Keeping Good Company: A Profile of Richard Wagamese

Former TNQ board chair Bruce Johnstone was, for many years, our liaison with the local One Book One Community (OBOC) program—and a famous one it is. Waterloo Region has one of the most vital community reading programs in all of North America. Thanks to the inventiveness of Bruce and like-minded volunteers, TNQ partnered with OBOC, by hosting an all-day event or road trip based on that year’s selected book and its prevailing theme. (Anyone who delighted in those storied outings will have Bruce—and several colourful bus drivers—to thank.) We asked Bruce if he would revisit his connection with OBOC to speak with its celebrated 2013 author, Richard Wagamese.

I met with Richard Wagamese after a well-attended reception the night before in Waterloo, Ontario—the second night of three in his whirlwind tour. 2013 marked the twelfth year of the One Book, One Community program (oboc.ca) in Waterloo Region; this year’s book choice had been Wagamese’s powerful novel Ragged Company. The first night Richard spoke, in neighbouring Kitchener, people were turned away at the door, the numbers were so great. On the second night, in Waterloo, four hundred strong showed up. Richard had a tight schedule, but agreed to meet me for lunch the following afternoon at a favourite watering hole, the Huether Hotel. My first question wasn’t too original, but I just had to ask: Was he surprised that so many people had come to hear him?

“Surprised,” he said, “was not the word.” Nor was shocked, he hummed, chin tilted toward the ceiling. “Startled.” That was the word.

Like a lot of us, Richard Wagamese thought it would be difficult for our community to have much empathy for those who live beyond the pale of the middle class. “Those” being the homeless. The rounders. The street people. But the questions asked of Richard at each appearance showed a genuine struggle to understand. The night before, someone had asked about the difference between homeless and street people. Richard responded that street people are the addicts, the druggies, the alcoholics. They might be difficult and abrasive. The homeless are simply those without homes, without places to live, without basic shelter. He described them as relatively meek, as saying little, as staying in the background. But both inhabited the same world—a world that most of us, privileged readers of his work, do not know firsthand.

Richard knows that world, and he knows its stories far too well. The smell of concrete an inch from your nose when you wake up on the street. That’s the kind of thing you don’t forget. Another thing you don’t forget is the kindness of strangers. He tells the story of the man at a St. Paul’s store, the man who answered the door to him when he was living on the streets early one morning, before the store had opened. There stood Richard in stocking feet on a cold, slushy day—his boots snatched by someone overnight. The man invited him in, gave him coffee and a new set of clothes, including “a weather-appropriate jacket.” He also gave the young man time and kindness, the gift of non-judgment. It’s the latter that has stayed with Richard over the years; it’s what helped to soften harsh encounters. Richard Wagamese is a living, breathing example of how human beings take care of one another. “Human beings.” He uses the phrase often and it’s powerful. It’s a phrase we don’t often use in our community. Hearing this man say it, the phrase assumes a whole new meaning.

Like his boots, Richard’s youth was stolen from him. He was plucked from his home at less than a year old, sent to a foster home, placed with a family as foreign to him as could be. Fast forward to age sixteen: one day he runs out the door. He has to, or he’ll go crazy. Literally crazy. Runs and runs until he makes his way back home. He tells me this, alluding to the abuse he’d suffered during his upbringing. The abuse is not described. No one needs details. You can hear the pain echo in his voice. But you can also hear that this was his past; it is not his present. He then tells a story of homecoming: landing home and not knowing a thing about it, or about his people, not knowing what it meant that he was Ojibway. He couldn’t fish or hunt, he couldn’t do basic things that seemed to come naturally to his people. Did he belong? He wondered. If he did, what was his place? What could he do? He was asked to join the elders around the fire. They asked him where he came from. What had he been doing all this time away? So he told them, and they listened, patiently, until he finished. They were quiet for some time. Finally they said, “You are a storyteller.” Richard was surprised. A storyteller? What did this mean? How would he know what to do? They said they would teach him. And they did.

He’s been sharing stories ever since.

When I asked Richard about the importance of storytelling across cultures, he spoke of sitting, telling stories with Johnny Cash. Music, of course, is storytelling. Looking back on that night, he recalls the notion of “bringing the living room back to our communities.” Food, drink, stories. We need to open up the living room to everybody.

All human beings.

Telling our stories to one other.

Sharing stories.

Would sharing stories during the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools bring healing? I asked. “The nature, the first property of storytelling,” he said, “is healing. Once people are healed, they come back to their communities changed. They bring back healing and this touches others. This is important.” When you’re ready to tell your story, it’s powerful, and it’s healing.

It was a long time before he could tell his own story.

Richard’s op-ed writing—direct, insightful pieces that do not mince words—is another side to his role as storyteller. I asked how he saw the writer as activist (a theme we explored in TNQ 101). He said he had no agenda when writing fiction. His activist ideas are for the op-ed pages, where he does not shy away from expressing his beliefs. His approach, he added, was “peace over conflict and creating community over division.” He spoke briefly of the Idle No More movement and the idea of inclusive politics. The theme of working together, understanding one another.

Empathy is strong in his words and speech, in all his stories.

Richard circled back to fiction. “Fiction,” he said, “is work for the story’s sake.” Story has its own energy. He follows the story, the characters that appear. He did note in response to an audience member the night before that some of his characters are real—based on people he met while living on the street. They have small parts, cameos, in the weave of the story. They are human beings, playing their parts in the greater story.

A recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail, about an arts program he had developed, had also caught my eye. “Glad you asked,” he said. A huge smile breaks across his face. “It’s called ‘Empowering Community through Story.’” This is the program Richard has created to engage his community’s young people in the art of storytelling. He has found deep ennui in his community. It is sad, of real concern, but he adds a note of hope. “We are a transitionary people,” he states. There is no doubt in his voice. While the old ways are not working, the traditional methodology is still good. What is changing is the medium. New technology is being embraced; as it becomes more accessible to his community’s youth, their stories, too, will emerge.

This is good company to keep.