Richard Wagamese has come through with an assist from the authorial afterlife.
It came by seeming happenstance in the last third space, the public library. This was on the weekend that the prime minister called the federal election.
A good friend had sprung for breakfast, then we walked up the street so his tiny human could check out some storybooks. With one appetite sated, but that Coatesean “hunger for clarity” panging away, I scanned across the shelves. The library offers so much — it is the candy store for someone with social connectivity issues like me.
And the eyes espied Wagamese’s memoir, One Native Life. If you pick it up, of course, it deals with serious, traumatizing content, all stemming from the Original Sin at the grim heart of the Canadian settler-colonial project. You know it. The one that provides the spur for Truth and Reconciliation, and unfortunately, well-organized revanchism.
Having held my erudition cheap when the energy of Wagamese returned to the earth in 2017, since I had not gotten around to reading his most acclaimed novel, Indian Horse, it was an easy check-out. It seemed like a good time to get into it. Now, on the eve of National Indigenous Peoples Day, is a good time to share something.
Wagamese dug deep so others, still, can dig deeper without shouting so much into the void. One must listen to learn, and signal-boost truth tellers such as Our Voice of Fire author Brandi Morin … as wildfires burn.
Indigenous communities are bearing the heaviest burden of (the) climate catastrophe. More than 30,000 Indigenous people have been forced from their homes in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta alone — and fire season has only just begun.1
For Canadian internationalists, for allies, this is a challenge. There is no template, at least in my sheltered life, for trying to keep your integrity and values, stay upbeat and hopeful, and attend to your needs, while your country’s immediate neighbour is waging hybrid warfare on us and going full fascist.2 It is not any better if we just end up with a version of high-control corporatism, oh but affixed with a Maple Leaf sticker.
Wagamese wrote One Native Life in vignettes, 3- to 4-page essays, each one so much upstream across his 61 years. Here is to hoping much of it sticks with this ginger treaty land inhabitant. An essay called “The Medicine Wheel,” about three-quarters of the way through the memoir, stuck.
In that piece, Wagamese delved into real humility, taught to him by a spiritual leader named Cliff Thompson one weekend in Saskatchewan. I might have too many internalized myths to fully get it. It is in the audio file up top.
As Cliff talked, I opened up. Within the great wheel of energy, he said, everything is related. Our journey is many journeys because everything we do affects something or someone else. Learning to travel with dignity, with humility and with respect for the creative energy in all things is the heart of the Indian way, That's what he taught us. There is life force in everything. Everything is alive, animate, moving, and even if we can't see that, we can learn to feel it. When we do, we come to true awareness of our ongoing state of relationship. That awareness lies beyond the brain. We feel it in our spirits, our hearts. It is there that the teachings live and learning occurs. The medicine wheel is a process of coming to know your feelings. Learning to travel with your feelings as your guide is an arduous journey that few have the courage to make. Knowing in wisdom, though, can come only from that trek. Simple truths shine in the sun of every new morning. The world awaits us. (One Native Life, pg. 161)
It was timely to receive that this spring. It spoke to what kind of leadership we want in a just society. Look for the leaders who know how things work but know they do not have all the answers. Look at those who are always trying to learn. That is constructive.
On Election Night, Prime Minister Mark Carney gave an acceptance speech where he said, “I am going to begin with the value of humility, and by admitting that I have much to be humble about.”
Quite a coincidence. Now, cherrypicking examples of which politicians, which sports stars, which public figures, et al., seem to have some humility and which ones do not defeats the purpose. Your examples would cancel out mine.
Simple truths shine in the sun of every new morning.
Since every news cycle feels like 10 to 14 days, there are a few. A hockey team that openly cheats won the Stanley Cup a second time when it did not deserve to win it once, since the National Hockey League enables open cheating. The league also maintains it can decide the ultimate prize of a winter sport in the middle of June, even though the soft ice in South Florida had players falling left, right, and centre.
In the political arena, the prime minister said the right things in front of the cameras while the American media were looky-looing at the G7. Watching what they do is more paramount, and the Liberals are speeding through legislation that Indigenous leaders have called “disgusting.”
And, at another level of government, the province is revving up for “Extraction Without Consent” with the ruling party’s figurehead premier getting his racist gaslighting on. He apologized, and he will never do it again, at least, not until the next time.
Make of that what you will. It is all part of a continuum, one where the honest heartfelt belief is we have to change how we use resources, how we engage with people, and slightly opposing interests who mostly want the same things. That doesn’t mean indulging bad-faith-based retrenchment.
This week seemed as good a time as any to signal-boost the words from Wagamese, after allowing them to marinate for a couple of months. He should have been looking forward to turning 70 this autumn.
Fortsätt skriva (continue writing). Cha Gheill (never surrender).
Previously in this series:
Déjà vu audio again: 'The Olympic Army,' by Westbrook Pegler | Rereading Sport
Perhaps the first thing to know: ‘be better’ is a term better off deleted regarding how FIFA and the International Olympic Committee conduct business.
Friendly reminder about resistance
I post about current affairs in Notes and on Bluesky (n8sager). Hopefully, this is enough for now. Please stay safe, and be kind.
March 28-June 20, 2025
Hamilton, Ont. : traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Mississaugas.
Ricochet Media, June 19.
See “In Trump’s Assault on Reality, Canada Can Fight Back,” by Crawford Kilian, The Tyee, March 21.
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