Wenjack

Wenjack’s two friends, who are unnamed, escape from the school with him. The brothers have an uncle and aunt nearby, and they propose to Wenjack that the three of them escape the school and travel to the home of their relatives. The brothers move faster than Wenjack during this journey, but they leave behind clues in the forest—like broken sticks and chewed bark—to ensure that he can follow them.

The text makes evident the brothers’ disconnection from their heritage by showing how the boys are embarrassed at having held each other through a freezing night: “[T]hey will feel the shame of having touched one another, if even just for warmth” (22). The white residential schoolteachers have imparted to the boys a belief in the improperness of touching another male. This is not a value that belongs to the boys’ own culture. Regardless, this episode dramatizes the cycle of trauma and violence inflicted by white colonists on Indigenous peoples. Upon discovering that Wenjack and the younger brother are holding one another, the older brother kicks his younger brother, who then kicks Wenjack, who is confused as to why they are upset with him. This illustrates how cruelty is a learned behavior and how pain that results from cruelty can be reenacted on others.

Once the trio reaches the relatives’ cabin, the uncle informs the brothers that their parents are dead. Later, the uncle takes the brothers hunting. The text implies that the boys will live with their aunt and uncle permanently. Even so, the family is on the edge of starvation, and the uncle decides that Wenjack cannot remain with them. The brothers gently touch Wenjack goodbye as he leaves the hunting cabin. They will never see him again.

The uncle, who is unnamed, struggles to feed his family during the lean autumn and worries for the long winter ahead. The text shows him to be a generous man. He refuses to consume any of the fish he prepares after Wenjack and the brothers arrive, preferring instead to feed his daughter, his starving nephews, and their friend Wenjack. The uncle also insists that his wife eat the scrapings left in the bowl, instead of consuming them himself.

The uncle tells his nephews about the death of their parents. Wenjack recognizes that the uncle wants his nephews to know that “they still have family” (46). While the uncle assumes the responsibility of caring for the brothers without complaint, he is reluctant to allow Wenjack to stay. He “fears the boy carries a burden” and tells his wife to “send the stranger away” because his trauma surpasses their ability to heal (54). The uncle’s comments characterize Wenjack’s pain by showing how his emotional trauma is visible even to outsiders. Wenjack’s suffering hence separates him even from people of his own cultural background.

The uncle’s failure to care for Wenjack, a suffering and isolated boy, raises ethical and emotional questions. The uncle himself is struggling under the weight of poverty and political oppression; the fact that he foregoes feeding himself shows that his resources have already been stretched to their absolute limit. His decision to send Wenjack away is motivated by his own primal fear for survival and his perceived duty to prioritize his own family’s well-being. It is unclear whether he understands that this decision is tantamount to signing Wenjack’s death warrant, but in encouraging Wenjack to return to the abusive environment of the school to ensure his immediate survival, the uncle reveals the impossible choice many Indigenous peoples faced: attempting to adapt to an inherently violent program of assimilation versus holding on to traditional ways of life that colonialism was rendering obsolete.