Indigenous boy’s tragic tale finally will be told
Multimedia project built on Hip singer’s CD
Secret Path
Sunday, CBC Pearl Achneepineskum has spent much of her life trying to tell her little brother’s story. Until the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie got involved, no one paid much attention.
Her brother was Chanie Wenjack, the 12-year-old indigenous boy who died 50 years ago this month when he ran away from a residential school in Kenora. He was trying to go home to his family in Ogoki Post, almost 1,000 kilometres away. His body was found by the railroad tracks.
Wenjack is the subject of Secret Path, a multimedia project built on Downie’s haunting fifth solo album, along with a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Jeff Lemire and an animated film, co-executive produced by Mike Downie, who is Gord’s brother. The one-hour film premières Sunday on CBC, and will be followed by a panel discussion.
Achneepineskum met with Gord Downie, who is battling terminal brain cancer, when he travelled to Northern Ontario to unveil the album’s first single, The Stranger, for Wenjack’s family. She felt a connection with the poet-singer. “He’s a very down-to-earth person, and I felt that when he’s so sick like that but he wants to do something meaningful, that gives him the joy to keep on going,” said the 68-year-old, who was in Ottawa on Tuesday for Downie’s first Secret Path concert at the National Arts Centre, and to announce the creation of the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund, which is dedicated to improving the lives of Canada’s indigenous people. Money raised will come from Secret Path album, book and concert-ticket sales, and donations.
For Achneepineskum, getting a call from one of the biggest rock stars in the country was no surprise.
“If you understand the Creator, the Creator somehow brings all your wants, your wishes, and it’s on his own time,” she said in an interview. “Maybe this could have happened a long time ago, but it didn’t. It happened in the 50th year. I wasn’t surprised because I was already on a mission to get this out on a national basis so everybody would hear.”
Her determination stemmed from frustration over the fact no one paid attention to the recommendations of the jury after a 1967 inquest into Wenjack’s death.
“We’re dreaming big,” said Mike Downie. “It’s two Downie brothers and two of Chanie’s sisters creating the fund. It allows us to take all of the interest in Gord and his situation, and all of the interest in his interests, which are issues that affect indigenous people ... and trying to put something in place that is going to build a pathway between these two solitudes.”