Truth and Reconciliation Day is coming Wednesday. Today we remember Chanie
Wenjack.

Chanie Wenjack was a 12-year-old Anishinaabe boy who died of hunger and exposure
in October 1966 after escaping the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in
Kenora, Ontario. Chanie and two friends ran away from the residential school on
October 21, 1966, driven by loneliness and a desire to get back to his family.

He faced a grueling journey of roughly 600 kilometers (370 miles) to reach his home
at Ogoki Post on the Marten Falls Reserve. After parting ways with his
companions, Chanie walked alone along railway tracks in the cold and snow. He
succumbed to starvation and exposure and was found dead beside the tracks near
Farlane, Ontario, on October 22, 1966.

Chanie's death forced the Canadian Government to order an inquest into the residential school system, and brought public attention.