Agora: Red Deer Polytechnic Undergraduate Journal
Volume 15:1 2024 Agora Conference Proceedings

Who Are You, and What’s Your Story?
Sam Darby
Stories are what connect all of mankind, both inter- and intra- generationally. Richard
Wagamese’s Medicine Walk and Cherie Dimalines's The Marrow Thieves both explore how
stories are a vital piece of what makes us who we are. They enable us to be healed, as the stories
of our past or of those who came before us can fill gaps in knowledge or even identity.
Alternatively, not knowing these essential stories can have detrimental effects on us and prevent
us from properly connecting to the world around us. Learning stories about our ancestors can
allow us to feel a sense of connectedness to them, and although we might not be living the same
way they did, knowing their stories adds an extra sense of interconnected identity to them.
Ultimately, by sharing and embracing our own narratives, we are really embracing who we are,
who we hope to be, and how we want others to live better than we did.
“It’s all we are in the end. Our stories” (Wagamese 103). Think about who you are. Think
about the experiences you have been through that have made you the person you are now. Think
about the stories your parents or grandparents have shared with you. Would things be different if,
for example, you had been raised in a large grey box, eating the same meal without any social
interactions? It is safe to say that you would be a completely different person had you not been
through all you have been through, both the good and the bad, in your life. In Richard
Wagamese’s Medicine Walk, he shares that stories are the means by which we can heal, help
others learn from our mistakes, and connect to our cultural heritage and our ancestors. Likewise,
in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves, she argues that stories enable us to survive, that there
are consequences for losing the stories that make us up, and also how stories can help us connect
to both our cultural heritage and our ancestors. In this essay, I will be exploring the compelling
narratives in Wagamese’s Medicine Walk and Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves to see how both
authors communicate that the stories that make up our own lives, those people we are close to,
and our culture, ultimately create our identity.
In order for an organism to survive, it must be able to heal (Eberl). So it is with our
survival that, in order to spiritually and emotionally heal, we must turn to stories. In The Marrow
Thieves, Dimaline portrays the idea that stories about our history and heritage are used to ensure

the survival of the Indigenous peoples, as the whole world is out to extract their bone marrow so
that they can dream again. To illustrate this, the family the book follows frequently hears Story
from Miig. The story shared throughout the novel is essentially the history of the world before
and after the residential schools, and how history repeats itself in that manner. Learning about
this story is essential to the group's survival because if they know that those in the past have
survived this all before, they can do it too. An example of how hearing stories impacts our
identity is seen when Frenchie learns of Miig's coming-to story, after which he becomes much
more serious in his reports to Miig about the settler activity he spied and says to himself that he
“misses the innocence of an hour ago when [his] only concern was touching the hand of a girl
[he] thought [he] might love” (109). Similarly, in Medicine Walk, stories are shared to heal
oneself so that others can survive through them. During many of the frequent stops on Frank and
Eldon's journey together, Eldon shares stories about his own life that are vital for his son to
know. In sharing them, he is able to provide much-needed knowledge for Frank to have in his
life as well as give himself a chance to heal from the trauma he has been through (Wagamese).
Some examples of the stories that are shared with Frank are about who his mother is, Eldon’s
relation to the Old Man who raised Frank, why Eldon gave him up as a baby, and how his
drinking problems began. By sharing these stories with his son, Eldon is given an opportunity to
heal through forming some sort of connection with his son after 16 years of practically being
strangers. Eldon was also able to get things off his chest, like confessing to killing his best friend
Jimmy, which was needed to free him from his guilt. In addition, learning more about who his
father is heals the scars that Frank has developed from their estranged relationship over the years.
In addition to the healing and survival that come from knowing and sharing stories, both books
delve into how not knowing stories can be harmful. For The Marrow Thieves, Miig shares his
coming-to story with Frenchie about how he lost his husband to the recruiters from his own
home. He relates,
Isaac didn't have memories in his family of the original schools, the ones that
pulled themselves up like wooden monsters … who stayed there, ingesting our
children… for over a hundred years. Isaac didn't have grandparents who'd told
residential school stories like campfire tales to scare you into acting right….
Stories about a book that was like a vacuum, used to suck the language right out
of your lungs. And I didn't have time to share them, not now. (Dimaline 106)
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Isaacs's lack of knowledge about residential schools and the horrors within made him a
trusting person, who did not believe in the rumours about schools being reinstated or the fact that
the people outside were there to take them away. Not knowing the stories of his generational past
led to their capture, whereas Miig had a better understanding of the world and its history and,
although he was also taken, he at least had his mind in the right place for this situation. He also
learned from this experience once he escaped and made it his duty to share that history with the
younger generation he cares for and leads so that they do not make the same mistake.
Furthermore, in Medicine Walk, Eldon shares a story about his own childhood, and how, in order
to survive, he had to live and learn by “white man things” (Wagamese 49). In full, he says,
All’s I’m tryin’ to say is that we never had the time for learnin’ about how to get
by out here. None of us did. White man things was what we needed to learn if we
was gonna eat regular. Indian stuff just kinda got left behind on accounts we were
busy gettin’ by in that world. (49)
However, having to forgo his own cultural heritage and the knowledge his ancestors
carried for generations in order to survive in this white man’s world, it could be argued that this
was not surviving at all. He didn’t live by the standards his ancestors had, which eventually led
to making a lot of mistakes in life. This is not going as far as to say that had he been raised with
more Indigenous culture, things might have turned out differently, but it appears as though Eldon
shares this with his son to compare their lives. Frank knows how to thrive in the bush, whereas
Eldon has no idea how and, accordingly, is not as connected as he should be to his ancestors and
culture. It is through sharing these stories with his son that Frank is able to connect with his
generational past at the end of the book (Wagamese 246).
Indeed, the idea of stories enabling us to connect with our culture and ancestors and
having an impact on our Indigenous identity is explicitly conveyed in both books. In the case of
The Marrow Thieves, near the end of the book, the group comes across a large camp of other
Indigenous peoples that have banded together to create their own community (Dimaline 167).
This community is a living revival of their culture, with tobacco and sweetgrass being grown,
active sweat lodges, music, and traditional dance (168; 190). These are things that none of the
younger members of the group had really experienced before and were aspects of culture that
were then extended to their personal identity from that point onward as they joined the larger
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community. Likewise, in Medicine Walk, learning about Eldon’s story and his history allowed
Frank to finally form an attachment with his ancestors through the bond he made with his father
as he passed away (Wagamese 236). Looking down into the valley back at home, he accounts
being able to see people riding horses, children waving sticks, and people gathering herbs and
berries; his ancestors living as they would have traditionally lived (246). Granted, he had
basically learned how to live as they did through the Old Man, who was not Indigenous, but the
connection he made to his ancestors through his father's stories allowed that bond to become
tangible.
In conclusion, both Medicine Walk and The Marrow Thieves exhibit the profound impact
that stories have on shaping our identities. Those stories are not entertaining tales but are the very
threads of identity that are weaved together to create this beautiful tapestry of you and your life.
They bind your past with the past of those close to you, and those who came before you.
Through these stories, one can learn about how to survive and heal, avoid mistaken choices, and
form a connection to our collective past. That being said, as we continue to weave our stories and
learn from the stories of others, we must remember the point being shared by the characters in
these books; by sharing and embracing our own narratives, we are really embracing who we are,
who we hope to be, and how we want others to live better than we did.

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Works Cited
Dimaline, Cherie. The Marrow Thieves. DCB/Cormorant Books Inc., 2017.
Eberl, Gérard. “Robustness in living organisms is homeostasis.” Seminars in Immunology, 16.
Apr. 2018, pp. 56 - 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smim.2017.12.007
Wagamese, Richard. Medicine Walk. Penguin Random House McClelland & Stewart, 2014.

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