Downie brothers illuminate Secret Path
Project examines legacy of residential school system through boy’s tragic story
OTTAWA— Gord Downie wears a worn jean jacket, all buttoned up with a beaded Remembrance Day poppy pinned close to his heart. A black felt, wide-brimmed hat is tilted back on his head.
He has just walked off the stage at the National Arts Centre after playing all 10 songs of his Secret Path multimedia compilation and he is immediately enveloped by friends. He pauses and talks to everyone lined along the hall. Everyone gets a kiss and a big hug.
This is his first concert since his emotional farewell to Canada at the end of August at the conclusion of the Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem Tour.
Once the Hip finished that last show, Downie and his brothers, Mike and Patrick, threw themselves fully, completely into telling the story of 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack.
This has been a difficult year for Downie and his family. Their father, Edgar, died Oct. 27, 2015. The day after Edgar’s funeral, Gord was walking with his mother, Lorna, when he suffered a massive seizure and soon after was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a devastating, terminal cancer of the brain.
On stage, Downie’s voice was strong, filled with hope, but also darkness, as he told the story of the short life Chanie, an indigenous boy who fled Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ont., and tried to walk nearly 600 kilometres to his home to Ogoki Post in Ontario’s far north. Animated images of Wenjack, drawn by artist Jeff Lemire, flashed by on a massive screen above the stage as Downie sang. Each stark illustration laid out Chanie’s last lonely days as he walked along the railway tracks, pelted by freezing rain, before he lay down and died. Downie doesn’t know how much time he has left to live but he is wisely using what he has to teach Canada about Chanie and the legacy of the residential school system that sent 150,000 indigenous children to statefunded, church-run institutions over 130 years to “school the Indian out of them.”
For decades, Downie and the Hip gave a generation the soundtrack of their lives — from the music played at university dorm parties to songs played on the stereo during weekends at the cottage. Downie has always given all of himself on stage. He has never asked anything of his fans. But now, Downie is calling in a favour. He is using the power of his art and this precious moment in time while he has a nation’s attention to compel them to listen. “How many people can you say sang the country into our consciousness, in one way, and then sang the country’s biggest failing back into our consciousness a second time?” asked Mike Downie.
The Downie brothers’ journey began three years ago after Mike heard a CBC radio documentary, by Thunder Bay-based journalist Jody Porter, about Chanie Wenjack’s flight.
Mike was riveted. He called Gord and they went for lunch. That day the brothers, both fathers, committed to telling Chanie’s story and to creating something that would open a dialogue about Canada’s troubled past.
Mike thought they would make a feature film, but then Gord started to write poems. Those poems would eventually turn into music. They researched and processed all the material on Chanie they could find, including Ian Adams’ powerful 1967 Maclean’s article, “The Lonely Death of Chanie Wenjack.”
They also tracked down Pearl Achneepineskum, Chanie’s older sister, in Ogoki and told her they were going to write about him. Mike asked if that was all right. Pearl said it was. Every six months, Mike would call to tell her about what they were up to.
In 2014, the brothers called up Lemire, the acclaimed graphic novelist and DC Comics writer, and met him for coffee. “Before we left the coffee shop, I knew I was going to do it. I had to. Chanie’s story is one that will not let you go once you hear it,” said Lemire in a statement on the SecretPath.ca website.
Lemire drew chapters to the songs and what he produced blew away the Downies.
Mike said he knows how lucky he is to be born in Canada but now, as we look toward Canada’s 150th birthday, truths need to be aired.
Since Confederation, Canada has put forward a beautiful idea of itself, like a gleaming, brand new house that is perfectly done and flawless, but take a harder look and you’ll see there is something not quite right.
“As Gord says,” recalled Mike, “‘we have this great new house built, but we have got someone locked up on the third floor that no one is talking about. The attic is off limits. That is Canada now. Who is up in the attic but the person living on the property where you built the house.’ ”
After Downie’s last Hip show, after he proclaimed on stage, as millions of Canadians watched, that they had all been trained to look away from 100 years of Canada’s indigenous history and now was the time to “do something,” the Downie brothers did.
They boarded a plane and travelled north with Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, and Ry Moran, director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
The Secret Path songs and the graphic novel were done and the Downies wanted to share them and film the trip for a mini CBC documentary.
The Downies had the music, already recorded with the help of Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene and musician Dave Hamelin of the Stills. Lemire’s graphic novel was also done. But next they wanted to combine everything together into a movie. The CBC gave the brothers three months to come up with an animated film to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Chanie’s death on Oct. 22, 1966.
Mike Downie called animator Justin Stephenson. “I asked him, ‘Is it impossible to make a 43-minute film in less than three months?’ He said it wasn’t impossible but almost.”
Ogoki Post, part of Marten Falls First Nation, is a remote, fly-in community, 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. Marten Falls traditional lands are in the Ring of Fire, one of the last, vast untouched boreal forests on Earth. While the community is mired in poverty, it is also home to one of the world’s richest deposits of chromite, the material used to make stainless steel.
There are five surviving Wenjack sisters. Four of the five — Evelyn, Pearl, Daisy and Annie — all came to meet Gord and his brothers.
“Our first meeting was really intense. Some were of the mind that they weren’t really sure their brother Charlie (Chanie) had become a public figure,” said Mike.
“Daisy spoke first, for a while, and there was a long pause. For a long while, we just sat there . . . Then Evelyn spoke. Everyone just spoke their truth. It wasn’t like how I would speak with my friends. It wasn’t adversarial; it was just getting to your truth. It was like a stack of pancakes. One sister speaks, the next one listens, without interruption,” described Mike.
Pearl spoke last and blew everyone away.
“Pearl is the one who said, ‘I will say why they have come. After Charlie died, I asked the Creator that his life not be in vain. That his life means something and that his story one day be told.
“But when you ask the Creator for something it doesn’t happen on your timeline. I had to wait for a very long time. Then the phone rang. And it was Mike, telling me that his brother was writing and recording songs and that they wanted to tell the story of Charlie,’ ” Pearl said.
“When I heard that I cried like a baby,” Mike said. “To think there was something she had been waiting for. I realized this was three years ago. It was really something to hear. It turned into such an emotional moment. She said, ‘That is why they are here. This is what I wanted.’ ”
Pearl asked everyone to hold hands and form a circle. The sisters sat with Gord as well as a niece. Beyond the cameras, there was another dozen Wenjack family members. They put down the cameras and microphone and stood in a circle and Pearl started to sing a traditional Anishinaabe song of prayer.
“It was absolutely unbelievable. I went up there with this idea. We were closing the circle on this project, which had been three years (in the making), a significant piece of time and we know how precious time is, also, Gord is closing a circle. This is a legacy project. We don’t know what he has left, for time,” Mike said.
“In that moment, the circle was so big. It was all of us.”
In the last year, since their father died of prostate cancer and after Gord’s shattering diagnosis, the tight-knit Irish family of siblings Charlyn, Paula, Gord, Patrick, Mike and mother Lorna have all leaned on each other.
“We loved our Irish father. He was born on 86 Mortimer in Toronto. His parents came over on a boat from Ireland. My mom Lorna has had a terrible year, living alone without him, then Gord’s illness. We’ve all had a terrible year. But Gord is the one who has been our leader. We share the leadership but, let’s face it, with Gord, he is such an important guy to all of us. He has made such a difference in my life,” said Mike.
Patrick Downie spoke to the circle, recalled Mike.
“Patrick spoke incredibly eloquently and said, ‘You talk about not wanting your brother’s tragedy to become public, why does it have to be shared? But I can tell you first hand, we have been through a public exercise of grief and pain and it doesn’t make things easier but it can make things better and it can help a lot of people, not just yourself.’ ”
Suddenly the two families were connected.
“I think about the people who care about my brother and it chokes me up. And I think of their grief and my grief and they are the same . . . It is about sharing pain, not holding pain,” he said.
“As Gord says, being up there in that circle, you swear that Chanie died 15 minutes ago, not 50 years ago. That is what happens in a family. There will always be that empty chair.”
Back in Toronto, when Mike was out paddling on Lake Ontario, he conceived the idea of the Gord Downie Chanie Wenjack Fund, an indigenous-led initiative. It is part Wenjack family and part Downie.
The Secret Path book, the album, it all flows to a trust inside the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg.
“We’ll build a path of reconciliation.”
The Secret Path album and graphic novel was released on Tuesday. On Sunday, the CBC is broadcasting an hour-long, commercial-free TV special at 9 p.m.
Donations are being accepted at downiewenjack.ca
“I had to (do it). Chanie’s story is one that will not let you go once you hear it.” JEFF LEMIRE ARTIST “It was like a stack of pancakes. One sister speaks, the next one listens, without interruption.” MIKE DOWNIE ON VISITING CHANIE’S SIBLINGS