Rediscovering the craft of stories

By Dan Hilborn
Published Jan. 29, 2005


The fast-paced modern world has many conveniences - cellphones so we can talk to our friends, automobiles for easy travel and television to keep us entertained at all hours of the day or night.

But Richard Wagamese, a nationally recognized Ojibwa writer who recently moved to Burnaby, believes all those gadgets and other devices are not necessarily enriching our lives.

"We've allowed the speed and technology to undermine our ability to communicate with one another," Wagamese said while sipping coffee on Hastings Street. "It's diminished our ability to tell stories and at least one element of our history is now gone - when people used to get together around a campfire at night and tell each other stories.

"And that means we're losing our sense of community."

But Wagamese has a plan to help society recover its sense of story. He's organized a series of workshops beginning this Monday night to help people become storytellers.

The 10-night series, titled Deh-bah-juh-mig (Telling Ourselves) will be held at the Panne e Dolce cafe at 3615 East Hastings St., near the Kootenay Loop, and is for anyone interested in telling tales or in preparing themselves to become a writer.

Wagamese, a former national newspaper award-winning columnist for the Calgary Herald and the winner of the Alberta Writers Guild award for his first novel, Keeper and Me, is in a unique position to lead the workshop.

"I've learned through cultural and traditional methods to tell a story right off the top of my head," he said, adding that he believes everyone has the ability to be a natural storyteller, because that's exactly how we used to communicate in the days before telephones, cars and televisions.

"Each of my novels is in my head before I write it. We all have the capacity to do that, we just forget we have it," he said.

"So my workshop is not to teach people how to do it. It's to remind them of something they already know."

He describes his vision as wanting to "bring back the living room" to modern society.

"In days gone by, people used to pull their chairs together to listen to one another and now that's gone." he said. "I find that sad. But I also wonder what it's doing to our communities, neighbourhoods and our sense of cohesion."

The workshop itself is free, but participants are asked to make a $2 donation to the cafe for the use of their space. The event is sponsored by the cafe and Wagamese's part-time employer, Companion Books at the corner of Hastings and Gilmore.

"I give my own time for free because I recognize my storytelling ability as a gift. And you can't honour a gift by charging money to give it away," he said. "That's a traditional cultural principle of storytelling from an Ojibwa perspective. Our elders teach that the whole reason for being a storyteller is for the story's sake itself."

Wagamese also believes that everyone has the ability to tell tales.

"To be a storyteller, you need a well-stocked head, and if you're 18 years old or older, you've already got that," he said. "I also believe there are four words that are missing from our conversational narratives - 'I wonder' and 'Imagine that.'

"Wonder is that human quality that has brought us to where we are today. What would the world be like if people didn't ask 'I wonder if we could fly?'"

Wagamese, who was born on the White Dog reserve, north of Kenora, Ont., finished school after Grade 9. "I taught myself to write by reading and listening and always being curious," he said. "I've also done a lot of creative writing, but if people ask about the rules of English, I have less ability to talk about that.

"But I feel I have a traditional responsibility to give the gift away. The gift only gets stronger when you give it away and it's the responsibility of the storyteller to make sure the story keeps going."