In these schools literally tens of thousands children died from physical and sexual abuse, starvation, and treatable disease with the full awareness of the Canadian government. In its story of a survivor of residential schools it takes us through the harrowing experience of First Nations Children in a Manitoban school. This book should be required reading for every Canadian. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar.
But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. With him, readers embark on a journey back through the life he’s led as a northern Ojibway, with all its joys and sorrows. But Saul wants peace, and he grudgingly comes to see that he’ll find it only through telling his story.
His last binge almost killed him, and now he’s a reluctant resident in a treatment centre for alcoholics, surrounded by people he’s sure will never understand him.
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