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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

A day to honour, learn about Riel

By: Sandy Klowak

Posted: 02/16/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Voyageur officials and members of the public march along Tache Avenue from the St. Boniface Museum to Festival Park this morning in honour of Louis Riel. Activities at the park today include Métis music, workshops in sash weaving and Métis beading, a play called Red River Conflicts and presentations by Métis singer-storyteller Ted Longbottom.

WHILE kids had a day off school Monday, many were still soaking up knowledge on their own time.

Manitoba's 3rd annual Louis Riel Day provided a chance for people young and old to learn more about the holiday named in the Métis leader's honour.

More than a dozen Festival du Voyageur representatives as well as Saint- Boniface MP Shelley Glover, all clad in traditional festival garb, made their way from the St. Boniface Museum to Whittier Park (Festival home base) on Monday morning, in a procession honouring Riel.

Admission was free at the museum, in celebration of the man so integral to Manitoba's history. The museum set an attendance record last Feb. 15, with more than 1,300 guests. By 1:30 p.m. Monday they had welcomed just over 500 interested patrons.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to invite people to come learn about Louis Riel in a casual and fun way," said museum director Philippe Mailhot. "People are learning, people are enjoying."

The museum, originally a residence for the Grey Nuns who arrived in this area in 1844, showcases local French and Métis history. It currently boasts a new collection of documents from Riel's life, as well as the coffin in which he was placed after being charged with high treason and hanged in Regina in 1885. Known as the Father of Manitoba by some and a traitor by others, Riel is an enigmatic figure in Manitoba's early history who fought for Métis rights, and led two rebellions against the Canadian government.

But not everyone knows the complete story of Riel's saga, Mailhot said.

"The short strokes don't do him justice. So this is an opportunity to tell a more balanced version of his story," he said. "He was pushed into resistance by the federal government from the outset. He was a rebel, he lost. That doesn't make him a traitor."

Some visitors come into the museum with negative opinions of Riel, and that's fine, said Mailhot, as long as they know the whole story.

"What we try to do is engage them in the dialogue."

Kaylee Dixon, a Grade 5 student in the town of St. Jean-Baptiste, south of Winnipeg, came into town to visit the museum.

"I wanted to know more about how it was a long time ago," Dixon said.

She's been learning about Louis Riel in school, and just recently finished a project on his life.

"He wrote a letter of rules (the Bill of Rights, which became the Manitoba Act in 1870)," Dixon explained. "He helped the Métis."

Gabriel Dufault, a Festival du Voyageur representative and participant in the procession, is happy to see the younger generation taking an interest. Manitoba schools chose the name for the province's newest February holiday.

"It was the students that suggested that," Dufault said. "To me that's very heartwarming -- it's not just old fogies like me (who think Riel is important). Now the younger generation is thinking Riel."

sandy.klowak@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 16, 2010 B1

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