, 2015) I am trying in this small way to help spread what Murray Sinclair said, “This is not an aboriginal problem. It will take seven generations to fix this. We weren’t taught it it was hardly ever mentioned.Īll of those Governments, and all of those Churches, for all of those years, misused themselves.
“White” Canada knew – on somebody’s purpose – nothing about this. We are all accountable, but this begins in the late 1800s and goes to 1996.
We are not the country we thought we were. I never knew Chanie, the child his teachers misnamed Charlie, but I will always love him.Ĭhanie haunts me.
#GORDON DOWNIE SECRET PATH SONGS HOW TO#
He didn’t know where it was, nor know how to find it, but, like so many kids – more than anyone will be able to imagine – he tried. Mike Downie introduced me to Chanie Wenjack he gave me the story from Ian Adam’s Maclean’s magazine story dating back to February 6, 1967, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.”Ĭhanie 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. Every year as Chanie Wenjack is remembered, the hope for Secret Path is that it educates all Canadians (young and old) about this omitted part of our history, urging the entire nation to play an active role in the preservation of Indigenous lives and culture in Canada. Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history – the long-suppressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the residential school system – with the hope of starting the country on a road to reconciliation. This is about Canada…The next hundred years are going to be painful as we come to know Chanie Wenjack and thousands like him – as we find out about ourselves, about all of us – but only when we do can we truly call ourselves Canada.” - Gord Downie
Downie was introduced to the story by his brother Mike, who shared with him Ian Adams’ Maclean’s story from February 6, 1967, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.” Chanie was attempting to walk the 400 miles back home to the family from whom he was taken. Secret Path, is ten songs that tell the story of Chanie Wenjack (whose teachers miscalled “Charlie”), a twelve year-old boy who died fleeing the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario fifty years ago.
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