A moving father-son reconciliation told by a charismatic First Nations
broadcaster, musician and activist.
When his father was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Winnipeg
broadcaster and musician Wab Kinew decided to spend a year reconnecting
with the accomplished but distant aboriginal man who'd raised him. The
Reason You Walk spans the year 2012, chronicling painful moments in the
past and celebrating renewed hopes and dreams for the future. As Kinew
revisits his own childhood in Winnipeg and on a reserve in Northern
Ontario, he learns more about his father's traumatic childhood at
residential school. An intriguing doubleness marks The Reason You
Walk, a reference to an Anishinaabe ceremonial song. Born to an
Anishinaabe father and a non-native mother, he has a foot in both
cultures. He is a Sundancer, an academic, a former rapper, a hereditary
chief, and an urban activist. His father, Tobasonakwut, was both a
beloved traditional chief and a respected elected leader who engaged
directly with Ottawa. Internally divided, his father embraced both
traditional native religion and Catholicism, the religion that was
inculcated into him at the residential school where he was physically
and sexually abused. In a grand gesture of reconciliation, Kinew's
father invited the Roman Catholic bishop of Winnipeg to a Sundance
ceremony in which he adopted him as his brother. Kinew writes
affectingly of his own struggles in his twenties to find the right path,
eventually giving up a self-destructive lifestyle to passionately pursue
music and martial arts. From his unique vantage point, he offers an
inside view of what it means to be an educated aboriginal living in a
country that is just beginning to wake up to its aboriginal history and
living presence.
Invoking hope, healing and forgiveness, The Reason You Walk is a
poignant story of a towering but damaged father and his son as they
embark on a journey to repair their family bond. By turns lighthearted
and solemn, Kinew gives us an inspiring vision for family and
cross-cultural reconciliation, and a wider conversation about the future
of aboriginal peoples.
