NOVEMBER 2005

Métis Matters
Long Live the Métis Nation!

Providing communication to Métis and non-Métis people to create awareness, promote and preserve Métis heritage and culture.

Edited and Published by Felice Gladue

We welcome donations to cover our costs. Cheques can be made payable to the Métis Matters Foundation of Alberta. Thank you for your continued support.

Please forward this copy to others that may be interested in keeping updated on our community.

The opinions contained in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Métis Matters Foundation of Alberta nor the opinions of any Métis local, regional, or provincial organization or their affiliates. These views expressed in this publication are those of its contributors only. The publisher invites comments from our readers but reserves the right to edit or reject material at her discretion.

To receive the newsletter, free of charge, to send submissions or to advertise, contact us at:

Box 3263, Sherwood Park, Alberta, T8H 2T2
Phone number: 780-975-2084
Fax number: 780-416-4619
Email: info@metismatters.com
Website: www.metismatters.com

News and Advertisement Deadline: Monday, November 21, 2005

When heart and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. ~ C. Reade ~

Contents:

• Up Coming Events Schedule

• Sick of Earning Poor Wages? 

• Alberta 2005-06 budget surplus
  

• The Covered Wagon

• A Salute to our Veterans

• Métis Fest 2005
• Grande Cache Métis Local Talent Show plays to a Full House!
• Unearthing the trail of Riel rebellion's twice-stolen relic - The Bell of Batoche
• Calvin Volrath launchs new website 
  

• Future Dehcho Government Expected to Promote Métis Culture
  

Up Coming Events Schedule

NOVEMBER 11, 2005
2nd Annual Tribute Jamboree Honoring Aboriginal Veterans
Canadian Native Friendship Centre, 11205-101st, Edmonton, Alberta
2:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
for more information, contact Jack White @ (780)-999-0679 or (780)457-4608

NOVEMBER 18, 2005
Métis Fest 2004: Louis Riel Gala
10960-104 st, Polish Hall, Edmonton, Alberta
6:30 p.m.
Contact 780-451-1072. Visit www.metisdance.com.

DECEMBER 3 & 4, 2005
Christmas Craft Show & Sale
Canadian Native Friendship Centre, 11205-101st, Edmonton, Alberta
for more information contact: Barb @ (780) 479-1999

Education / Employment

Sick of Earning Poor Wages? 
Join the growing league of Aboriginal/Métis women who are choosing trades as a way out of deadend jobs!   Women Building Futures is conducting information sessions on their innovative program Journeywoman Start which helps women prepare for apprenticeships in the trades.

Upcoming November sessions:

Wednesday November 2nd 10:00am
Saturday November 5th 11:00am
Wednesday November 9th 10:00am
Thursday November 10th 2:00pm
Tuesday November 15th 2:00pm
Thursday November 17th 10:00am
Saturday November 19th 11:00am
Thursday November 24th 10:00am
Tuesday November 29th 2:00pm

Information Sessions are held at Women Building Futures 11219 Jasper Avenue (the entrance to our facility is in the back alley just south of Jasper Avenue, between 112th and 113th street). Call 452-1200 for more information or visit our website at http://www.womenbuildingfutures.com Our next course begins in February 2006.

Minister of Aboriginal Affairs & Northern Development
By Honourable Pearl Calahasen, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development

 The Covered Wagon

I had two wonderful grandmothers, my Métis grandmother Jessie Whitford who used to say “ayha” when she agreed with you and was talking to her friends, and my Dad’s Mom.

Her maiden name was Dora Elizabeth Oliver, still an attractive widow, after my Grandpa Frank Kopp died, turned down the offer of remarriage and made herself a covered wagon. Hitching up her team of horses and with everything she owned, including pots and pans, clothes and a stove travelled by covered wagon from Andrew down across the North Saskatchewan River by ferry to Ashmont. The trail was long in those days especially crossing the ferry at Pakan. The horses were usually held by the reins as the ferry made its way across that wide river. Getting down the steep incline and up the other side was accomplished with great relief, if nothing happened and the horses didn’t bolt and try to run away.

In the big bush behind the Ashmont School in a small house is where my Grandmother lived alone for many years. When we went for a visit I could see she had many strong wooden trunks with her belongings carefully stored. After a few years my Auntie Lydie came to live with her. Auntie Lydia was also widowed and had been married to my Uncle Napoleon McGillvary. Both My grandmother and Auntie Lydia had worked at the Misericordia Hospital in the kitchen washing dishes. I know my grandmother suffered from exema so that might have been one of the reasons she left. I imagine the pay was very low, however, and knowing how strong and determined she was, she wanted a life of her own. As young girl I watched in awe as she drove her covered wagon down the road on her journey all alone.

My Grandma Kopp was a very stylish woman even though she had very little money. In those days she didn’t have a sewing machine so she sewed her clothes and made quilts by hand with very fine stitches. I often looked at those fine small stitches and wondered how long it took her to sew all the garments for herself. Like most people who had managed to get through the drought and the depression she always was very careful with the things she had, and saved everything. Quilts were never made out of new material they were always made out of clothes that were no longer worn and colourful rag rugs used up the last bits of the worn-out clothes.

When my grandmother finally had to move to a Nursing home in her nineties she had still saved the many gifts and presents like those thick long warm stockings she had not even worn and other things she had been given over the years. She died when she was ninety–five and is buried near my Dad at Evergreen Cemetery on the old Fort Road which heads on to Andrew where her and her family had pioneered after emigrating from North Dakota USA.

The Métis Crossing holds many memories for me because of both my grandmothers.  As I thought about this story I believe that many like me are a “Child of Canada” - a Métis child with all the rich and wonderful memories of both my sides of the family.

A Salute to our Veterans

This year is a very special time for our Veterans, as it the year of the Veteran. It is important that we always show respect and honor those who have served our country. There are significant events taking place this month in honor of our Veterans.

For instance, a delegation of Aboriginal Spiritual Elders, Veterans and youth are participating in an Aboriginal Spiritual Journey to Europe. While there, a spiritual ceremony to call home the spirits of fallen warriors will be held. As well, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Veterans and youth will visit European battlefields and cemeteries.

This spiritual journey is expected to be a source of healing and closure for Aboriginal Veterans and their families, and will provide an opportunity for Veterans to pay final respects to their fallen comrades. It will also serve to educate Canada's youth, Canadians and Europeans about the proud tradition of service and sacrifice by Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Métis warriors. Upon return from Europe, spiritual ceremonies to receive the spirits of fallen warriors will be held in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.

As well, there will be the 2nd Annual Tribute Jamboree Honoring Aboriginal Veterans on November 11, 2005 in conjunction with Remembrance Day. This celebration will be filled with great music, food and the ever famous Mr. Winston Wutunee as the Master of Ceremonies. This event will take place at the Canadian Native Friendship Centre in Edmonton, Alberta from 2:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

As every year is an important year to honour veterans and their service and 2005 is especially meaningful because it marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

On a personal note, I want to say thank you to my moosum, who has since passed on, for your service to our country, and being the proud Métis that you were.  As well, I say thank you to all of the Veterans and their families, I salute you!

Metis Fest 2005
The Edmonton Métis Cultural Dance Society would like to invite you to our 6th annual Métis Fest.  Métis Fest is a celebration of Métis music, dance and culture.  This year’s festival will include the following competitions: Vocals, Red River Jig, Fiddling, and Square Dancing, with prize payouts totaling
$11, 500.00!  We are also hosting an educational showcase featuring Métis entertainers such as dancers, a storyteller, a singer and a historian.  The festival has rapidly grown over the past 6 years from 350 spectators to 1200 a day, so come down and share in this spectacular engaging event.  Métis Fest 2005 will be held November 18~20, at the Polish Hall (10960 ~ 104 St.) in Edmonton Alberta.  For more information or to purchase weekend passes please call Shelley Collins @ (780) 451-1072 or go to www.metisdance.com.

Grande Cache Métis Local Talent Show plays to a Full House!
Once again the Grande Cache Métis Local packed the house with well over 200 hundred from miles around, hosting its 6th Annual Talent show on October 01, 2005.

Musicians, fiddlers and jiggers from far and wide travelled through rain and snow to have a shot at the prize money, totalling $3,600.00.

The back up band was the popular Muskeg River, along with emcee Trevor Gladue, who kept the show rolling along.

Métis Local President Al Findlay once again put on a great show, along with his board of directors and volunteers. Congratulations to all the contestants, winners and the Grande Cache Métis Local.

This year’s winners of the 6th Annual Talent show are as follows;

Adult Jigging
1st place Herb Goodswimmer
2nd place   Ed Poitras
3rd place Jack Flett

Fiddling
1st place Corey Poitras
2nd place Richard Calihoo
3rd place Ed Poitras

Red River Jig Teen
1st place Corey Poitras
2nd place Theoren Poitras
3rd place Logan Leonard

Youth Jig 12 & under
1st place Leo Marcotte
2nd place Kelsey Poitras 
3rd place Cylena Gladue

Youth Vocals
1st place Katlyn McKenna
2nd place Corey Poitras 
3rd place Stacey Brady

Adult Vocals
1st place Margie Ossinger
2nd place Bruce Mitchell
3rd place Rose Aastveit

Unearthing The Trail of Riel Rebellion's twice-stolen relic - The Bell of Batoche
By Katherine Harding & Dawn Walton
reprinted with permission Globe and Mail

BATOCHE, SASK. and STONY MOUNTAIN, MAN. -- As Gary Floyd Guiboche lifted the Bell of Batoche out of the glass container that long guarded this Canadian trophy of war, he was struck by the mystique surrounding the relic.

The silver sparkled. Métis leader Louis Riel was connected to it. It embodied 106 years of resentment toward the Canadian government for quashing a Métis uprising.

"To me, it looked really wonderful," Mr. Guiboche recalls now, 14 years after that night when he first laid eyes on the bell. He remembers thinking: "I'm actually right here where the bell is."

Then the Métis from Manitoba went right back to work stealing -- or in his view liberating -- one of the most storied artifacts of the Riel rebellions. It's a secret he kept from the public until recently, when he was contacted by The Globe and Mail.

"It's not what it's worth," explains Mr. Guiboche. "It's what it means."

In 1885, Canadian soldiers from small-town Ontario were summoned to the Prairies in what is now Saskatchewan to crush a Métis revolt led by Riel. They also plundered the bell from the church in Batoche during what was the war's final skirmish.

The soldiers smuggled the bell home to Millbrook, southwest of Peterborough, where it was considered the prize of the battle, and was eventually put proudly on display at the local Royal Canadian Legion branch.

Until 1991, when it was stolen a second time.

Mr. Guiboche says he and another man broke into the legion to reclaim the bell in honour of Riel and with an eye to displaying it somewhere more befitting a Métis icon.

Mr. Guiboche was never charged with theft in the disappearance of the Bell of Batoche.

Nobody was. The case is still open, but police say with no suspects and no evidence, the trail has gone cold.

After all this time, few care about charges anyway. What most people want -- Métis leaders, historians, politicians, members of the legion and police -- is to see the bell returned to public view.

Over the years, there have been promises of no criminal charges in exchange for the bell, and even a cash reward offered, but attempts by the governments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, police and Métis leaders to recover it have failed.

Some say police have not treated the case seriously. Others say Métis officials haven't done their part to turn up the heat on the culprits long thought to be in their midst. And now Mr. Guiboche says his partner in crime -- whom he won't identify -- has kept the bell hidden too long for no reason. It should surface, he says, and together they should be treated as heroes, not thieves.

"I think we should be recognized as a legend in our people, in our history."

The silver-plated, 40-kilogram bell baptized Marie Antoinette was purchased for $25 in 1884. About 30 cm high, it hung for nine months in the steeple of the white clapboard St. Antoine-de-Padoue parish at Batoche, a thriving Métis community about 85 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

It beckoned residents to prayer. It also rang out in times of celebration and mourning.

It was Batoche that Riel had hoped would become the headquarters for his provisional government of Saskatchewan.

The Battle of Batoche began on May 9, 1885, and ended three days later in a bloodbath.

The Métis led by Gabriel Dumont found themselves outmanned by the Canadian soldiers 800 to 300. Mr. Dumont managed to escape what would be the last conflict of the North-West Rebellion.

But Riel, who had returned from exile in Montana to help the Métis cause, surrendered. He was hanged for treason.

A group of soldiers from Ontario's Midland Provisional Battalion, Sergeant Ed McCorry among them, plucked the bell from its perch -- along with a host of other objects -- and wrapped it in a blanket and took it home to Protestant Ontario as a spoil of war.

It hung in the Millbrook fire hall before being moved to the legion branch on the town's main street. A picture window was eventually constructed for passersby to view the war trophy.

In the fall of 1991, a group of Métis leaders went to see the bell and drank and chatted with legion members. They posed for pictures with the bell, which was in a locked glass display case, and left.

Not long after that visit, the legion was robbed. During the break-in, medals awarded to Sgt. McCorry disappeared. So did the bell.

Gary Floyd Guiboche is a burly yet soft-spoken man with greying hair and mustache who was raised in Swan River, Man., a community not far from the Saskatchewan boundary that was first settled around the fur trade.

He's handy with tools. He's also strong. Both are skills he developed from holding a variety of jobs between moves to Winnipeg and his home town over the years.

He turned 46 this week. It was another birthday spent at Stony Mountain Institution, a medium-security prison just north of Winnipeg that is home to 549 inmates. There he is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 years for beating his common-law wife to death with a baseball bat after a night of heavy drinking in 1999.

It's a crime he says he didn't commit. His first conviction was overturned on appeal. He was convicted at a second trial, and the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his appeal.

Métis leaders believe his story about the bell.

Mr. Guiboche was working in home construction in Winnipeg in 1991 when his telephone rang. The voice of a long-time friend who had nurtured bitterness about government treatment of the Métis was on the other end.

" 'I need help,' he said. 'I know you're good with a lot of stuff. I can't do this alone. We can succeed,' " Mr. Guiboche recalls.

The man said he had already "scoped out" the target. They would do it by Oct. 22 -- in honour of Riel's birthday. Mr. Guiboche, who was sympathetic to the cause, didn't hesitate.

He jumped in the friend's Jeep Cherokee -- a vehicle chosen because it could traverse dodgy terrain if they needed to outrun the law and carry supplies in case they had to lie low in the woods -- and they left Winnipeg bound for Millbrook.

They took turns driving, and along the way witnessed a series of "spiritual helpers." A moose lumbering beside the highway. Eagles flying overhead. A cougar milling around in a ditch.

"We took it as a good sign," Mr. Guiboche says.

They arrived at Millbrook in the dark. The town was asleep. They decided to park at the back door of the legion to save them from heaving the small but heavy bell very far.

They donned gloves, tuques and went to work popping the back door open with a crowbar. Once inside, they went straight for the bell.

Emboldened by the lack of activity in the sleepy town, they even switched on the light. They removed the top of the glass case. They brought along an air jack, and as they were about to use it to pry apart the two steel bars that held the bell in place, they noticed an elderly woman walking outside.

They held their breath as she passed by, oblivious to the crime that was taking place inside.

It took only seconds for a few pumps on the jack to dislodge the bell.

In one swift motion, Mr. Guiboche pulled the bell out and placed it in a hockey bag they had brought along.

"Once we got it in the bag, we were kind of shaky," he says, eyes widening with pride. "We did it."

They stuffed shirts, sweaters, whatever they had brought along, inside the bell to prevent it from clanging. Before leaving, Mr. Guiboche noticed some war medals on display. He looked at them and then to his friend before returning his gaze to the medals.

He says his friend shoved them in the bag.

"It was payback," the pair agreed.

They left the building and loaded their cargo into the Jeep. As a final insult, they drove by the legion on their way out of town, waved and said, "See, ya."

Later, they would get rid of their clothes, right down to their shoes. They drove all day until they were just outside Thunder Bay, when the vehicle, which had been struggling for the duration of the trip, finally died.

Parts and repairs would take time. They weren't about to hang around an unfamiliar town with stolen goods.

They rode a bus home to Winnipeg, an eagle following them along the way. The bell, stashed in the hockey bag, was stowed underneath with the rest of the passengers' luggage.

Mr. Guiboche says they had a lawyer on standby in case they needed advice.

Bradford Morse, a University of Ottawa law professor who specializes in aboriginal law, says he was brought into the saga shortly after the bell vanished from the legion.

Mr. Morse says he was hired for a dollar by a "person who had direct information" about the bell's removal and whereabouts.

The people who took the bell did it with the belief it could become a "positive emotional, political and cultural achievement" for the Métis, he says.

It was to be a rallying cry for the country's estimated 350,000 to 400,000 Métis people.

"You have to remember what was happening in 1991," he explains.

The 1990 Oka crisis, triggered when Mohawk Warriors shot an officer of the Sûreté du Québec (the provincial police) to death during a raid, was still fresh.

At the same time, the Métis were worried that they were going to be shut out of constitutional discussions the Mulroney government was holding.

"This was seen as a way to put Métis front and centre on the national stage and remind people of their history," Prof. Morse says.

For months, there was an attempt, through his client and intermediaries, to broker a formal transfer of the bell to the Métis nation and its return to Batoche.

To help speed up the negotiations, Yvon Dumont, then president of the Manitoba Métis Federation who went on to become the province's lieutenant-governor, wrote a letter offering to pay reparations for the break-in, such as damage done to the legion's back door.

Prof. Morse had hoped that if the bargaining succeeded, there would be a "celebration" at which the bell would be "greeted with open arms," not with criminal charges or civil litigation. Legion members were asked to be guests of honour at the ceremonial returning of the bell.

But Millbrook legion members weren't interested in co-operating and talks dissolved, Prof. Morse recalls.

Retired Ontario Provincial Police detective Gary Katz vividly remembers when the Bell of Batoche file landed on his desk in the late 1990s.

"You can't forget a case like that because of the politics involved," he says.

Mr. Katz, who left the force in 1999, says he too worked hard to broker a settlement so the file could finally be closed.

"The break and enter in the policing business is very serious," he says. "But if you can negotiate something and it was a prized possession to someone, then you wheel and deal with the bad guy and do what you have to do."

Mr. Katz says he thought a deal had been arranged through a "well-connected man" in Winnipeg whose name he has forgotten.

If the bell reappeared and the medals were returned to the Millbrook legion, then no charges would be laid. He said the offer was necessary because the police didn't have suspects or leads in the case.

"We really wanted those medals back," he says. "I can't even remember why it went sour because we had everything ready to go."

Jack Hillson was Saskatchewan's minister of intergovernmental and aboriginal affairs in 2000 when he got involved in the case. He says he managed to lift the threat of charges in exchange for the bell. Through intermediaries, a handover was arranged, to be carried out in a July, 2000, ceremony at Batoche, and the missing medals were to be returned to the legion.

"The guy presumed to have the bell was there [at the ceremony], then the moment presented itself, but [the bell] didn't."

Mr. Hillson, still smarting from his failure to recover the bell, blames the Métis community for not demanding the bell be returned.

"The Métis never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," he says. "It's up to the Métis community to resolve it. It's time to get real."

David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation, says the people who stole the bell are thieves just like the soldiers who pilfered it in 1885. It's a serious crime that should be punished, he says, but the police haven't given the case the national attention it deserves.

Under Métis law, he says, the culprits would be "blackballed by the Métis nation as a whole."

He even reiterated the offer of a "substantial amount" of money -- tens of thousands of dollars -- for the bell's return. But he's not optimistic after so many failed chances.

"These individuals are selfish and greedy. They're keeping it for their own political or personal gain or spiritual gain if you want to call it that," he says.

The pressure is on from within the Métis community for whoever has the bell to give it up, but to no avail.

"I know how these people operate, and the more you give it significance or importance, the more they toy with you. They'll use it to some kind of gain and wait and wait and wait if they have to," he says.

Métis leader BillyJo DeLaRonde, a former head of the Manitoba Métis Federation who was ousted during an internal feud in the 1990s, says when the bell was stolen in 1885, it was a test of the Métis people. He calls the 1991 disappearance a "repossession."

Mr. DeLaRonde was recently elected chief of Pine Creek First Nation, about 450 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Last December, he moved to a modest trailer, which is not far from the shore of Lake Winnipegosis and is across the road from his community's new school.

His next door neighbour says the chief is a busy man who's often away at meetings, but describes him as "the best chief we've had."

But not everybody shares that opinion. Mr. DeLaRonde, who lived in Winnipeg yet was invited to run for chief after a visit to the reserve, faced opposition from a group of band members and councillors who protested against his election. But during a meeting with members, he smoothed things over.

He is a slow and colourful speaker. He denies he had anything to do with the disappearance of the bell, but he is not short on opinions about it.

The people who took the bell are not thieves, he explains.

"Actions speak louder than words. They are people of action."

Mr. DeLaRonde also says he hopes the bell will eventually surface, but that whoever has it is just "laying low."

"There's a time and a place for everything. When the time is right, it should be on display somewhere," he says, "I hope it does happen."

If the bell does return to Batoche, it would be going home to a very different place.

The site of the failed Métis rebellion is a national historic site that now resembles a mom-and-pop type theme park where visitors can snack on French fries and buy Batoche memorabilia, including shirts ($10.64) and tall beer glasses ($6.99).

The battleground on the banks of the meandering South Saskatchewan River that was once pocked with rifle pits, trenches and bodies is now a peaceful pastoral field.

And instead of soldiers, tourists, schoolchildren and tour guides riding golf carts trample the wild grass leading up to the Roman Catholic mission church and rectory at the rate of about 20,000 people a year.

Even the church steeple in which the silver bell hung for only nine months before being swiped is gone; it was replaced long ago by a taller version that soars high into the bright blue Prairie sky. A bell almost six times the size of the original is now placed there.

In the distance is a tiny museum that details how the course of the country's history changed here more than a century ago. The story of the church's stolen bell is a mere sidebar.

"[The bell] hasn't seen this place for a long, long time," says William Paintednose. The 65-year-old Cree man's two-room grey-sided house looks onto Batoche from the fringes of the One Arrow First Nations reserve.

"That there is a sacred place, but maybe they should put that bell somewhere where more people can see it," he says. "Lots of buses go down this here road, but it's still out of the way."

Even the manager of the historic site isn't sure that a "repatriated" bell should return to the church from which it was pillaged.

Fern Armstrong, president of the Millbrook legion, says the branch would like to see the bell placed somewhere meaningful to the Métis people. Her members would like the medals returned. If that happened, the legion would not press for charges.

Peterborough County OPP Inspector Ed Robertson says that while the case is still open, the crime is not being investigated, and there has never been enough evidence to solve it or lay charges.

The veteran officer paused for a long time when asked whether charges would be laid if the force was presented with new evidence to support them.

"I think we would have to look at the circumstances as they were presented to us should they arise," he says. "Reopening the investigation would all depend on how the bell reappeared."

The power to grant immunity to those involved may lie with the federal justice minister, he says. Justice officials in Manitoba and Ontario say they would look at any new evidence presented to them.

For now, Insp. Robertson says, the case remains a "very interesting piece of history."

Mr. Guiboche says he knows where he last saw the bell, but he's not sure where it is now.

Over the years, they moved it among hiding places and even once buried it under an above ground swimming pool, which police say is not an uncommon place to stash things that people don't want to be found.

Interestingly, the soldiers who took the bell in 1885 also once buried the bell in a creek out of fear it would be reclaimed.

More than 10 years ago, two people told police they saw the bell at a Winnipeg home. Rumours persist that it has been the main attraction at drunken parties where it is "gonged." Most say it is still somewhere in Winnipeg.

It saddens Mr. Guiboche to think about the bell being somewhere underground. He also worries that the stolen medals have been lost forever.

When the bell surfaces, he would like it displayed at Riel's birthplace in St. Boniface, Man., with the other artifacts and memorials dedicated to his controversial life.

But he also wants to be honoured for his role in righting a historic wrong.

As he is about to be escorted back to his cell, Mr. Guiboche says one more thing: "I hope I don't get into any trouble for saying this. But I'm here for life. What are they going to do to me?"

Justice once judged Riel a traitor. Now that history has had time to reassess him, many Canadians consider the man a patriot and hero. Riel simply believed his actions were just. But he also knew when to surrender the cause.

Calvin Volrath launchs new website 

After months of preparation, it is with great pleasure that we launch the 'new look' of 

Calvin's website located at www.calvinvollrath.com
We invite you to come browse around, check out the new pictures, listen to new sound samples...
and be sure to sign the guest book.

 2. in the 1850s the Riels family lived in St. Vital, Manitoba. The house is now called the Riel House National Historic Site.

3. In 1992, the province of Manitobaaccorded Louis Riel status of a Founding Father of Manitoba in recognition of his role in bringing Manitoba into Canada.

Source: Routes of the Red: Settlers

Source: Métis Nation of Alberta Cookbook March 2004,  Greta Juneau, Rocky Lane

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