Louis Riel Day

Historical Events 41 Comments

It’s a long weekend Monday up here in Canada. Every province has a slightly different take on why we get a “holiday”. In Manitoba its called Louis Riel Day.

In 1885, Louis Riel was executed for defending the rights of the Metis Nation. On the third Monday of each February, we remember his sacrifices and all that he did for his people.

There’s an eerie reminiscence to it this year.

41 Replies to “Louis Riel Day”

    1. Yes, Alberta was first to have a long weekend in February. Young Master Getty wasn’t known for having contracts with foreign communist governments (that we know of), however. As for youngsters and other signs of depravity? Who knows?

    3. I am surprised Blackie hasn’t mandated that every province rename it “Justin Trudeau Day”, yet.

      Isn’t that what December 25 is for?

    1. Did she change her name from Bonnie Mengele to Bonnie Henry because she was worried she was giving her family name, Mengele, a bad reputation?

  6. Louis Riel was and is a Hero. Willing to sacrifice his life to defend his people. The Metis that lived around Winnipeg had their land stolen by the federal government because they did’nt have deeds to their land, then to have it happen again at Batoche. They finally had enough and fought back.

  7. On this Family Day in Ontario I want to pay tribute to my great great great great great Uncle, Jesse Lloyd. Jesse rallied the farmers of York County and followed Mackenzie King down Yonge Street. Things went backwards at Montgomery’s Tavern. Uncle Jesse had to escape in a dress across the frontier to relatives in Ohio. He died in obscurity in Indiana, losing his farms, businesses, prestige and family. He never got back to Canada. All that recalls his love of fellow man and liberty is a little community called Lloydtown, north of Toronto. When one takes up arms against the Family Compact there was a high cost to be paid. We are finding out the new ‘Family Compact’, a secular amalgamation of state, business, money, government and hired enforcers is a perverse creature. Even if the EA goes down in defeat today the creature is still vicious and in control of Man’s power. GOD keep our land strong and free, it is getting to be a dark age.

  8. Riel could have been convicted of murder, kidnapping, theft, or 100 other charges. The authorities chose treason because it was just a bit obvious and it was the quickest way to the noose. Regardless of present day historical revision, most Metis, in 1885, were clearly on the side of the government. The Indian uprisings scared the shit out of them. The fully Metis St. Albert Mounted Rifles (Alberta) and the Wood Mountain Scouts (Saskatchewan) plus 1,000 Metis teamsters, 50 Metis boatmen and maybe 100 Metis scouts were with the 3 columns that crushed the rebellion plus there were many home guard regiments. The Metis rebels had maybe 250. Most of the Metis who rebelled had been compensated in 1870 at Red River and then moved to Saskatchewan and decided in 1885 that they would like to be compensated again. Sure they were poor and hungry but it was 1885 and everyone was poor and hungry. Maybe if these guardians of nature hadn’t killed all the buffalo?

    1. after a weekend of our government and media telling us what is right and wrong, and with the absence of camera phones in 1885, I am willing to re-evaluate what Riel was or wasn’t doing.

    2. I haven’t studied the buffalo migration in any depth but I think most of them were killed in the U.S.A. so I won’t blame the Metis in Canada much for that.

          3. Perhaps we ought to be booking safari holidays to solve the wildebeest, too? Their popularity with local carnivores suggests they are at least worth tasting.

  9. We are enjoying a “Presidents Day” holiday an amalgam of Lincoln and Washington’s prior holidays. Our upscale community tosses in a Friday (last) day off and calls it “ski vacation” or “winter break”. I expect the Holiday will soon be renamed “George Floyd white racist injustice break”. I expect that is what our School District’s newly appointed DEI (DIE) Officer will insist is “equitable” in our lilywhite (and Asian) school district.

  11. Riel received a very fair trial. By most definitions he would have walked on a defence of insanity.

    He had a foot in two worlds and did a lot of damage in both. He was no hero.

    1. Since when is cold blooded murder not wrong? There is a criminal charge normally given to accessories to murder. The term is murder. He may not have pulled the trigger but he didn’t have to. He was complicit in the deaths of 80 people. They could have hung him 80 more times. As luck would have it, they had already hung him for treason. In unusual generosity for the time they eventually pardoned all the rest.

    2. But he was guilty of treason. You can tell because he lost and got hanged for it. (If he had won it wouldn’t have been treason and he wouldn’t have been hanged.)

    1. If you are interested, and are able to find a copy, my favourite book on Riel is “Strange Empire”, by Joseph Kinsey Howard.
      I found the perspective of a non Canadian to be interesting, although he was from Montana.
      Most of the Canadian writing on the topic is too infected with later or current politics to be anywhere near to being “objective” or even truthful in some cases.

      1. The title seems to vary by time of publication. My copy is titled “The Strange Empire of Louis Riel.” I read it 50 years ago. I wish I could remember a single thing about it other that the general history. This was back in the day when historians aimed for accuracy instead of political points. I actually used to be concerned about the historical mistreatment of Indians before everything turned to bullshit and the driving forced ceased to be injustice and became who could tell the biggest lie for the most cash. If I knew where to start looking I might read it again. Only 100 boxes or so of books to go through.

      2. Not all Canadian writing is infected by current politics. Sure some writers have an agenda and a bias but so did Joseph Kinsey Howard. He was an anti industrialist with known native sympathies.

        IMO Tom Flanagan has done exhaustive research on Riel. Transcribed his French diaries. Flanagan’s works are not sympathetic apologies. He has done the work and when you read them you can form your own opinion.

        1. I haven’t read Flanagan’s book on Riel, but have read some of his other stuff and enjoyed it. But unfortunately I don’t think his stuff is what is being taught in most Canadian schools.
          I too had quite a lot of sympathy for the Indians until more recent times, but that does not mean I am blind to their faults.
          My opinion of Riel I find is very similar to my opinion of Trudeau both father and son.
          They are/were nuts and should never have been given any power.

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  15. Isn’t the Liberal govt currently holding in jail a female Metis, an inconvenient leader of the inconvenient Freedom Convoy?

  16. IIRC there was also transportation involved there in the CPR rapid transit (for the day) of troops from the east?

  17. Louis Riel Day was not intended to celebrate Riel’s conduct during the actual Rebelllion in 1885, but his role in founding and leading the government of Red River in 1870. There’s no doubt that Riel was a genuine and serious hero in Manitoba, which is why they honour him. As for the 85, while it’s hard not to feel sympathy for the rebels, it was an altogether rougher and nastier affair and Riel’s conduct was blameworthy to some extent. He certainly committed treason against Canada, and while I’d be inclined to shake his hand for that, the law prescribed hanging and the mood of the public demanded it. None of that changes his earlier heroism in Manitoba.

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