Two men switched at birth want investigation
Growing up in same town, their looks sparked rumours about family resemblance
Forty years ago, on the eve of summer, at Norway House at the top of Lake Winnipeg, an eight-hour drive north of the Manitoba capital, two baby boys were born.
The elated young couples soon took their newborns home to Garden Hill First Nation, a fly-in community then just 1,500 or so inhabitants strong. There, on the type of rugged landscape much of the world regards as quintessentially Canadian, the lit- tle boys, Luke Monias and Norman Barkman, grew up so close that they considered themselves brothers.
Only this week, now middle-aged, did the men learn that a dreadful mistake was made in the hours after their births on June 19, 1975.
The Barkman and Monias babies were sent home with the wrong families.
And the mistake has an impact far beyond two devastated men who have had their “lives irreversibly torn apart,” he said.
Each man has a parent still living. Between them, there are almost 10 siblings still alive. Monias has five children, Barkman one. Their small, tight-knit community has been rocked by the news.
Since adolescence, when a young man’s features take shape and genetic inheritance makes itself known, there had been persistent jokes, ru- mours and suggestions in the community that something was amiss.
“They kind of brushed it aside,” Robinson said. But the rumours persisted. And the men’s own suspicions grew.
People said they resembled each other’s families more than their own. Barkman said his brother, looking at Monias, said “it seems like I’m looking in the mirror.”
For years, Monias said, “I didn’t take it seriously.” But the unsettling suggestions continued.
“I guess it got to a point in recent years where it was getting intolerable,” Robinson said. The men needed “confirmation one way or the other for their own piece of mind.”
Monias approached Robinson this summer asking help in seeking the truth. With co-operation from both men’s surviving parent, DNA tests were undertaken.
On Tuesday, the results arrived, proving the long-running suspicions true.
“I didn’t believe it until I saw the paper,” Monias said. “That’s when it hit me.”
At least, he said, he at last knows the truth. Now, he would like to get to know the Barkmans, his biological family, much better, he said. For Luke Monias and Norman Barkman, one thing hasn’t changed.
“He’s still my brother,” Monias said. “No matter what.”