From the North to Ottawa and Victoria, Wally Firth left a legacy of music
The staff at Long & McQuade called them “Wally runs” — special trips made from the store to the Glenshiel seniors’ residence to deliver instruments, strings and other musical sundries to Walter (Wally) Firth.
Firth, a Métis man born in Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories — where he served as the north’s first Indigenous MP from 1972-1979 — died in Victoria on Saturday at the age of 89.
He leaves an impressive legacy that includes not only serving as an NDP MP, but also his work on Indigenous rights with the Yukon Native Brotherhood, and as an accomplished musician who donated countless instruments to youth living in the remote Indigenous communities he used to serve. He also donated instruments to schools around the capital region.
Firth, whose resume included fur trader and CBC broadcaster, was a pilot who flew himself around the huge Northwest Territories riding he represented to visit his constituents.
Long & McQuade’s Shaun Wilson said that in Firth’s later years, when he couldn’t get out as much as he once did, Wilson would drop by the Glenshiel — on Douglas Street near Beacon Hill Park — with various items Firth had requested. The term “Wally run” was born.
Firth had been in the store regularly over the years and had become a staff favourite. The personal deliveries included rentals or purchases of a wide variety of instruments, from portable pianos to saxophones, clarinets, guitars and — of course — violins, a.k.a. fiddles.
“He would call me up, and I would tell the guys at the shop I was leaving a half an hour early to make a Wally run,” Wilson said.
Getting a chance to make a delivery and shoot the breeze with Firth was always something to look forward to, he said.
“He was a really, really, really sweet guy,” Wilson said. “Every time you said something to Wally, he’d give you this big, huge grin. It always started with a little laugh that he did, and it was just magic.”
Firth told the Times Colonist in 2020 that he had had a “crazy life,” and especially enjoyed his time in the fur trade following the lead of his grandfather and father.
Being a pilot was also important to him. He was proud of owning three different airplanes at one time, and flying across Canada “many times.”
Longtime friend Calvin Cairns of Victoria said he met Firth when the latter showed up at Cairns’ house one day about 15 years ago after hearing that he did transcriptions of fiddle tunes.
Not only did he and Firth both play the fiddle, but Cairns had done a lot of fiddle teaching in the north — a connection that helped cement the friendship between the two.
Cairns became the person who delivered fiddles and other instruments from Firth to young people throughout the north.
“He would hand them to me and say: ‘You give this to someone who can use it,’ ” Cairns said. “He brought joy to many, many people that way.”
He said that he is amazed by the scope of Firth’s life, from the north of his youth — where dog teams were the main mode of transportation — to the political realm of Ottawa.
“He was a fella who was equally comfortable in both worlds.”
Firth was extremely humble, Cairns said, but he did share one notable story from his time as an MP.
The story was about making his first speech as an MP in the early 1970s, and having none other than John Diefenbaker approach him afterward.
“Dief came up to him after the session had broken and he said: ‘I’ve heard many a maiden speech in my time and yours was one of the best I’ve ever heard.’ ’”
Firth told Cairns that he was “pretty proud to be received that way in Ottawa.”
It was the most he ever heard Firth speak about himself and the things he had done, Cairns said.
He said that Firth was an effective MP who helped lay the groundwork for the creation of Nunavut in 1999 with a private member’s bill.
“He said: ‘The north is way too large a territory for one member to represent all of it — we’ve got to divide it at least in half.’ ”
David Symons, another Long & McQuade staffer and admirer of Firth, said he remembers as a teenager in Ottawa seeing Firth on television wearing a cowboy hat, standing out among his more staid political colleagues.
“He was a different guy.” Firth never married and is survived by a large family in the Northwest Territories.