Chanie "Charlie" Wenjack (January 19, 1954 – October 23, 1966) was an Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) First Nations boy who in 1966 escaped from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, Ontario, Canada where he had boarded for three years. He died of hunger and exposure at Farlane, Ontario, while trying to walk 600 km (370 mi) back to his home, Ogoki Post on the Marten Falls Reserve.

His ordeal and his death brought attention to the mistreatment of children by the Canadian Indian residential school system: following Wenjack's death, an inquest into the matter was ordered by the Government of Canada.

Chanie Wenjack was born on January 19, 1954, at Ogoki Post on the Marten Falls Reserve. In 1963, aged nine, Wenjack and three of his sisters were forcibly removed from their home and sent to the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora. The school, which housed approximately 150 students at the time, was funded by the Canadian government and overseen by the Women's Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church. According to Maclean's, there were only six supervisors for the entire student body, leading to frequent attempts by children to escape. Wenjack spent the first two years of his schooling in grade one and was placed in remedial classes soon after. The principal of the school a year prior to his escape recalled him having a good sense of humour and a talent for understanding wordplay.

On October 16, 1966, Wenjack escaped the Cecilia Jeffrey School alongside his friends, orphaned brothers Ralph and Jackie MacDonald. They were among twelve children who escaped that day, though the other nine were caught within 24 hours. The trio reached Redditt, 31 km (19 mi) north of Kenora, where they stayed with Ralph and Jackie's uncle and aunt, Charles and Clara Kelly. After four days, Wenjack left the Kellys, intending to follow the Canadian National Railway (CN) mainline towards Ogoki Post, about 600 km (370 mi) east, using a CN passenger timetable with a map as his guide. The Kellys gave him food and matches and advised him to seek help from the section maintenance crews stationed along the line.

Wenjack had only a light windbreaker and walked for 36 hours in the wind as the temperature dropped to −6 °C (21 °F). Evidence given at the inquest into his death showed that he had made his way another 20 km (12 mi) east along the CN mainline. Bruises on his body implied that he fell numerous times. He collapsed and died sometime on the morning of October 23 in a rock cut near Farlane.

Wenjack's body was found next to the track at 11:20 am that same day by Elwood McIvor, a CN railway engineer on freight train number No. 821. McIvor contacted the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) who recovered the body an hour later with help from a CN section crew. Coroner Glenn Davidson attributed Wenjack's death to exposure and hunger.

Wenjack was buried at the cemetery on the reserve beside the Albany River on October 27. After the funeral, Wenjack's grieving father chose to keep his daughters home from the residential school, a decision respected by the principal.

On November 17, an inquest was begun and a report was commissioned and determined that: