By Bryan Eneas

‘It was all worth it’: Co-author of The Education of Augie Merasty reflects

Mar 10, 2017 | 3:39 PM

The passing of Joseph “Augie” Merasty marked the loss of a northern Saskatchewan celebrity.

He found his star status in life only two years before he passed by telling his personal experiences while attending the Sturgeon Landing Residential School.

He was able to tell his story by working with David Carpenter, a Saskatoon-based author.

“Augie was always very interesting – I don’t mean because he’s a victim, or because he’s Indigenous,” Carpenter said. “He would fall into various disasters… he’s survived all these amazing perils in his life and he’s so courageous… This is the only hero I’ve ever known in my life. He’s an actual hero.”

Over 14 years and countless trips to Prince Albert and into northern Saskatchewan, the pair were able to produce The Education of Augie Merasty which has since gone on to critical acclaim. The book is also available to students as educational material about the residential schools.

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“It’s their story, it’s our story, it’s everybody’s story now,” Carpenter said. “I guess I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Carpenter ventered out of his comfort zone to co-author The Education of Augie Merasty. He said he is known for his works of fiction, and he said he’s dabbled in non-fiction as well, but the book was his first manuscript.

“This was such a wonderful adventure, I really felt like I was serving a worthy cause,” he said.

The manuscript wasn’t easy to compile; Augie frequently disappeared on Carpenter, often leaving him wondering what had happened.

“I had no idea where he was; so the biggest challenge of all was finding him to try and get him to answer questions,” Carpenter said. “Back in Greek mythology, there’s a god named Proteus, and he’s a prophet. If you can find him, he’ll prophesise for you, but he kept changing shapes… that’s what it felt like when I was chasing Augie.”

When Carpenter compiled Merasty’s manuscript, he wasn’t sure if the book would be published. He said after one attempt at publishing the manuscript, he ran into David Walsh from the University of Regina.

He said Walsh was interested in publishing manuscripts, and he handed over Merasty’s story. Two weeks later, much sooner than Carpenter expected, he received a phone call from Walsh who was excited about the story.

“He says, ‘Dave, all you have to do is find Augie, sign him to a contract, and we’re on,’” Carpenter said. “I said ‘I think he might be dead’ and he told me that was my assignment, to find out if he’s dead.”

Many more trips North later along with many phone calls and discussions, and Carpenter found Merasty hungover and “grumpy as hell,” in a Prince Albert detox center where the pair celebrated a reunion of sorts.

“I looked back on the 14 years, and I thought, you know, it was all worth it,” Carpenter said. “Every damn minute of it was worth it. To me it’s just a wonderful, exciting accident.”

“I’ll be telling the Augie story for a long time now.”

Carpenter is now travelling around Saskatchewan, promoting and telling Merasty’s story. He was recently in Prince Albert, where he was “warmly received.”

“They’re embracing the book,” Carpenter said. “I talked with 200, maybe 250 Cree students in P.A. at the polytech up there, and some of them came up to me and said ‘you know Dave, we’ve been hitting this book real deep.’ I just love to hear that.”

Carpenter said in the years since the book was published, Augie became a real celebrity. He said his family, who didn’t know, or didn’t believe a book was coming were immensely proud, and “came back to him.”

Carpenter’s book tour continues in the southwestern portions of the province, until March 21.

“Once the tour is over, this big new edition [of The Education of Augie Merasty] is coming out,” Carpenter said. “It’s a teacher’s edition with a new afterword from me, a bit of editing and some more details… I think I’ll be telling the Augie story for a long time now.”

Carpenter said he expects the new edition to be on shelves “sometime this week, or early next week.”

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @BryanEneas