Fighting for recognition
How Canada stole an Indigenous veteran’s family identity and land rights. by Lynn Gehl
In the Algonquin Anishinaabeg tradition dibaajimowinan, or personal storytelling, is valued as a legitimate method of gaining and conveying knowledge. Dibaajimowinan is “wholistic” in that it values knowledge that is more than rational: it is emotional and spiritual too.
For me, most days, and especially Remembrance Day, are a bundle of contradictions in that my lived experience is laden with the genocide of colonial Canada — both historically and in a contemporary sense.
The Algonquin Anishinaabeg is a nation of people who straddle what is now called the Ottawa River watershed. Through processes of colonization we are now divided into provinces and by language, law, and religion. We were denied a treaty during the historic treaty process, and Canada’s Parliament squats on our land.
My great-grandfather Joseph Gagnon served in the First World War (1914–18). On September
12, 1910, in Eganville, Ontario, Joseph married Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe Annie Jane Menesse, the daughter of Mary Ann Bannerman and the adopted daughter of Frank Menesse. Joseph and Annie Jane were members of the Golden Lake Indian Reserve, now called Pikwàkanagàn First Nation, raising their five children: Viola, Cecelia, Gordon, Kenneth, and Steve. Viola, their first child, was my grandmother.
Through archival research I gained a copy of Joseph’s attestation papers that are dated May 12, 1916. His last name is spelled “Gagnon,” and his birthdate was recorded as April 7, 1890, making him twenty-six years old at the time of his enlistment. He was recorded as 5 feet 7.25 inches tall; he had brown eyes and brown hair, with a medium complexion, and was listed as a Roman Catholic. Joseph enlisted in the 207th Battalion and then transferred to the 2nd Battalion; he served in Canada, England, and France. I learned that his port of embarkation out of Canada was Halifax, and he left on my grandmother Viola’s sixth birthday — May 28, 1917. His port of disembarkation was Liverpool, England, on June 10, 1917, and he was demobilized on January 24, 1919, remaining a private, service number 246266, for the duration of the war. According to the record, Joseph received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Family oral history, though, informs me that he may also have received the Military Medal. I have never seen these medals, and I am not sure where they ended up. The feelings that the military records and the oral tradition evoke — of a dutiful, decorated soldier — are real enough for me.
After the war ended Joseph returned to his family and home community, the Golden Lake Indian Reserve. From my family oral history I have learned that shortly after, in the 1920s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police