KAMLOOPS, BC-Author and journalist Richard Wagamese died in Kamloops, British Columbia on March 9. His death came just one week after he was nominated for a B.C. Book Prize for Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations.

One of the many books Richard Wagamese authored.

The author of several non-fiction and fiction books, Wagamese is perhaps best known for Indian Horse, the story of a residential school student who finds his escape through his love of hockey. The book was a finalist in CBC's Canada Reads 2013 contest and is going to become a movie.

Wagamese described himself as a "second-generation survivor of the residential school system" because his parents and other members of his family had also attended these boarding schools. He lived in several foster homes.

Christine Haebler, one of the producers of the adapted film Indian Horse, referred to Wagamese as "a national treasure gone too soon."

Wagamese's first novel, Keeper'n Me, tied for the Writers' Guild of Alberta fiction award in 1995. He went on to write a dozen novels.

Before he became a novelist, Wagamese was the Native-affairs columnist for the Calgary Herald where he won the National Newspaper Award in 1991, the first Indigenous journalist to do so.