Storytelling
Becka Charlie says to Frank "It's all we are in the end. Our stories." Eldon's mother was a prolific storyteller, and Eldon's idea of family was "forever locked in the shared embrace of story." Angie Pratt, Frank's mother, was also a very skilled storyteller, seemingly going to another world when she spun a tale. Storytelling is incredibly important to Medicine Walk, both for its ability to transmit knowledge and for its encouragement of empathy.
Most of Medicine Walk is told in story-form; not because it is a novel, but because most of the chapters are stories Eldon is telling to Frank as Eldon is dying. Eldon has been unable to tell his story, to disclose his past, to anyone for his entire life. The novel is in many ways a testament to the power of stories and storytelling, and what it means to tell one's own story.
Indigeneity
Frank and Eldon are both Ojibway, and Frank's mother Angie is Cree. Indigeneity is at the fore of the novel because of the characters' identities, and because the setting—British Columbia, Canada—exists on stolen Indigenous lands. While the old man is white and not Indigenous, the old man does attempt to pass down some tenets of Indigeneity in the teachings he bestows on Frank. The old man teaches Frank to honor the land and to give thanks, tenets that are not exclusively Indigenous but are important to Ojibway epistemology.
In many ways, the importance of storytelling within Medicine Walk also connects to Indigeneity. Eldon's stories gesture towards the complex oral tradition of many Indigenous communities, where morals and teachings are learned through stories. Eldon may not be imparting any moral teachings through his stories, but the importance of storytelling within the novel does demonstrate the power of orality; oral tradition is very much embedded in Indigeneity.
Alcoholism
Eldon has been an alcoholic for much of his life, starting to drink heavily immediately after his best friend Jimmy's death. Alcoholism is a theme throughout the novel because it is the catalyst in Eldon's death, and because alcoholism strains many of the relationships within the novel. Angie dies because Eldon is out drinking and brings her to the hospital too late; her death pushes Eldon to drink even more, and ultimately to ruin his relationship with his son.
Eldon's drinking, and consequently Angie's death, also strains Eldon's relationship with Bunky. Although Bunky dislikes Eldon after Eldon and Angie get together, Eldon's inability to care for Angie because of Eldon's alcoholism pushes Bunky to hate Eldon. Perhaps most obvious of all, Eldon is unable to maintain a relationship with his son because of his alcoholism. While Eldon often expresses a desire to know Frank throughout Medicine Walk—writing him letters about spending Christmas together, planning camping trips—Eldon is unable to keep his promises and show up for his son because of his drinking.
Land
Medicine Walk opens and closes with images of the land. At the beginning of the novel Frank rides out on the land to go see his father. At the novel's close, Frank waves goodbye to his ancestors on the land. The land bookends the novel in terms of setting, but it also serves as a site of healing for many of the novel's characters. Frank comes to terms with his history through the land, where he is able to envision a past he has never known.
The land is where Frank bears witness to Eldon's stories and past, and so there exists a relaying of place-based knowledge and storytelling on the land. Eldon returned to Parson's Gap after the Korean War because it was where he last left his mother, and although Eldon does not find her there, place and land remain generationally tied through Eldon's return. Wagamese devotes ample imagery and descriptive language to the land, because the land is immensely important to Frank. The land is where Frank feels most at home.
Intergenerational Trauma
Intergenerational trauma describes the passing down of trauma within families and generations. This does not mean that generations successively inherit the memory of the traumatic event; rather, trauma is passed down in multifaceted, difficult-to-trace ways. One of the ways in which trauma is passed down in Medicine Walk has to do with the actions of traumatized family members, and how these actions in turn cause trauma. Eldon's alcoholism is perhaps the most overt way in which the novel acts out intergenerational trauma. Eldon drinks to deal with the pain of trauma in his own life, and Eldon's drinking in turn traumatizes Frank; it is in this way that Eldon enacts his own trauma on his son, and therefore how his trauma is passed down.
Passing Down Knowledge
The old man teaches Frank everything he knows about the land. The old man begins teaching Frank about guns and hunting when Frank is three or four years old, and drills this knowledge into Frank's head: that a gun is a tool, that they're only as good as the care you give them, that you have to know what you're hunting with. Once the old man takes Frank out onto the land to hunt, he instructs Frank to pray when he kills an animal, to give thanks to the animal for all it provides. The old man also passes down the knowledge of honoring the land; later in the novel, Eldon tells Frank that the old man promised to teach Frank "Indian things even though he wasn't no Indian himself." Passing down knowledge is thematically important in the novel because Angie passes some of this knowledge down to Bunky, who then gives it to Frank.
Death and Loss
Underlying the entire narrative of Medicine Walk is the theme of death, as the event that sets the plot in motion is Eldon telling Franklin that he will die and asking to be buried in the warrior way. Eldon doesn't pass away until the end of Wagamese's work, but the knowledge that his death is imminent shades the stories Eldon tells and the interactions between Eldon and Frank. Death is a constant theme in the novel, but loss is something Frank negotiates throughout the novel.
Eldon has been largely absent for most of Frank's life, unable to keep to the promises he makes to Frank due to his alcoholism. Frank reckons with Eldon's absence and neglect over the course of the novel, in turn figuring out what the loss of his biological father means given their fraught relationship. Although death and loss are subtextually present throughout all of Medicine Walk, the vibrancy and life to Eldon's stories temper this morose undertone.
