By Thia James

PHOTOS: Memorial honouring Métis veterans unveiled

Jul 19, 2014 | 6:01 PM

A six-year-long journey to honour Métis war veterans with a permanent tribute culminated in the memorial’s unveiling at the Batoche cultural grounds on Saturday.

The memorial was dedicated to the thousands of Métis veterans that served in past conflicts, and the smooth pillars will soon have their names etched upon them. The monument will recognize Métis veterans from all across Canada.

Several veterans attended the mid-morning ceremony, braving the wind and the light rain at the third of the Back to Batoche days.

One veteran in attendance was 81-year-old John McDonald. He served in the Korean War and in Egypt. He also did two tours of duty in Germany over seven years and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Of Métis heritage on his father’s side of the family, he joined the military in 1950. McDonald retired in 1989. 

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McDonald is the last in his line of soldiers – his own father served in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Winnipeg in the Second World War and his grandfather, who was not Métis, served in the Boer War. His children and grandchildren, however, did not join the Armed Forces.

“I heard all of the great stories that my uncles and father told me or were talking about World War Two and I decided that I needed to be there, to do that, and I wanted to do it,” McDonald said.

After he returned from the Korean War, he said there was “nothing happening.”

“There was no celebration, no ceremonies, it’s back to work the next day. Egypt was the same way. Egypt, though, was a peacekeeping affair,” he said.

The memorial is important to him to pay tribute to the veterans that made the ultimate sacrifice and those who are still alive, he said.

The memorial, which is projected to cost $300,000 to build, was undertaken by the Gabriel Dumont Institute. The Métis Nation of Saskatchewan council passed a resolution in 2009 to build a monument on the Batoche site to honour Métis servicemen and women. 

Executive director Geordy McCaffrey said that from there, the fundraising was passed on to the Gabriel Dumont Institute. He said the initial vision was for a smaller monument.

“We talked to a number of veterans, we brought a couple of veteran’s groups in and we asked them what they wanted to see in the monument and slowly and surely we kind of changed the structure a bit and made it to fit what the veterans wanted,” McCaffrey said.

The journey to complete the monument not over.

McCaffrey said that when it came to assembling the names of Métis servicemen and women, their Métis heritage was not included in service records. 

“So, we have to go by family names and we have to have referrals by family. Some of the French names and Métis names are synonymous, so we had … a little bit of difficulty and we had to do some research in terms of determining who are Métis and who are not.”

In 2015, the first 7,000 names will be inscribed on the monument’s pillars. Over the years, they will continue to collect the names of veterans that were missed and they’ll be added.

The artwork in the centrepiece of the monument will be etched on white granite and inlayed.

The first leg of the monument’s journey began in 2008 with Lennard Morin, minister of veterans’ affairs for the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan. He is also a former mayor of Cumberland House.

It was at that time, when he served as Cumberland House’s mayor, where he encountered a number of veterans in the community. He said there were 28 veterans of the First World War and 32 who had served in the Second World War.

At the time, there were no Remembrance Day services, and under Morin, they started holding them.

“But during that time I had an idea to build a monument for them, so that’s what we did,” he said.

When he became the veterans’ affairs minister, Morin said he thought about what could be done to repay the debt to the Métis veterans. “And that’s when I got the idea to build another monument. So, that’s when that moment happened.”

They lobbied the provincial and federal government, as well as seeking donations and help from local people.

Morin said that, for a while, he didn’t think it would make it. “I think we went through three or four cabinet shuffles with different veterans affairs ministers, but that didn’t stop us.”

For him, it was because of his uncles’ experiences in the military.

“One is overseas… he’s buried there, he died as a prisoner of war from his wounds. And my other uncle came home just like the rest of the Métis soldiers. They came home, but they were emotionally scarred and traumatized and there was no counselling in those days. They were mean. They came back mean.

“They went to their trap lines, some went to the farms and there they kept silent about it and went about raising a family.”

He said he had to do something for them. He called the day a happy one for the veterans and for those like himself.

At the ceremony, a number of dignitaries, including Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River MP Rob Clarke, Batoche MLA Delbert Kirsch and Métis Nation of Saskatchewan president Robert Doucette. Funds for the memorial were also raised through an Honour Run from Saskatoon, in which a number of youth and members of the Canadian Armed Forces took part. They too were recognized during the ceremony.

During the dedication, musician Donny Parenteau asked the audience to give the veterans on hand a standing ovation.

And they did.

McDonald said that the dedication means a lot to him.

“I just hope that every memorial day that we have here is attended as much as it is today.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames