Because as hokey as those old videos were, this new Heritage Minute is not only devastatingly recent, it’s devastatingly real and more relevant to our present than any previous video, as iconic as they may have become. And you should watch it over and over again. The video is raw, heartbreaking and not easy to watch.
The new Heritage Minute opens on Wenjack’s attempt to escape his residential school in 1966 and ends with his tragic death on a railway track, not far from where he began.
Then, he is really hungry and he sees a beaver (. But while Pearl lived through the horrific ordeal, her brother Chanie Wenjack did not. He thinks about his runaway and how the people that runs the school wont get him, that Chanie is free. She is a survivor of the system that deliberately sought to “kill the Indian in the child.” Through violence, sexual abuse, and whitewashing, children were taught to cauterize their Indigenous parts. As an educator and mother, I have the pleasure of experiencing other educators’ curriculum through my children. John worked closely with screenwriter Joseph Campbell to bring these challenging issues into one-minute education spots.Ī glimpse into the horrors enacted on Indigenous children at residential schools as recently as 1996, the emotional minute is narrated by Pearl Achneepineskum. Joseph Boyden’s novella, Wenjack is that book. Director Shane Belcourt and Producer Michelle St. The Breath was hired on to work with Historica Canada to make two Heritage Minutes.
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