Katz leads charge to honour Faron Hall, a year after his death

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This article was published 15/08/2015 (4018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Who, you might properly wonder, could ever bring former mayor Sam Katz and current Mayor Brian Bowman together for a shared cause?

Maybe the last person most people might imagine.

A homeless man.

A celebrated homeless man who died a year ago today.

Actually, on Monday it will be a year since the bodies of two aboriginal people were pulled separately from the same area of the Red River hours apart on the same day.

One was the homeless man, Faron Hall. The other was the missing and murdered 15-year-old girl, Tina Fontaine. Understandably, the person who got the most media attention was Tina Fontaine. I didn’t know Tina; most of us didn’t. But I knew Faron Hall.

As did Katz, who gave him the Mayor’s Medal for Valour six years ago. Faron, of course, was the middle-aged Dakota man who risked his life twice in the space of four months to rescue first a man and then a woman from the Red. The same waters he would eventually drown in last summer as others tried to rescue him.

So what’s the common cause that has brought Katz and Bowman together a year later? It’s a proposed statue of the Homeless Hero, who could just as easily have been called the Humble Hero; an idea initially presented to Faron’s family for approval and then to Free Press readers.

In my view, the statue wouldn’t be so much a monument to the man as it would be a symbol of the collective courage, struggles and triumphs of our aboriginal people.

We don’t have anything like that now in a place with the largest urban indigenous population in the country.

And a city that has been branded by Maclean’s magazine as the most racist in Canada. Anyway, all I had to do to get Katz’s attention is casually mention the idea to him when we chanced to meet in a Walmart parking lot. And he was ready to donate.

But later, Katz would go even further on the Faron Hall Statue Project. He volunteered to lead a fundraising campaign to get it done.

Which is how, on Friday morning, he ended up with me and local sculptor and muralist Charlie Johnston in the office of Paul Jordan, the CEO of The Forks.

Why there? I mean beyond The Forks historically being the traditional home and meeting place of aboriginal people. Well, back in the 1990s, when Jordan was starting at the bottom as the head groundskeeper at The Forks, he got to know and like Faron and his homeless friends. In the mornings, when they dragged themselves up drunk from their riverbank camp, Jordan would open the locked building where Muddy Waters is now, so Faron and his pals could use the bathrooms.

“And we became buddies,” Jordan said. “He was a cool guy. It’s a thin line,” Jordan added. “He had an addiction and I didn’t.”

Earlier this week, Jordan surprised me with his Faron connection after I dropped by on another story and mentioned the statue project. That’s all it took for him and The Forks to get aboard. And quickly to point to a perfect place for the statue. It’s one of Faron’s old riverside camp locations Jordan knew about, just south of the Provencher Bridge, on Forks property. It also just happens to be situated right behind the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

“So there’s a really powerful reason to do it there,” Jordan said at Friday’s meeting. Katz had other questions, beyond the location of the statue.

The sculptor — whom I brought to the table because of his recent bronze rendering of war hero Andrew Mynarski — had those answers. Cost: $100,000. Materials: bronze with granite base. Size: slightly larger than life.

“That’s all I need to start making phone calls,” the confident former mayor said.

“I think a lot of people here might be underestimating what the public will come forward and do,” Katz added. “Whether it’s $20 or $100 or its $10,000. It’s a very powerful story. And more and more people want to be part of it. More and more people are understanding we have to embrace our aboriginal community. Remember, this guy saved a life.”

And not just one, Katz reminded us.

“The story itself should be a movie.”

I didn’t know how Bowman would feel about the idea of a statue to Faron Hall until I interrupted his vacation Friday and he graciously returned my call.

“I think it’s a beautiful project,” Bowman said immediately. “And I’m certainly willing to lend a hand however I can.”

Bowman suggested before Faron risked his life to save others, there were people who wouldn’t have seen beyond his look and lifestyle. Which, in part, is the point of creating a lasting public tribute to a homeless aboriginal man who opened so many eyes, and even hearts, to his humanity and those of his brothers and sisters. “And I know he didn’t like being called a hero,” Bowman added. “But he was.”

Johnston has his own vision of Faron and the statue. “I see him as looking out over the river, like a guardian spirit watching over the water.” The way he was.

And, with your help, the way he will be again.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca