No More Fallen Feathers

In 1966, Chanie Wenjack, a twelve-year-old boy, died alone beside the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest followed, and recommendations were made to prevent this from happening again. But, as has happened many times in Canada’s history, the real changes never came.

Decades later, in Thunder Bay, seven Indigenous students left their northern homes because the only way to get a high school education was to move hundreds of kilometres away. Jordan Wabasse disappeared into the cold winter night. Jethro Anderson, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morrisseau, and Curran Strang were found in the rivers. Robyn Harper died in a boarding house, and Paul Panacheese collapsed at home. Each one was a teenager, far from their family and community, lured into the city that promised education but could not guarantee their safety.

In Seven Fallen Feathers, Tanya Talaga makes it clear that these deaths were not isolated tragedies. They are connected by a pattern that runs through Canadian history: the legacy of residential schools, the forced displacement of Indigenous youth for education, and the repeated negligence in police investigations of missing and dead Indigenous children. These injustices are not just in the past; they are issues we still face today.

The root of this issue traces back to the residential school system. Under the Indian Act of 1876, children between seven and fifteen were legally required to attend residential schools. These schools were underfunded and overcrowded. Inspections describe buildings “literally alive with cockroaches,” boys use barns as bathrooms, and students suffer from malnutrition and disease. From 1940 to 1952, starvation experiments were conducted on children without consent, deliberately withholding milk and nutrients. Dr. Peter Bryce’s 1904 report found that death rates were between 24%–42% in some schools, yet the Canadian government ignored his findings and pushed him out of public service.

Furthermore, massive underfunding of education and reserves in recent years meant that most schools on reserve end at grade 8. This forces Indigenous families to make an impossible choice: abandoning their children’s high school prospects or sending them hundreds of kilometres away to an inadequately supervised urban environment such as Thunder Bay. Even after Jordan’s Principle was unanimously endorsed by Parliament in 2007, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2016 that the federal government had racially discriminated against 163,000 Indigenous children by underfunding child welfare services and failing to implement Jordan’s Principle.

Additionally, the police response to the Indigenous students’ deaths revealed systemic racism within the justice system. In multiple cases, including Jethro Anderson, Reggie Bushie, and Jordan Wabasse, police quickly declared “no foul play suspected.” In Jordan’s case, the Thunder Bay Police waited three days before conducting a ground search. No Amber Alerts were issued. No K9 unit or forensic identification unit was deployed. Justice Frank Iacobucci’s 2013 report later found systemic racism in jury roll formation and the police force that contributed to the neglect of these missing and dead Indigenous children.

Addressing these harms requires more than acknowledgement. It is easy to feel distant from these stories. But we still live in a country shaped by these histories. We did not create them, but once we know about them, we have a responsibility to decide what we do next.

As individuals, we must refuse to be indifferent by educating ourselves and challenging dismissive narratives. As communities, we must rally for equitable funding for schools on reserve so Indigenous youth are not forced into unsafe environments. As a country, Canada must implement, not merely acknowledge, the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Jordan’s Principle, and the inquest’s 145 recommendations. Justice requires structural changes, and if reconciliation is to mean anything, it must prevent the next seven fallen feathers.