Gord Downie Dedicates Solo Album To Ojibway Boy

Chanie Wenjack died of hunger, exposure

Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie is about to release a new solo album. Secret Path is dedicated to a 12 year old Ojibway boy, Chanie (Charlie) Wenjack, who died in 1966 from hunger and exposure while trying to escape a residential school near Kenora. His death led to the first inquest into the treatment of Indigenous children in residential schools, where students were subjected to abuse, neglect and re-programming. Downie says the boy’s story haunts him; that we are not the country we thought we were. Click here for more on this story.