This weekend will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Chanie Wenjack, the Ojibway boy who ran away from a residential school, only to die of hunger and exposure.
The boy Gord Downie, who is also dying, has made it his last project to remember.
You know, this boy...
Who for me serves as a symbol for all the other native children who were so horrible mistreated.
So it seems only fitting that fifty years later another group of young aboriginals is trying to stop the horrifying epidemic of suicides in their communities.
With a project called We Matter.
Which couldn't be more moving or more needed.
And as for Gord Downie, he has finished his animated film about Chanie Wenjack.
And here's a song from that film the Secret Path, called The Stranger...
You can watch the whole film on Sunday on the CBC.
And if you get a chance to watch it, and I hope you will.
Please say thank you Gord Downie.
And ask yourself how far we have come in fifty years...
And when will this Canadian horror story, this nightmare, ever end?
2 comments:
Canada - what incredible beauty in the northern silence of our souls, what humanity!
thank you Gordie for changing relative points, one at a time.
thank you Simon for writing about things that matter.
hi Luce...thank you. I like writing those kind of posts, instead of the usual political ones. The suicide epidemic in the north, the story of Chanie Wenjack, and the story of Gord Downie move me greatly. And I plan to write more stories like that one...
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