Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund adds artist ambassador of Mississaugas of Scugog First Nation

The Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund has a new artist ambassador, the Mississaugas of Scugog Island citizen and painter Luke Swinson.

Swinson, from Kitchener, has become renowned for his murals and beautifully flowing designs in recent years.

He’s created numerous works in his hometown and across Ontario. He also offers a variety of prints on his online store and led a fashion line for Ten Tree. This company sells environmentally friendly clothes and plants trees for each purchase, often to replace those lost by fire.

A selection of Luke Swinson’s art via @lukeswinsonart on Instagram

Currently, a mural project Swinson created with his father August (also a Mississaugas of Scugog citizen) All Beings Connected and The Original Treaties are on display at Union Station.

August’s All Beings Connected “speaks to our personal relationship and dedication to the land and its inhabitants, and the enduring strength of Indigenous peoples,” Union describes.

Meanwhile Luke’s The Original Treaties “represents the peaceful treaties Anishinaabe people made with the earth, sky and all living beings. Treaties allow us to work together, uphold our commitments and nourish relationships with creation.”

@MSIFN is very proud of our citizen Luke Swinson, one of the most recent additions to the @downiewenjack Art Ambassadors program.

You can find Luke’s exhibit, “All Beings Connected”, created in collaboration with his father August, on display in the Great Hall at Toronto’s… https://t.co/NFC4Ceiivb

— MSIFN – Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation (@MSIFN) July 17, 2024

Last year, Luke Swinson provided a Downie-Wenjack Legacy Space to GM Canada. Swinson wrote this was an important location for his to contribute to given his familial connection to GM.

“My Great Grandpa George was a sweeper for GM Oshawa and he was known to make chalk drawings of animals on the floors while he worked, often drawing a crowd of onlookers. He was a major artistic influence for my Dad who was a major influence on me,” he said.

The fund developed these spaces to be “safe, welcoming places where conversations and education about the true history of Canada and our collective journey toward reconciliation are encouraged and supported,” they wrote.

“Each unique Legacy Space provides an opportunity to bring Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples together to build connections and understanding while ensuring that Indigenous perspectives are represented and celebrated in the workplace,” the fund concluded.

The Downie-Wenjack Fund

The Downie-Wenjack Fund operates in honour of both its namesakes in an effort “to build cultural understanding and create a path toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.”

Wenjack, an Ontario-born Annishinabe boy was born in the isolated Northern Ontario Marten Falls Reserve in 1954. At age nine, he was taken from his home and sent nearly 600 kilometres east to the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School by Kenora near the Manitoba border.

The federal government funded the school which was operated by the Women’s Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church. Wenjack, renamed Charlie, was known as funny, clever and quick to pick up on wordplay.

He and two friends fled the school in October 1966. To escape was very dangerous. The principal was known to strap recaptured runaways and the cold could inflict limb-destroying frostbite.

Wenjack and his friends, the orphaned brothers Ralph and Jackie MacDonald, made it to the MacDonald’s uncle’s home in Redditt, some 30 kilometres north of Kenora. However, Wenjack, missing his father, wanted to return home to Marten Falls.

He set out along the CN railway track wearing only a thin windbreaker. Temperatures plunged to -7 C and Wenjack fell hard several times, causing significant bruising. He lasted 36 hours in the cold and walked 19 kilometres before falling a final time.

He died of exposure and hunger one week after his escape 60 kilometres from the school. Following an inquest which found the Residential School system caused harm to those forced to attend, Wenjack became a symbol of resistance to Canadian colonialism.

Nearly 20 years after Wenjack’s death, the Kingston rock band The Tragically Hip, fronted by Downie, formed. Over the following decades, the Hip, in part due to Downie’s lyrical examination of Canadian cultural identity, became an iconic act.

Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2016. Following this, he pushed heavily for First Nation reconciliation. He wrote the solo album Secret Path about Wenjack. The album was adapted into a graphic novel and then a film with art by Jeff Lemire (best known for his Essex County Trilogy).

Following the album release, Downie partnered with the surviving Wenjack family to begin the fund. The charity has since grown to include numerous programs including artist ambassadors like Swinson and dozens of others, a legacy school program for education, and a youth ambassador program.