Tragic story of Cree Indian buried in city
Canadian WW1 soldier, 19, died from pneumonia
A Bannockburn historian has spent years researching the poignant story of an indigenous Canadian soldier who died aged nineteen in Stirling during WW1.
Jim Statter has been uncovering the life of Private Nona Chakasuam after spotting a headstone on which his name features in Stirling’s Valley Cemetery over a decade ago.
Nona, of the Canadian Forestry Corps, died at Stirling Royal Infirmary on July 7, 1918, from pneumonia.
He had been one of 24 young Cree First Nation men taken war service from Attawapiskat village, north Ontario, in the summer of 1917. Only two returned.
Seventy-nine-year-old retired van driver Mr Statter said: “I believe in keeping alive the memories of soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for future generations. Every one of these soldiers has a story to tell.”
He found out that Nona arrived in Stirling in November 1917 and cut down trees in Nairnshire and the central belt.
Nona’s tale came from Mr Statter’s correspondence with Cree author Xavier Kataquapit who related a story which had been passed down through the generations.
An army recruiting officer came to Attawapiskat in the summer of 1917 looking for recruits between their late teens and early twenties after an agreement was reached between Britain and Canada to deploy 35,000 Canadian military lumberjacks to cut down trees for the war effort in England, Scotland and France. Nona signed his Attestation Papers with an ‘X’ on July 3, 1917.
Mr Statter, who lives in Bogend Road with wife Mary commented: “It is a very sad story. It had been agreed by the Canadian Government that only five men from each village would be recruited.
“However, Nona and 23 other young men were taken without them realising where they were going or what it was all about.”
The group, along with the recruiting officer, left the village in eight wooden canoes for a river journey lasting two weeks before travelling by train to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and boarding a ship there for Liverpool where they arrived in September 1917.
Mr Statter explained: “None of them could read or write. Nona could only sign with a cross on his army forms. I can only describe it as abduction. The recruiting officer took away these strong and vibrant young men from their village.
“These poor young men knew nothing of the war, spoke no other language except Cree. They were confused, in a state of fear and trepidation. Many of them were taken ill with pneumonia, including Nona, on the voyage to Liverpool.”
Nona Chakasuam was born in the Attawapiskat on the Attawpiskat River, nor far from Hudson Bay, on May 11, 1899.
He was the son of Joannes Jacozam and Anna Kostachin and had a sister named Christina.
Mr Statter said: “I have come to know Nona like an adopted son. He may not have died on the battlefield, but he gave his life working for the war effort so far away from his homeland.
“I visit his grave as often as I can. Each November I place a poppy cross at his headstone and say a prayer for this brave young man.”
Cambusbarron military historian Francis Mackay has spotted two other indigenous Canadian Forestry Corps soldiers on the Valley Cemetery gravestone on which Nona Chakasuam is mentioned.
They are furrier Peter Jakazom and trapper James Keeask who both died of TB at Stirling’s Combination Hospital in 1919. These soldiers however are not on the list of 24 names given to Mr Statter of those taken from Attawapiskat in the summer of 1917.
They were confused, in a state of fear and trepidation