Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont (17 page)

Maybe it’s a little morbid, but I can picture Louis stepping out of the second-storey window of this chapel that was once the guardhouse and onto the scaffolding of the longgone gallows, bookended by policemen and followed by a crying Father André with his long white beard and black robes. I can picture Louis with the rope around his neck staring ahead and mumbling prayers under his breath, questioning for a moment how he ended up here in this place on this day, the last one of his life. Does he regret his actions as he stands on the scaffold?

THE YEAR BEFORE MY VISIT
to Regina I fly to Saskatoon, rent a car at the small airport, and begin to drive. It’s a gorgeous summer day, the prairie fields exploding with wildflowers. I’m surprised as I drive north how these prairies aren’t flat at all but undulate like waves on a great ocean. I try to picture Gabriel riding through this same country, hunting buffalo as a younger man or, as he hits middle age, evading the military as he rides away from Batoche to a different kind of captivity from Louis’s, this one in the States.

I turn east off the main highway onto a secondary one and then onto an even smaller road. Following this, I’m surprised to feel my heart rate quicken as I close in on my first destination. As the wide river comes in sight, sparkling in the brilliant sunshine, I smile to myself, understanding now in this very moment why a people would be willing to fight and die for such a place. It’s beautiful, the poplar leaves along the river shimmering in the breeze, the South Saskatchewan curving like a smile. I drive slowly over the steel bridge that is Gabriel’s Crossing, taking it all in: the shining water, the thick growth of trees along the bank, the fertile ground sloping up and stretching out for miles. The only structure around, a well-kept house with a large teepee in the backyard, piques my interest. I won’t bother the owner today. Instead, I continue my exploration.

I take my time, travelling unimpeded through the square miles surrounding Batoche, surveying a couple of the original rifle pits protecting the village, spending a few hours at the annual Back to Batoche Festival, driving out to Fish Creek and seeing first-hand the place where Gabriel not only held off Middleton and his army but beat them soundly when they dared encroach too close to his home. It’s almost as if I wander through a dream, traversing this country that was Gabriel Dumont’s. Something tells me he never did regret his actions. And I can see now, absorbing the majesty of this land, that neither did Louis.

The fenced-in Depot in Regina and the wide-open country surrounding Batoche could not be more different. They represent the two worlds of the Métis experience: the open freedom they continually sought as they pushed farther and farther west and the fences that Canadian authorities never stopped building to try to contain a people who were too free, too “Indian” in their outlook. These two places encompass both the promise and the near destruction of a people. They also speak to the two opposing forces that have always made up this country: the wilderness and the desire to constrain it.

During the long voyage of writing this book, I came, early on, to the understanding that in some ways Gabriel represents the “Indian” in the Métis and Louis the European. Gabriel, a master hunter and speaker of indigenous languages, lived on and for the land. Louis, universityeducated and deeply Catholic, never seemed fully comfortable in the wilderness and instead continually strove for a way to build his vision of a new church, a new society, in the wilds of the West. And when these two powerful men came together in 1884 and 1885, a truly united Métis world view emerged, one that John A. Macdonald quickly recognized was a threat to his vision of Canada.

These Métis, these half-breeds, our first prime minister realized, could not be controlled on reserves in the same way he tried to control the “Indians.” Depending on how one sees it, John A.’s strategy of simply ignoring Métis petitions for so many years either backfired tragically or succeeded brilliantly when Dumont and Riel forced his hand by announcing a provisional government. Ironically or not, John A.’s inaction created the military action that attempted, once and for all, to crush the Métis Nation.

Clearly, though, this nation is resilient. Well over three hundred thousand people in Canada are enrolled Métis, and many, many thousands more self-identify as Métis. The Métis homeland includes regions in nine of our ten provinces as well as the North-West Territories. Métis populations are also found in parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. The people, they aren’t going anywhere. They—we—are a part of the landscape that is our country.

But do characters like Gabriel Dumont and Louis Riel matter in our contemporary world? Do we need the ghosts of these men in our busy, modern lives? I believe the answer is self-evident, especially when I look across Canada in the twenty-first century. The rebel in me, that person who won’t be pushed around by bullies or faceless institutions, sees a direct link between the struggle of a people 125 years ago and the struggles of so many average Canadians today.

As representatives of their community, Louis and Gabriel struggled against the entity that called itself “progress” and took the physical, often bullying form of the surveyor, the politician, and finally the railroad. This, to me, is the same struggle so many of us face today. Modern industry and multinational corporations are our very own contemporary “progress.” From our hunger for oil to our over-reliance on personalized technology, we sometimes lose ourselves. I don’t argue that progress is a bad thing, just as Gabriel and Louis would not have argued that. But the lesson learned from Riel and Dumont is that progress, in whatever form it takes, should never be allowed to trample the rights of the community or the broader culture. Progress, in all its forms, should serve us, not us it.

That history lesson, for me, is the most important one of all.

SOURCES

When it comes to the life of Louis Riel and, to a much lesser degree, of Gabriel Dumont, the sheer number of primary sources is tremendous. So I focus here on more contemporary explorations of these two men.

Please also note that the following shortlist is by no means complete but just a taste of the brilliant explorations out there. My deep apologies to the authors of the many great books about Riel and Dumont that I’ve left off the list.

George Woodcock’s biography
Gabriel Dumont: The Métis Chief and His Lost World
(Edmonton: Hurtig, 1975) is invaluable and a fantastic read.

Gabriel Dumont: Memoirs
(Brandon, MB: Brandon University Press, 2006), edited by Denis Combet, is second to none and simply amazing.

Joseph Kinsey Howard’s
Strange Empire
(New York: William Morrow, 1952), considered a mid–twentieth-century gem, is a fount of great research on Riel, Dumont, and the North-West in the second half of the 1800s, but it certainly shows its age at times.

Despite covering only a relatively small part of his extensive journals,
The Diaries of Louis Riel
(Edmonton: Hurtig, 1976), edited by Thomas Flanagan, is a must-read if you want to begin to try to understand the mindset of this man.

The Selected Poetry of Louis Riel
(Toronto: Exile, 1993), translated by Paul Savoie and edited by Glen Campbell, is another fantastic way to begin trying to decipher the man’s heart.

Maggie Siggins’s much debated and studied tome,
Riel: A Life of Revolution
(Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994), is a fine read. Siggins does that thing so many academics fail to do: she brings the man and his world to life.

The False Traitor: Louis Riel in Canadian Culture
by Albert Braz (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003) is fascinating.

Prairie Fire: The 1885 North-West Rebellion
by Bob Beal (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1999) is a solidly researched and written account.

Chester Brown’s
Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography
(Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, 2003) is brilliant and beautiful and moving, a great example of how history can be told in a new and refreshing way.

G.F.G. Stanley’s
The Birth of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1936) and
Louis Riel: Patriot or Rebel?
(Toronto: Ryerson, 1963) remain early cornerstones of serious research and discussion of Riel and the North-West.

Thomas Flanagan’s
Louis “David” Riel: Prophet of the New World
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979) and
Riel and the Rebellion: 1885 Reconsidered
(Saskatoon, SK: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1983) are thoroughly researched and singularly driven.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writing of this book was one of the tougher creative struggles of my life. It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed by the vast quantity of information on Louis Riel and, to a much lesser extent, Gabriel Dumont. Throw into the mix the debate that continues to wage about whether Riel was a prophet or a madman, and it makes for some daunting subject matter. I’ve learned that writing a historical biography such as this means treading on the sacred ground of a people, and for that, one should always ask permission and seek out the experts in the community.

And so I thank Denis Combet, Métis scholar and gentleman, who read my manuscript with a keen and careful eye. I also wish to thank Sherry Farrell Racette for allowing me to pick her brilliant Métis brain. Another Métis scholar and gentleman, Warren Cariou, gave me incredibly insightful feedback. Thank you for your generosity and time, Warren. To round out my Métis posse, I need also to thank the wonderful poet Kate Vermette for her insightful commentary and Niigonwedon James Sinclair, the man with a plan, not only for his excellent commentary but also for introducing me to so many fine, fine people. Any mistakes or inconsistencies in this book are wholly mine.

And a book like this can’t go to press without the great minds of people like John Ralston Saul, who also offered invaluable insight; Diane Turbide at Penguin, who has shepherded this amazing series; and my copy editor, Scott Steedman, who spent countless hours poring over the manuscript.

Finally,
chi meegwetch,
Amanda. I’m a lucky, lucky man.

CHRONOLOGY

Louis Riel