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TUESDAY, March 28, 2017
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LOCAL NEWS
ALLEN DOUGLAS PHOTOS/KTW Above: Richard Wagamese’s life partner, Yvette Lehman. Below: Wagamese’s good friend, Dan Ferguson.
A celebration of life in honour of author Richard Wagamese was held on Saturday at Thompson Rivers University. Wagamese, 61 (below), died in Kamloops on March 10.
Above: Ojibway elder and professor emeritus at Trent University, Edna Manitowabi. Below: Indian Horse producer Christine Haebler.
Celebrating the life of Richard Wagamese DALE BASS
STAFF REPORTER
dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
A
lthough Edna Manitowabi did not know author and journalist Richard Wagamese well, she knew the power of his words. Manitowabi spoke at a memorial service on Saturday for Wagamese, who died in Kamloops on March 10. Manitowabi, an Ojibway elder and professor emeritus at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., has a role in Indian Horse, a movie to be released later this year that is based on the novel by Wagamese. Indian Horse is a story about a boy abused in the residential school system who finds his release in a love of hockey. The novel is being adapted for a movie and was a finalist for CBC’s Canada Reads in 2013. She told the crowd gathered at Thompson Rivers University that while reading his book, she recognized “the power of [his] gift because his voice, his words,
delved into the soul of my being.’’ Manitowabi called Wagamese a fledgling elder and said he “danced” through life. Christine Haebler, one of the producers of Indian Horse, said she knew the moment she heard Wagamese talking with Shelagh Rogers on CBC radio about his book “that it would make a marvellous film. “A mighty tree has fallen,”she told the crowd of about 180. “A national treasure gone too soon.” The author of 13 books, Wagamese’s first novel, Keeper’n Me, tied for the Writers’ Guild of Alberta fiction award in 1995. He eventually went on to write a dozen novels. Before writing books, Wagamese was the native-affairs columnist at the Calgary Herald and became the first indigenous journalist to win a National Newspaper Award in 1991. His death came just one week after he was nominated for a B.C. Book Prize for Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations. He also won the George Ryga
Award for Social Awareness in Literature for his 2011 memoir One Story, One Song and the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction for his novel Dream Wheels in 2007. Close friend Dan Ferguson told the memorial about some of the hardships Wagamese faced throughout his life and about their discussions on the importance of being sober and of being able to apologize. Ferguson also told stories of the lighter side of his friend, describing Wagamese as someone “who really loved expensive shirts, the colour pink and the [Boston] Red Sox.’’ Longtime literary agent John Pearce recounted the “playful and intense” sides of Wagamese and said the author “could always get your attention.’’ On receiving the Indian Horse manuscript, Pearce said, “It came with a warning from Wagamese that the last 15 pages of this novel will rip the heart right out of you.’’ Wagamese often described himself as a second-generation
survivor of the residential school system. His parents and other family members were students in the system that later became a national scandal. In his essay Speaking My Truth: Reflections on Reconciliation and Residential Schools, Wagamese credited entering a Catholic church as a young man and finding himself the only person sitting in a pew who was not white as a turning point in his life, after hearing about a creator and being able to put aside his anger. Yvette Lehman, the author’s life partner, said Wagamese “taught me how to love.’’ The service was attended by Wagamese’s former wives Debra Powell and Carolyn Deby, his son Jason and granddaughters. Jason and grand-daughters Zoe and Dakota also spoke, the girls reading tributes received from those who could not attend. A second celebration of Wagamese’s life was scheduled for this past Sunday in northern Ontario, where he was born.
A mighty “tree has fallen. A national treasure gone too soon.
”
— Indian Horse producer Christine Haebler on the legacy of Richard Wagamese