A quiet man whose actions spoke thunder
EDITOR’S NOTE: In recognition of Canada’s 150th birthday The Herald is running historical local stories. For the next several weeks we are running stories from our archives on prominent builders in our community.
Archie Jack’s soft-spoken nature could be deceiving. There was nothing laid-back about his lifetime of bustin’ broncs, teaching children the native ways of life and helping his people.
When Grand Chief Archie Jack died in a car crash on a Saskatchewan highway in August 2005, tributes and words of condolences to his family immediately poured in from across the First Nation and non-native communities.
Joyce Jack, his wife of 32 years, recalled this week what made the man special, starting with a career in rodeo.
“He rodeo’d his whole life. That’s what he wanted to be from the time he was a little boy — a cowboy,” she said.
Archie Jack was born in Penticton on Aug. 14, 1934. At age 10, he moved with his family south to Brewster, Wash., where he graduated from high school.
Moving back to the Penticton area in the 1960s, he homesteaded what would evolve into the family’s 100-acre ranch off Highway 3A, southwest of Kaleden.
He rode his last bronc in 1985, at age 51, winning the Henry Michelle Memorial Bronc Riding trophy in Omak, Wash.
He served as B.C. High School Rodeo Association president while his kids were riding broncs in high school.
Rodeo Family All three of his children became high school rodeo enthusiasts, starting with his daughter, Jolene, and later with sons A.J. and Shane.
A.J. is now in the U.S. Navy, serving on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Jolene lives in Oklahoma, where she and her husband own a number of bucking horses, contracting them out to the local amateur rodeo circuit. Shane lives in North Vancouver.
“Most of the boys that he helped learn to ride broncs and barebacks and bulls and things like that are now successful people,” Joyce said. “I’d like to believe it’s because of his influence.”
But there was much more to Archie Jack than feeling the leather and getting a mouthful of dirt after being tossed from some meanmannered bronc.
Political life soon beckoned and he embraced it with his quiet demeanour, yet an intense determination.
Jack served two terms as chief of the Penticton Indian Band, first from 1969 to 1970, and then again for eight years between 1988 and 1996. In 1969, he helped found the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.
Joyce Jack said housing and education were key issues for the Penticton band at the time. Archie soon joined a protest on the steps of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa demanding additional housing money and secondary educational funding for native children.
“When he first got into office as chief, there wasn’t funding there from the government for the native children to go to university. They didn’t have access to any of that.
“He went and protested right on the steps in Ottawa there, to get those kinds of things for his people.”
Overcrowded housing continued to be commonplace on the Penticton reserve during the 1970s, a time when Jack helped the band council’s drive for creation of the Westhills subdivision.
Although undoubtedly pleased to see new housing for band members, Joyce said Archie was never one to boast of his accomplishments. But he couldn’t help but be proud when he was singled out for the honorary title of grand chief.
“He was very excited about that. That was quite an honour to him.”
Mountain roadblock Jack was chief when Penticton band members erected an information roadblock on Green Mountain during the Oka crisis of 1991.
Band members manned the blockade for three months, before finally taking it down after the standoff in Quebec came to an end.
A similar information blockade occurred in November 1994, protesting a $20-million expansion at Apex Alpine ski resort.
Joyce said Archie relied on his union background as an IWA member and his experience on picket lines to help map strategy for the protests.
“He knew how to do a proper blockade where you weren’t going to get arrested. He knew how to slow down traffic and give you a brochure and nobody could do anything about it,” she said.
“He wasn’t going to stand out there and look like some scary camouflage man, but he was also going to stand out there and say: ‘Here I am. Let’s talk about this.’”
Language issues also became a keen interest, almost in tandem with his election to the Penticton school board. Archie Jack served for two terms as trustee for West BenchKaleden from 1987 to 1993, becoming the first aboriginal board member in the school district’s history.
Archie grew up speaking only the native Okanagan language and didn’t learn English until he went to school. Later, he strove to pass on his fluency to young native students.
“He and his mother were very fluent. That’s where he learned his language was from the old people at the time — his grandparents and stuff,” Joyce said.
Archie went back to school in 2003 and 2004 to earn his teaching certificate to allow him to formally teach the Okanagan language to native children.
“He had a B.C. teacher’s certificate and he was certified to go into the public schools to teach his culture and his language. That was the highlight of his life in his last years.”
Jack taught native language at the Sen’Pok’Chin school in Oliver, and helped with immersion classes at the En’Owkin Centre in Penticton.
Archie was a moving force behind the upgrade to West Bench Elementary School. He was also instrumental in getting radio phones on school buses, in case of emergency.
“He reinforced that the rural kids were just as important as the city kids here,” Joyce said. “But he was there for everybody, not just the native children.”
Archie Jack died on Aug. 3, 2005, when the minivan in which he was a passenger overturned on Highway 1 west of Swift Current. The response was immediate. Penticton Indian Band Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, described Jack as “a man of many talents who enjoyed a full, vibrant and colourful life.
“I would have to say Grand Chief Jack’s latest passion was the revitalization of the culture, language and history of the Okanagan people,” Phillip said at the time.
He noted Jack was recognized at a national Indigenous Traditional Knowledge Conference, co-sponsored by Heritage Canada and the En’Owkin Centre.
“Grand Chief Archie Jack will be fondly remembered and greatly missed by all who loved him,” said Phillip. “His tireless dedication to his people and his significant legacy will undoubtedly reverberate throughout the ongoing history of the Okanagan Nation for many, many generations to come.”
Hundreds pay tribute Some 500 people, representing a broad section of cultures and age groups, gathered in an outdoor memorial service on the Penticton Indian reserve to honour Jack’s memory. Host for the proceedings was one of Jack’s longtime friends, former chief George Saddleman of Quilchena.
Alan Parsons, who got to know Jack during his years on the rodeo circuit, focused on Archie’s lighter side.
“I remember the very first time he told me, friends are important. If you can’t use your friends, what good are they?” said Parsons.
“That just kind of made a place in my heart for a long time, that’s who he was, he was a humorous man, he wanted you see the soft side of him and the soft side of life.
“He didn’t want us to go through life with our chins dragging on the ground.”
Jack would often sit quietly listening to conversations and appear not be listening and then break into laughter, Parsons said.
“That’s the point he was waiting for, just something to laugh about, something to smile about, something to be happy about,” said Parsons. “Life was a happy time, he didn’t live a long life by some standards, but he definitely lived a full life.”
Former Penticton band chief Adam Eneas remembered Jack as someone who didn’t care what other people thought about him — as someone who was not embarrassed by his heritage.
“That’s the kind of the guy that Archie was. He wasn’t afraid to do something like that which would put him out in front of the public eye. All he could do was do his best. That’s all he did and that was a great thing to see,” Eneas said.
“Archie went out there and stood for his community and did for his community.” Jack was buried at his Kaleden ranch. Joyce Jack said Archie would likely have responded to being included in the Herald’s list of the century’s 20 most influential people with his usual style.
“He probably would laugh and smile. That would be about the size of it. He was proud of who he was and his heritage.”
“He was always the quiet man in the corner, but when he did say something, you kind of went, ‘oh. This guy’s got something to say.’”