Richard Wagamese was born in 1955 in northwestern Ontario. His parents, Marjorie Wagamese and Stanley Raven, were both members of the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations, which is located northwest of Kenora, Ontario in Canada. Wagamese was also a member of the Wabaseemoong Independent Nations. As a toddler, he grew up hunting, trapping, and fishing, sharing responsibilities communally with extended family.
Marjorie and Stanley were two of the 150,000 First Nations children abducted and placed into Canadian residential schools. These so-called educational institutions were run by the church and created with the explicit goal of assimilating Indigenous children into white western society by...
