Progress made on Chief Peguis statue at legislature

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This article was published 07/02/2023 (976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A monument on the Manitoba legislature grounds to honour Chief Peguis has taken a step closer to completion.

“It’s our hope that it promotes reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Manitobans,” said Government Services Minister James Teitsma Tuesday.

A committee announced it has narrowed the field to two bidders that will submit designs. It will be the first monument on the grounds to recognize a First Nations leader.

Chief Peguis was a Saulteaux chief who signed the first treaty with Thomas Douglas, the fifth earl of Selkirk, along with four other First Nations chiefs in 1817. It was the first formal agreement in Western Canada to recognize Indigenous land rights before being superseded by Treaty 1 in 1871.

He is remembered for helping the first settlers to Canada, in 1812, survive. That spirit will be part of the monument and is within Peguis First Nation today, Chief Glenn Hudson said.

“I don’t think the settlers at the time, the Scottish settlement, would have survived without Peguis. You look at Manitoba, Winnipeg, and the entire region, there’s a lot of Scottish people throughout this area. That’s why I say it might have been very different if he didn’t do what he did back then,” he said.

“But that’s the history of Peguis, that’s the history of our people, and certainly working together, living in peace and harmony, even today.”

The statue is set to be completed in September 2024 — the 160th anniversary of the death of Chief Peguis — and will be placed on the north lawn, between the Next of Kin monument and where the statue of Queen Victoria stood before it was pulled down by protesters on Canada Day 2021.

The organizers hope the location will become a quiet place of contemplation, said Bill Shead, co-chair of the Friends of the Peguis-Selkirk Treaty Inc. group.

“There’s sort of a natural amphitheater there, and at the time when we were looking at it, that was probably the most likely place, probably the best place, to put a monument,” he said from the legislature’s grand staircase.

In 2021, the provincial government signed an agreement with the Friends group to erect the statue and contributed $500,000 toward it.

The final design will include recognition of all five chiefs who signed Treaty 1, Shead said.

“When this monument is up, everybody will have a chance to remember that history which has long been forgotten by so many,” he said.

The idea of a Peguis statue has been in the works for six years. Currently, the legislature grounds has several monuments, including of a Scottish settler, a Ukrainian poet and Métis leader Louis Riel.

Shead said the spot where Queen Victoria once stood, front and centre of the legislature, wasn’t considered for the Peguis statue, considering the controversy surrounding its toppling.

“Some of the events that have happened since then made that front spot available, but not desirable,” he said.

Teitsma said no decision has been made about what, if anything, will replace the Queen Victoria statue.

“I hesitate to give any one person pre-eminence in that spot,” he said. “Certainly what we want to have is legislative grounds that are welcoming, representative, that are diverse and inclusive, that show the history of our province and also have a sense of where we want to go.”

A statue of Chief Peguis was erected in Kildonan Park decades ago.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca