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Mel Rothenburger: Writer Richard Wagamese was reaching for his potential

Richard Wagamese died way too soon. That’s something we often say about people, but in his case it’s more than the fact that he was only 61.
Wagamese
Acclaimed Ojibway author and journalist Richard Wagamese died Friday afternoon in his home in Kamloops.

Richard Wagamese died way too soon. That’s something we often say about people, but in his case it’s more than the fact that he was only 61. It’s that he had not yet reached anywhere near his potential as a writer and as a spokesperson on social and First Nations issues.

Reaction to his death on Friday understandably includes many tributes, because he had a large following. Some say he changed their lives.

University of Victoria chancellor and radio host Shelagh Rogers tweeted: “Heartbroken over the death of my friend and chosen brother Richard Wagamese. He was story. He was love. RIP dear one.”

Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde tweeted that Wagamese “profoundly told the stories of our peoples.”

Wagamese spent his life working hard at change. He was an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoon First Nation in northwestern Ontario, but he lived in the Kamloops area for many years.

His early life was tormented. Removed from his family, he was put in foster care and by his teens he was using drugs and alcohol.

In his mid-20s, he got into journalism on radio and television in Calgary, later winning a National Newspaper Award for column writing. His first novel, Keeper ‘n’ Me, was published in 1994, winning the Alberta Writers Guild’s Best Novel Award.

As he matured into his writing, he became a consistent, reliable author. He wrote largely about the First Nations experience, and there was always an element of himself in his writing. He wrote 15 books — fiction and poetry.

And he won awards. The Native American Press Association Award, the National Aboriginal Communications Society Award. His novel Indian Horse was in the running in the CBC Canada Reads showdown, and he was a Harvey Stevenson Southam Guest Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Victoria. The George Ryga Award. And many others.

Medicine Walk, which came out in 2014, won him, among other things, the Mayor’s Gala Award in Kamloops. I sat on the panel that selected him, and it was a unanimous decision.

By then, Wagamese’s demons had returned to haunt him, big time. He went on a drunken-driving rampage, crashing his truck. Three days later, he was driving drunk again. Nine days after that, it happened again, this time in Calgary. It wasn’t the first time he had gone on such binges.

He blamed it on post-traumatic stress syndrome, saying he was in a dissociative state when these bad things happened.

A couple of days before his scheduled court appearance, he wrote a letter of apology and sent it to local media, acknowledging that he’d put lives in danger but saying he had been seeking help for his issues. He accepted his guilt, he said.

“I have offered my time, experience and expertise voluntarily to put good energy back into the community. It is my wish in the future to continue to offer volunteer energy as an ongoing apology for this circumstance,” he wrote in trying to balance his bad behaviour with the good things he was doing.

Then he went to court and pleaded guilty to three drunk-driving charges and two of failing to appear. The Crown asked that he be jailed for 11 months.

He was given an 18-month conditional sentence with house arrest. His driver’s licence was suspended for 10 years.

After that, he kept his word and worked hard to regain the trust of the community, speaking to groups about substance abuse and homelessness, and his own conviction that while he had never attended residential school, trans-generational trauma contributed to his issues.

He also conducted writing workshops and spoke at conferences of all kinds about storytelling. He returned to journalism, writing a newspaper column and hosting a television show called One Native Life.

All the time, he was still fighting his past.

“I needed to always be managing my disorder and my grip on reality,” he told a reporter in an interview.

Wagamese’s celebrity continued growing, though he was still a developing writer.

But a comment by one of those Mayor’s Gala judging panelists in 2014 said much. Wagamese, said the panelist as we were discussing the entries, was an author who was on the cusp of joining the ranks not only of the best of Canadian writers, but would soon be recognized on the international stage, as well.

His life was cut short before he was able to ascend to that next level.

 

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, and former editor of the Kamloops Daily News.

mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca