Richard Wagamese was a Canadian author, scriptwriter, educator and journalist, who inspired many Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and writers alike. His works brought attention to issues regarding Indigenous identity, culture, and truth and reconciliation.
Background
Richard Wagamese was born on October 14, 1955, in Minaki, Ontario, Canada, to Marjorie Wagamese and Stanley Raven of the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations. His family followed the traditional lifestyle of the Ojibwa people, fishing, hunting and trapping. When he was almost three years old, his parents left him and his three siblings alone in a bush camp for days while they were drinking in a town about 96 km away. Cold and hungry, the children managed to cross a frozen bay to seek shelter in the small railroad town of Minaki, where a provincial policeman spotted them and dropped them off at the Children’s Aid Society. From there, the siblings were taken away in what is known as the “Sixties Scoop,” a government program in Canada that aggressively “scooped” Indigenous children from their homes and placed them into foster care.
It was not until some 25 years after he was placed in foster care that Wagamese reunited with members of his birth family.
Education
By the time he was 16 years old, Wagamese had dropped out of high school and was living on the streets, or with friends, doing whatever he could to survive.
Wagamese was granted an honorary doctorate from the city's Thompson Rivers University in 2010.
Career
Wagamese continued to live on the streets for a number of years, struggling with alcohol, drugs and post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse and alienation that had marked his young life. He spent time in jail, lived all over Canada and worked countless jobs.
Wagamese landed his first reporting job in 1979 with an Indigenous newspaper in Regina called The New Breed. He would go on to write a popular Indigenous affairs column for the Calgary Herald, and also work as a television and radio broadcaster.
Wagamese's debut novel Keeper'n Me was published in 1994. He has since published five other novels, a book of poetry, and five non-fiction books, including two memoirs and an anthology of his newspaper writings. He also wrote for the television series North of 60.
In 2011, Wagamese served as the Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Victoria. During his career, he also lectured on creative writing at various universities and was a faculty advisor on journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and Grant MacEwen Community College.
Later, Wagamese lived outside Kamloops, British Columbia, working as a freelance writer. His final novel, Starlight, was published posthumously in 2018.
Religion
The Ojibwe have a number of spiritual beliefs passed down by oral tradition under the Midewiwin teachings. These include a creation story and a recounting of the origins of ceremonies and rituals. Spiritual beliefs and rituals were very important to the Ojibwe because spirits guided them through life. Birch bark scrolls and petroforms were used to pass along knowledge and information, as well as for ceremonies. Pictographs were also used for ceremonies.
Personality
Wagamese was a straightforward and soulful man.