Wenjack

Content Warning: The source text and this guide depict the sexual violation, traumatization, and abuse of an Ojibwe child by a residential school, as well as scenes of cultural erasure and its resultant physical and emotional distress.

The exposition in Chapter 2 establishes that the “strange schools” are “always built with a cemetery beside them to bury those the attendants knew would not make it to the final grade” (7). To this point, the reader learns that “Charlie had a lung infection. Tuberculosis and similar diseases had taken thousands of Indian children’s lives the last years” (7). In the Author’s Note, Joseph Boyden adds that other children lost their lives from exposure or by accident while trying to escape from these schools’ horrific abuse—just as happened to Wenjack. The presence of cemeteries beside these schools is a reminder of how they caused the deaths of thousands of First Nations children. Moreover, the fact that it was an accepted practice to build school cemeteries shows that the Canadian government not only knew about but also accepted and even supported the beliefs and practices that brought about these children’s demise.