Hero. Heretic. Nation Builder.

A celebration of the real Louis Riel, Métis leader and Manitoba founder, on the 150th anniversary of the Red River Resistance and the 175th of his birth

- Darren O’Toole

SHORTLY AFTER THE 110TH commemoration of Louis Riel’s execution, I was asked to MC the official unveiling of a controversial statue of the Métis leader on Nov. 30, 1995, on the campus of what is now the Université de Saint-Boniface in Winnipeg. Sculptor Marcien Lemay’s naked, bound, contorted and confined Riel spoke to the leader’s inner conflict and suffering as a martyr. Surrounding the figure are walls designed by architect Étienne Gaboury engraved with Riel’s famous words, “I know that through the grace of God I am the founder of Manitoba.” The statue and its walls originally stood on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building, but after Métis protested Lemay’s depiction as insulting both to Riel and to his people, it was replaced with artist Miguel Joyal’s depiction of Riel, in which he appears more statesmanlike, assertively brandishing the List of Rights that was to form the basis of the Manitoba Act in 1870.

These two sides of Riel — martyr and statesman — make it challenging for me to write about him. His radical political thoughts after a religious epiphany in 1875 have always made me uncomfortable. And to write on Riel the man means dealing with that side of him. As a Métis law professor and social scientist, I’ve always tried to avoid the “great man” historical narratives on Riel. It’s almost as if people can’t help but unconsciously cast Métis history in terms of Christian narratives: “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones.”