Indian Horse & the Practice
of Cultural Safety

This blog post reviews Richard Wagamese's novel Indian Horse (2012) and its 2017 film adaptation, examining both works as pedagogical tools for addressing Indigenous cultural safety in adult professional education. Drawing on the author's nearly twenty years of experience as an Ontario paramedic and three years as a paramedic educator, the post argues that popular culture — specifically fiction and film — can generate the kind of felt, interior knowledge that clinical training alone cannot produce.

Through critical analysis of the novel's central themes, including colonial erasure of identity, intergenerational trauma, and the conditions required for healing, the post connects Wagamese's narrative directly to documented gaps in Canadian paramedic education: the absence of trauma-informed pedagogy and the lack of meaningful community collaboration with Indigenous peoples in curriculum development.

Theoretical frameworks drawn from transformative learning theory, intersectionality, decolonizing education, and critical adult education ground the analysis throughout. The post concludes that stories like Indian Horse belong in professional education, and that for paramedic students in particular, engaging with this narrative is a beginning of cultural safety practice.