Richard Wagamese (1955–2017)

“Sometimes ghosts linger. They hover in the furthest corners, and when you least expect it they lurch out, bearing everything they brought to you when they were alive. I didn’t want to be haunted. I’d lived that way for far too long as it was.”

The story-line and main character reminded me of one of my favorite books, [b:When The Legends Die|879299|When The Legends Die|Hal show more Borland|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320463379l/879299._SY75_.jpg|1145904] I’ve loved that book since I first read it 47 years ago, so it has been the standard by which I compare all books of a similar theme. Not one has risen up to that standard until now.
Wagamese’ story of Saul Indian Horse mirrors the story of Thomas Black Bull in Borland’s masterpiece. Both characters were young Indian boys when they were left by their families to face the odd and dangerous white man’s world alone. Both were held captive by abusive adults in “Indian” schools, and grew up full of anger, shame, and confusion. Both find an outlet through sports--Thomas through rodeo; Saul through ice hockey.
I’m not a fan of hockey, but Wagamese’ crisp writing made it totally relatable.

“We were hockey gypsies, heading down another gravel road every weekend, plowing into the heart of that magnificent northern landscape. We never gave a thought to being deprived as we traveled, to being shut out of the regular league system. We never gave a thought to being Indian. Different. We only thought of the game and the brotherhood that bound us together off the ice, in the van, on the plank floors of reservation houses, in the truck stop diners where if we’d won we had a little to splurge on a burger and soup before we hit the road again. Small joys. All of them tied together, entwined to form an experience we would not have traded for any other. We were a league of nomads, mad for the game, mad for the road, mad for ice and snow, an Arctic wind on our faces and a frozen puck on the blade of our sticks.”

Parts of this book are painful to read, especially when you know that these evil things really did happen to thousands of Indian children, who were “scooped up” (stolen) from their families and carted off to foster homes and residential schools by the Canadian government, so they could be civilized and taught Euro-Canadian and Christian values. The fictional Saul Indian Horse is representative of the 20,000 plus Indigenous children who were removed from their families during the 1950s to the 1980s. So, yes, a lot of this story is heartbreaking.
But, it is also a story of hope, and of the strength of the human spirit. Saul Indian Horse is a superb character to root for. He tells his story in a straightforward manner with crystal observations written simply, making it a breeze to read, even the most painful parts.
It isn’t all heartbreaking though; There are some beautiful people and relationships here too, so tenderly and subtly rendered...

“Erv Sift was an angel. I have no doubt of that. He understood that I bore old wounds and didn’t push me to disclose them. He only offered me security, friendship and the first home I’d had in a long time.”

“‘Now I’m just tired of the way I’ve been living. I want something new built on something old. I wanted to come back. This is the only place I felt like something was possible for me. Don’t know what I want to do. Just want to work on the idea of what’s possible.’ I wrung my hands together and looked at them.
Fred reached over and took Martha’s hand. They smiled at each other. ‘We hoped you would, some day,’ she said. ‘We all wanted to go out and find you, but we knew we couldn’t. We knew you’d have to find your own way. The hardest part was that we knew how hard your road would be--but we had to let you go.’
‘They scooped out our insides, Saul. We’re not responsible for that. We’re not responsible for what happened to us. None of us are,’ Fred said. ‘But our healing--that’s up to us. That’s what saved me. Knowing it was my game.’
‘Could be a long game,’ I said.
‘So what if it is?’ he said. ‘Just keep your stick on the ice and your feet moving. Time will take care of itself.’
‘I know how to do that,’ I said.
‘I know you do,’ he said.”

INDIAN HORSE may not replace WHEN THE LEGENDS DIE as one of my favorite books, but it is a superb work with a wonderful ending. I feel very fortunate to have read it. show less

This is such a good book although not one that is easy to get hold of. My copy came all the way from America, although the author is Canadian.

On one level it tells us the story of a father and son, Eldon and Franklin Starlight who do not know each other well but where the father has asked Frank for a favour. To take him deep into the woods and to bury him facing east like a warrior would have been buried as they are both Ojibway, an indiginous group in Canada. Eldon is dying so the journey show more is not an easy one but part of the reason for doing it is so that Frank can find out more about his father, and his mother who he never knew.

Eldon has three significant events in his life that he has not been able to deal with: leaving his mother with an abusive boyfriend, his role in the death of his best friend Jimmy and the death of his wife, Frank's mother. Eldon used alcohol to 'keep things away' such as dreams and memories and was dying of 'alcohol sickness' and sees the journey as an opportunity to ask for Frank's forgiveness.

There are so many wonderful elements in this book, one of them being the descriptions of the place, backcountry Canada and the love and ease with which Frank exists in it. Raised by 'the Old Man' who is not his father, he can hunt and live off the land on his own at the age of sixteen and has been able to do so for several years.

There were lodgepole pines, birch, aspen and larch. The kid rode easily, smoking and guiding the horse with his knees. They edged around blackberry thickets and stepped gingerly over stumps and stones and the sore-looking red of fallen pines. It was late fall. The dark green of fir leaned to a sullen greyness, and the sudden bursts of colour from the last clinging leaves struck him like the flare of lightning bugs in a darkened field.
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This is where Frank is at home. Contrast this with the description of where his father lives.

The house leaned back toward the shore so that in the encroaching dark it seemed to hover there as though deciding whether to continue hugging land or to simply shrug and surrender itself to the steel-grey muscle of the river. It was as three-storey clapboard and there were pieces of shingle strewn about the yard amid shattered windowpanes and boots and odd bits of clothing and yellowed newspapers that the wind pressed to the chicken-wire fence at its perimeter.
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His father had become distanced from the land and didn't learn the ways to live off it as his family had had to chase work to survive and that ended up being what he knew. Working in the timber mills, moving around for the work and it was hard, physical work guaranteed to ruin a body prematurely.

The walk becomes the medicine as does the time spent together in a place where they were surrounded by trees as they

. . . winked out of view as though the woods had folded itself around them, cocooned them, the chrysalis impermeable, whole, wound of time . . .
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But there is also the medicine provided by the woman they meet in the shack where they wait for the rain to pass. Made from materials found in the woods, it numbs Eldon, reduces his pain and sends him into a more relaxed state of sleep. And then there is the medicine that is story. Stories abound everywhere. 'Tracks were story', there were the cave paintings telling stories that couldn't necessarily be read but were important enough for someone to record, there are the stories that Eldon tells to explain himself and it is these stories that enable Frank to start to understand his father. They are not easy stories to tell or hear and for Eldon, they are the first time he has told them.

This book can also be read as a journey to reconciliation between idiginous peoples, Frank, and settlers or those divorced from the land, Eldon. Eldon asks a couple of times for forgiveness from Frank who responds that forgiveness is not his to give. He refuses to absolve Eldon and at the end when asked again, Frank leaves the question unanswered. Here, the person who is asking for forgiveness has died and so is not even present, so who is forgiven now? I wondered if Wagamese was asking whether we can insist that survivors grant us forgiveness. I think he is saying that the journey is more important than the outcome, that the stories along the way are hard to tell and to listen to and there is no guarantee that forgiveness will be the outcome. Should we even be asking for it, we the colonialists? Through telling the stories we come to understand a little more about the reasons why things were as they were - we don't have to like them, but over time, the stories can bring us closer. It is also interesting whose stories we are listening to.

This book is a fantastic choice for a book club discussion - there is so much to talk about. show less

“Stories get told one word at a time.”
Lyrical and poetic, Richard Wagamese’s semi-autobiographical Medicine Walk is about reconciliation with no salvation. The book trails sixteen-year-old Frank Starlight as he escorts his gravely ill, estranged and alcoholic father to the mountains where he wishes to die.
“His father was like a photograph that had been in the light too long. He was a stranger.”
Their odyssey connects them for the first time. As Eldon’s torturous life journey is show more revealed through a series of stories, Frank understands that even simple stories are complicated. Loss of identity, shame and social alienation are never far from the surface.
Beautiful and engrossing, it takes you on a on a journey of redemption. By the end you feel a better, wiser person. It’s just an incredible piece of writing. show less

Medicine Walk - Wagamese
5 stars

By description, this sounds like a depressing story. Sixteen year old Franklin Starlight gets a message from his nearly unknown, alcoholic father. The man is dying. He wants Frank to take him into the wilderness so that he can be buried in the traditional Ojibwe manner. Far from depressing, it was a beautiful story.

Much of the story is dialog between Frank and Eldon, his father. There are also the backstory conversations that Frank has with his guardian, show more ‘the old man’. These are men who say much with very few words. When Frank begins the arduous trek into the backcountry with his terminally ill father, he knows very little of his personal background. He knows nothing of his mother, and has had only limited and harmful encounters with his father. The Old Man has been his only family. Frank knows farming, and hunting, and the solitude of living off the land.

Eldon’s story is a hard one, filled with loss and violence. His death is ugly and hard. But there is a reason the book is called Medicine Walk. Wagamese brings the beauty and the vast, empty, peacefulness of the wilderness into every page to the journey. The waste and pain of Eldon’s life is mitigated by the calm, self-sufficient competence of Frank’s care for him. There’s strength and grace in teenaged Frank that lends love and redemption to the ending. show less