Music

Gord Downie announces new album, book, and movie about residential schools

by Jeremy Mersereau

Just because his beloved band has played their ostensible final show doesn’t mean Gord Downie is slowing down, or decelerating his artistic impulses: in October, Downie will release a new project, centred around a young First Nations boy’s death and Canada’s national shame: Aboriginal residential schools.

In 1966, the body of a 12-year-old Ojibway boy named Chanie Wenjack was found near Kenora, Ontario. Wenjack had died from starvation and exposure while trying to find his way home after running away from a residential school.

Downie, who first heard about Wenjack from a 1967 Maclean’s magazine story, was so moved by his story that he created a solo album, Secret Path, about Wenjack. Collaborating with artist Jeff Lemire, Downie’s also penned a graphic novel to coincide with the album’s release, as well as an animated film.

“Canada is not Canada,” Downie said from Ogoki Post in northern Ontario, where he was visiting Wenjack’s parents. “The next hundred years are going to be painful as we come to know Chanie Wenjack and the thousands like him — as we find out about ourselves, about all of us — but only when we do, can we truly call ourselves ‘Canada.'”

Downie is referring to the at least 3200 children who died while forcibly attending residential schools, as stated by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Proceeds from Secret Path will go to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba. He famously urged Trudeau to continue to fight for First Nations Canadians during the Tragically Hip’s hometown bash in Kingston last month.

Watch a trailer for Secret Path below:

The Secret Path film will be broadcast by the CBC on October 23rd. We haven’t heard it yet, but we’re expecting this to be yet another fantastic addition to Downie’s already impeccable solo discography.

[h/t CBC]