A contradiction in Canada’s identity—championing human rights and multiculturalism while perpetuating deep injustices against its most vulnerable
Chanie Wenjack was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who attended the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario, in the 1960s. Like many Indigenous children, he was forcibly removed from his family and placed in the school, where the goal was to assimilate him into Canadian culture. Chanie was lonely, abused, and homesick. In 1966, he ran away from the school, trying to find his way home—over 600 kilometres away. Chanie set out on foot, without proper clothing or food, and tried to follow a set of railway tracks that he believed would lead him back to his family. After days of walking in the freezing October weather, Chanie died from exposure and hunger. His body was found on October 22, 1966, curled up beside the tracks. He was clutching matches and a frozen lump of sugar in his pocket. He was just a child, lost in a hostile world that had torn him from his family.