Riel poems sell for $31,050 at auction

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This article was published 26/11/2008 (6535 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Four poems penned behind bars by Louis Riel before he was hanged for treason in 1885 sold for $31,050 at an auction in Toronto on Tuesday night.

“It sold for $27,000 plus a buyer’s premium … ,” said auctioneer Dirk Heinze on Wednesday morning in a telephone interview from Toronto.

He said bidding started at $4,500.

“Bidding was very active. There were about five or six interested parties, a lot of them on telephone and a lot of people flew in as well.”

Heinze was not able to release the name of the individual or group which purchased the collection of four original poems.

“I’m sure that information will be made available soon,” he said.

The “never-before-seen" set of poems were handwritten by Riel and given to one of the Mounties who guarded the famed Manitoba Métis leader on death row in a Regina jail. 

Manitoba Métis Federation president David Chartrand was believed to be on his way to Toronto on Tuesday for the auction.The Métis federation would love to claim the poems as part of the province’s unique history.

Chartrand told the Free Press last week that an unnamed Métis businessman may be called upon to make the bid on behalf of Manitoba Métis.

“Considering the economy, the amount of buzz and press has been very phenomenal,” Heinze said hours before bidding started.A routine auction at Heinze’s draws 60 people; twice as many are expected for Riel’s prison poetry.

Prospective bidders include wealthy individuals, institutions and major galleries, none of whom Heinze would name.

He initially estimated the poetry would fetch at least $5,000, but now believes the poetry will go for considerably more.

“It’s a national treasure a bit and it’s rare. It’s not going to go for $4,000 or $5,000,” he said. “The estimate ($5,000) is where we expect the bidding to start.”

Descendants of the Northwest Mounted Police Const. Robert Hobbs, who was one of Riel’s guards in Regina, held onto the poems for generations, only coming forward this year.

Hobbs  is said to have given Riel writing paper to pass the time before he was led to the gallows. In return, Riel gave Hobbs four handwritten poems, the story goes.

Heinze at first didn’t believe the poems were authentic. But once their provenance was proven beyond a doubt, Heinze told Canwest News Service it made “the hair stand up on the back of my hand.”

Riel’s execution for leading the North West Rebellion is controversial more than a century after it happened.

Historians still debate whether Riel was the freedom fighter and nation builder he saw himself as or a traitor stirring up trouble for John A. Macdonald’s dream to build a new confederation from sea to sea.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca