GEORGE GORDON RESERVE, SASKATCHEWAN
LATE SPRING, 1922
Dale Montague was the Indian agent on the reserve. He was a large man with a large voice and a bushy blond beard that he constantly scratched.
He sat behind his desk at the reserve office and said one word. “No.”
Thomas had expected it. He did not like to ask the agent for permissions because the agent always seemed to take extra pleasure in saying no to Thomas.
Thomas was there because of the third person in the office: his grandfather, William Northstar.
“There is no reason that you should deny a travel pass to my grandfather,” Thomas said. “His sister does not have long to live. My grandfather will return from Regina after the funeral.”
Actually, Thomas thought, there was no reason at all that his grandfather should even need a pass. Why did the Cree need permission to leave the reserve? How could a basic freedom like travel be taken away from them?
Montague stood. This was how he liked to deal with people. Using his size and voice. As if the power of being Indian agent was not enough.
“No,” Montague repeated. He scratched his beard. “And I do not need to explain myself.”
Colonel Scruffington growled. The dog had refused to leave Thomas when the war was over, so Thomas had smuggled him onto the train and onto the boat to Canada and taken him home. Colonel Scruffington still limped and still slept beside Thomas every night.
“You may not like me,” Thomas said, “but that is no reason to punish my grandfather.”
William Northstar’s hair was fully gray. He stood as tall as Thomas but had begun to stoop just a little. They shared a house at the edge of the reserve on the farmland that Thomas used to raise cattle.
“I am judge and jury on this reserve,” Montague said. “I make the decisions around here, no matter how many letters you send to Ottawa. When will you give that up? Nobody believes your word over mine. Everybody knows that Indians are liars.”
Thomas reminded himself of the discipline he and the other soldiers had learned at Vimy Ridge. If he lost his temper, Montague could call in the police and have him arrested. He knew that was why Montague always tried to make him angry.
A shotgun was hanging from a rack on the wall. Montague walked to it and took it in both hands.
“Your dog growled at me,” Montague said. “It is a dangerous animal and I am tired of it.”
Montague pointed the shotgun at Colonel Scruffington.
Colonel Scruffington growled again.
Thomas stood directly over his dog, his legs on either side. Thomas said to the larger man. “Look in my eyes. Do you really want to pull the trigger? Because then you will have to shoot me too as the only way to stop me from breaking every finger on your hand.”
“Are you threatening me?” Montague asked. “I can have you thrown in jail for that.”
“He is protecting his dog,” William Northstar said. “Just as I will protect my grandson.”
“Get out of my office,” Montague said. “All three of you. And if you leave the reserve without a pass, I will make sure you’re arrested. A telephone call will reach Regina much faster than you can.”
—
On a hot spring afternoon about a week later, Thomas and William Northstar walked along a straight road in Regina and looked for a building with the number nineteen.
“This is dizzying,” William told Thomas. “So many houses that look so much the same in so many rows. I can only marvel at such a display. But where is the beauty in this? A river bed flows and curves, as do hills and flowers. There is nothing natural in how the white men assembled all of this.”
“And yet,” Thomas said, “you think the automobile is a wonderful invention.”
“You can walk down the road after an automobile has passed by and not worry about where to step,” William said. “This cannot be said for a horse. Before I pass from this earth, I would like to drive an automobile and wave at all my friends as I go by.”
“You mean ride in an automobile,” Thomas said. “Not drive. Please tell me that your ambition goes no further than being a passenger.”
“Drive,” William said firmly. “A magnificent automobile like the one that approaches us now.”
This automobile slowed and stopped.
“This is why I do not want you to ever drive,” Thomas said. “Your vision is terrible. That automobile belongs to the Regina Police.”
A constable stepped out of the vehicle.
He was a man about Thomas’s age, a very big man. As he walked toward them, Thomas realized he had seen the man before.
Thomas said, “Mark Lipton! It is good to see you! I did not know you had joined the police force.”
“Thomas,” Mark said. “It is good to see you and your grandfather, but I wish it were under different circumstances. There’s a warrant out for your arrest. When it came in, I said that it must be wrong because I knew you from the platoon and you were a war hero and one of the best soldiers anyone could ask for. The warrant said you might try to visit the hospital, so they sent me to patrol this area to keep an eye out for you. My captain also said to tell you to take as much time as you would like with your visit. The hospital is around the next corner. After you are finished, I will drive you where you need to go.”
Thomas stared at Mark. “I do not understand.”
“Many of us think the pass system is unfair,” Mark said. “We do our best not to enforce it.”
“Neither is it fair that I have to get permission from an Indian agent to sell wheat or cattle or buy farm equipment,” Thomas said. “And neither is it fair that I cannot sell my own land without permission. Neither is it fair that I cannot be a citizen in my own country after I fought alongside men like you to protect it.”
“I agree with all of that,” Mark said.
“Except that now you will have to break the law to help a friend. And you as a policeman must hide me away from the law you serve because I am helping my grandfather visit his dying sister. Is that not wrong as well? Should not the law be changed instead of ignored or broken?”
“Are you saying that I should arrest you?” Mark asked, scratching his head.
“If I am living life as a prisoner in my own country, what difference does it make if I am prisoner on my farm or in a jail cell? Maybe in a jail cell, I can get someone in the government to listen to me.”
Mark looked closely at Thomas. “I think I understand…You knew by leaving the reserve without a pass that the agent put out a warrant. You wanted to get arrested.”
“I knew my grandfather needed to see his sister and needed my help to travel,” Thomas said. “As for the rest, I have been angry for many years. Why was I an equal during the war when we faced death but not after the war on my own land? It is not that I am here to fight. It is that I do not know what else to do. If you are kind, you will arrest us after my grandfather spends time with his sister.”
William said to Mark Lipton, “And perhaps I can share a jail cell with my grandson? He has yet to beat me in chess but never tires of trying. It is an amusing way to pass time.”
—
Just before stepping out of the police station, Willam said to Thomas. “There is no need to be glum. It was only a week in jail. How could you expect to win a chess game against me in that short amount of time?”
Thomas did not smile. “If that was all I needed to worry about, I would be a happy man. I do not like this, not knowing why we are suddenly free to go.”
They walked out of the building just as a nearby church bell chimed noon. Thomas was glad it was a cloudy day. After his time in the jail cell, daylight seemed too bright as it was.
The city street in front of them was wide and filled with traffic. But Thomas only noticed the shiny new automobile parked directly in front of the police station.
“It is as I feared,” Thomas said to his grandfather. “My two friends Jake and Charlie.”
They were already stepping out of the car. Charlie wore a fine suit. Jake had on a working man’s clothes. Both had big grins.
Thomas wanted to smile back, but set his lips straight and his expression stern.
“Hello, Charlie,” Thomas said. “Hello, Jake. This is my grandfather, William Northstar.”
“It is nice to meet you,” William said. “And that is a fine automobile. A very fine automobile.”
“Why are you here?” Thomas asked Charlie and Jake. He remained on the sidewalk and people had to move around them.
“Train from Toronto,” Charlie said. “Jake jumped aboard in Winnipeg. A family friend met us at the train station here and loaned us this Packard. Nice city, this Regina. Fifty thousand people already. I’ll have to report back to my father that we seriously need to invest money in a place growing this fast.”
“That is not what I meant and you know it,” Thomas said. “Why are you here?”
“You had already spent too much time in jail,” Jake said. “It was time to get you out. We talked to a judge and paid your bail.”
“I was afraid that would be your answer. This does not make me happy.”
Jake grinned at William. “It must wear you out when he gets all high and mighty and angry about things.”
“Very much,” William answered, “but he is family, so I must accept it. Did I mention that is a very fine automobile? I do not suppose there is a chance that one of you two fine young men could teach me to drive it?”
“Grandfather,” Thomas said, “my friends did not come to visit and take us for an automobile ride. They came to rescue me, even if I did not ask for it.”
“It is what friends do, Thomas,” William said. “Look at this automobile. A Packard? Magnificent.”
“It is my fight,” Thomas told William. “It is not their fight.”
Thomas looked at Charlie. “After the war, the SPCA did everything possible to save all the animals who helped soldiers. I am very glad for that. I am not glad that those animals receive better treatment and sympathy than those of us who have had to return to reserves where the government forgets that we stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the country’s soldiers during the Great War.”
“I am not happy about that either,” Charlie said.
“Neither am I,” Jake said. “Nor am I happy that not once did you write to me or Charlie about what you were facing. We are brothers. Didn’t you say that? One blood. One nation.”
“I have learned since that our government acts as if it is two bloods and two nations. You are both like brothers to me, but I do not want your help.”
Charlie said, “Thomas, you know I’m from the city. If the two of us were alone in the middle of the Prairies, I would gladly ask you to shoot game for me and help me build a shelter. Just as I would gladly help you find your way around the city. Right or wrong, we live in two different worlds. Much as I wish the two of us together could change the system, I fear it will take another generation for that. In the meantime, let me help you in my world and—”
“Yes,” Thomas interrupted, “I would shoot game for you if you were starving or injured. Until then, I would let you go hungry for a long time until you learned to hunt for yourself and relied on your own strength. That is what a friend and brother would do. I will not permit you to coddle me into weakness. You have rescued me from jail. So what? I still live in prison on my reserve.”
Thomas spoke to William. “Come on, Grandfather. We need to return to our cell and finish our chess game. You were very lucky, you know. I was just about to beat you before the lawyer told us we were free to go.”
“Thomas,” Jake said. “Charlie and I didn’t come here to rescue you. We came here because you had already rescued yourself. I think you should listen to what we have to say.”
William spoke to Jake. “Perhaps as we listen, we can go for a ride around the city in this fine automobile? Somewhere along the way, I am sure, there will be a place where you can teach me how to drive.”
—
Thomas stepped into the Indian agent office. Dale Montague looked up from behind his desk.
“You are supposed to be in jail in Regina,” Montague said. He scratched his beard. Thomas suspected fleas.
“Before I left the reserve,” Thomas said, “I had a serious conversation with my dog. I told him that he was to make sure that you never saw him. I have already heard that while I was gone you went hunting for him nearly every day and failed to find him. It is a wonderful joke on the reserve. The agent who cannot find an old dog. Some also say that is not a surprise, since they doubt you can find your buttocks with your own hands.”
“How dare you?” Montague sputtered as he stood up. “You will not be laughing when you find yourself back in jail again.”
The door opened. Colonel Scruffington walked inside and growled at Montague.
Then Jake walked in. Thomas remained standing. Jake sat in a chair at the side of the office, and Colonel Scruffington sat next to him.
“Who are you?” Montague asked Jake.
Jake just stared at Montague until the agent looked away.
Charlie opened the door and stood in the doorway, looking imposing in his expensive dark suit.
Montague stared at Charlie, and then gaped at what he saw outside the door. “Is that William Northstar sitting behind the wheel of a Packard?”
“It is,” Jake told Montague. “He forgot to mention that he is blind in one eye. It explains a lot about his driving.”
Charlie closed the door.
“I suppose that’s the shotgun?” Charlie asked Thomas, pointing at where it rested on its rack.
“You suppose that is what shotgun?” Montague asked. “Who are you and—”
“It’s come to my attention that you used a shotgun to threaten a distinguished war veteran,” Charlie said. “Is that the shotgun?”
“I never pointed it at Thomas,” Montague said. “If he told you that, he’s a liar. Like the rest of his people. You can’t trust anything they—”
“Not that war veteran,” Jake said. “This war veteran.”
Jake reached over and scratched Colonel Scruffington’s head.
“This is ridiculous,” Montague said. He glared at Charlie. “Who are you?”
“Charlie Austin.” Charlie remained standing, arms crossed.
“What business is it of yours if I shoot a mangy old Indian dog?” Montague asked. “You could be from the Austin family of Toronto and I wouldn’t…”
Charlie smiled as Montague grew quiet.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “I’m aware you’re from Toronto. I have the file with most of your employment history.”
Montague drew a breath. “Well, in Toronto you might be in the know of those who run the city, but here—”
“The years since the war have been good to me,” Charlie said. “I learned a lot in my platoon, and it’s served me well. At this point, my ‘in the know’ goes beyond those who run the city.”
“Province then,” Montague said. “But here—”
Charlie pointed upward.
The agent looked at the ceiling.
“He means in the know of those higher than the province,” Jake whispered.
“Unless the prime minister himself sent you,” Montague said, “you have no powers here. I am justice and jury on this reserve, and you can’t do a thing about it. So I don’t care why you’re here. You and your friend might as well turn around. Try not to get horse manure on those fancy shoes of yours. This isn’t Toronto, and nobody here is going to roll out the red carpet for you.”
“I have managed to control my temper around you since the day you stepped on this reserve,” Thomas said. “But if you do not treat my friend with respect, this will become the day when I do something I will regret. I promise you’ll regret it more than I will.”
“Your friends.” Montague sneered. “All these years on the reserve, you have not once said that you know Charlie Austin.”
“Don’t forget me,” Jake said. “There are two of us here.”
“Thomas saved my life,” Charlie said. “And we are here because of the letters that Thomas has been sending over the years since the war.”
Montague rolled his eyes. “Oh yes. Those stupid letters. Citizenship for those Indians who fought. Equal benefits for Indian veterans. He is tireless in his complaints.”
Montague turned to Thomas. “I guess you’ve finally realized that you Indians can’t make it in our world without help. And even then, these friends won’t be able to do a thing for you, Austin family or not. So here’s my advice to you, Charlie Austin and…”
“Jake,” Jake said. “Jake York. Easy name to remember.”
“I won’t need to,” Montague answered. “Here’s my advice to both of you: don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Thomas Northstar does not have my permission to leave with you. I will not sign his pass. He cannot travel without it.”
“You’re wrong about something,” Charlie said. “Although I am proud Thomas Northstar calls me a friend, I am not here as his friend.”
“Same goes for me,” Jake said.
“So about those letters,” Charlie said. “A few months ago, a colleague of mine named Stuart in Indian Affairs thought that Thomas’s name seemed familiar. Eventually Stu remembered the many occasions I had talked about my good friend and Cree warrior Thomas Northstar. Because of that, when Thomas was arrested in Regina, Stu made sure it came to my attention and I took the first train there.”
Charlie gave Montague a cold smile. “But you are right about something else, too.”
Jake said, “You mean the part where he said unless the prime minister himself sent you?”
“Jake, don’t exaggerate,” Charlie said. “The prime minister himself did not send me. Matters like this are handled by Indian Affairs. Please be clearer.”
“Apologies,” Jake said to Montague. “Indian Affairs sent Charlie because they’ve recommended to the prime minister that Thomas’s complaints be investigated and the issues dealt with. But as the prime minister is good friends with the Austin family, he is naturally interested in this matter.”
“The prime minister,” the agent said in a dull voice of slow comprehension.
“He arrived at our Ottawa estate one day for lunch,” Charlie said. “You remember it, right, Thomas?”
“On the Rideau River, just down from Parliament,” Thomas said. “Great place to rest on our way back from France. Remember how the Colonel here managed to grab a roasted chicken from the kitchen and had to be chased down by one of your maids?”
“The prime minister,” Montague repeated.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “During lunch, he specifically brought up the subject of Thomas Northstar and these complaints. He said he agreed with Indian Affairs and wondered, since I was friends with Thomas, whether I’d be interested in making a visit to deliver a letter in person in regards to the complaints.”
“It’s no different than plenty other reserves,” Montague said. “You try dealing with—”
“Wrong again,” Jake said. “Plenty other reserves have fair agents who try to do the right thing even with a bad system. Who don’t insist on using passes to control people. Who allow farmland to be bought and sold. Who allow produce to be bought and sold. Who don’t feel they have the right to hunt down animals that belong to those living on the reserve. You really wanted to shoot Colonel Scruffington, didn’t you? A veteran. Shame on you.”
“Indian Affairs agrees with Jake here,” Charlie said. “Plenty of fair agents out there. They’ve decided it’s time this reserve gets a fair agent too.”
Thomas handed Montague a letter. “This is from Indian Affairs. Near the end, you will find a portion of special interest to me. The portion that states Jake York has been given duties as temporary agent until a replacement reaches us.”
Montague read the letter twice and finally managed to say, “I’ve been discharged.”
Charlie said, “Don’t take a single thing as you go. Everything belongs to Indian Affairs.”
“Including the shotgun,” Jake said. “Now that I’m a temporary agent, it’s my responsibility.”
Jake stepped to the wall and took down the shotgun. He made sure it wasn’t loaded. Then he put the end of the barrel on the floor and held the stock. He stepped on it and snapped the shotgun barrel from the wood stock.
Jake kicked the pieces aside, sat in the agent’s chair and put his feet up on the desk and crossed his hands behind his neck. He said to Montague, “Mind if I offer you some advice now that you are unemployed?”
“What’s that?” Montague asked.
Jake said, “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”
Colonel Scruffington followed Montague to the door.
“Scruff,” Thomas said. “Stay away. I don’t want you to get fleas.”
The Colonel growled one last time at Montague as he stepped outside, the dazed look on his face made worse by the image of a smiling William Northstar behind the steering wheel of a new Packard.
As Montague walked down the road, William Northstar cheerfully honked the horn.
The war proved that the fighting spirit of my tribe was not squelched through reservation life. When duty called, we were there, and when we were called forth to fight for the cause of civilization, our people showed all the bravery of our warriors of old.
—Mike Mountain Horse, First World War veteran
Many First Nations soldiers served as platoon leaders and combat instructors; at least fifty have been decorated for bravery in battle.
Because of this, many of the First Nations soldiers hoped that on their return to Canada they would get recognition and improved living conditions because of their achievements and sacrifices during the war. While they did receive some benefits after the war, it was still not equal to the benefits given to other veterans.
Indeed, on September 1, 1919, the Six Nations veterans sent a letter to the deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs in Ottawa that began as follows:
“Sir, we the undersigned, members of the Six Nations Indians, loyal soldiers of His Majesty The King, of the Township of Tuscarora in the county of Brant do most humbly implore and petition you Sir to hearken and consider our cry for deliverance from our present system of government…and we hope and pray that, the ‘Canada’ for which our friends and comrades fought and died, the same ‘Canada,’ we fought and gladly suffered for, may see fit to grant us this change.”
The most decorated First Nations soldier in World War One was Francis Pegahmagabow. Shortly after arriving in France, Pegahmagabow fought in the Second Battle of Ypres, where he faced the chlorine gas that the Germans unleashed for the first time in war history. Next, at the Battle of Somme, he was wounded in the left leg, but returned to action. In a later battle, by then a corporal, he guided lost reinforcements to their place along the line. After that, during the Battle of the Scarpe, with his company almost out of ammunition, he faced machine gun and rifle fire to go into No Man’s Land and return with enough ammunition for his company to fight off the enemy.
Upon his return to Canada, he actively tried to make political change, based in part on his dislike of his Indian agent, and tried to free his people from “white slavery.” In 2016 on National Aboriginal Day, his memory was honored with a life-sized bronze monument unveiled in Parry Sound, Ontario.
Many World War One First Nations veterans were involved in similar attempts for political change. Their travel experiences had given them a wider perspective on their home situations, and they felt that since they had earned the respect of the soldiers beside them in the trenches, they deserved the same rights as veterans back in Canada.
So many First Nations chiefs sent letters to the Department of Indian Affairs that, in 1933, this department changed its policy and did not allow chiefs to correspond with the department directly anymore. Instead, the new policy forced them to work through their Indian agents. Given that many of the letters addressed complaints about Indian agents, it reduced the power of First Nations chiefs.
PASS SYSTEM
Because of the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel, members of the Canadian government worried that First Nations people would leave their reserves to join the fight. And even though the act of requiring passes for First Nations to travel violated treaty rights, the system was put into place.
This system required that before a First Nations person could travel—regardless of the reason—the local Indian agent had to sign a permission slip issued by the Department of Indian Affairs. Parents were denied the chance to visit their children at residential schools, children couldn’t leave to visit elderly parents, and siblings might go years without seeing each other. The North West Mounted Police protested the system back in 1893, but they were overruled by the Department of Indian Affairs, even though the department head acknowledged the pass system was not grounded in law.
It was a system that lasted well past World War One. Leona Blondeau, from the George Gordon Reserve in Saskatchewan—where Thomas Northstar from the fictional story returns after the war—remembers that as a child, she needed to get permission to leave the reserve to travel by wagon to the closest town, Punnichy, even if all they were doing was going to get ice cream.
Leona was eight years old when the federal policy officially ended in 1941, but she recalls restrictions still lasting for years past that.
“We never went anywhere,” she told a reporter. “We stayed on the reserve. We were very segregated….It was the way life was, I thought. I didn’t realize it wasn’t the right thing to do.”
First Nations World War One veterans, like all First Nations peoples across Canada, were not permitted to buy and sell land, or even produce, without permission from an Indian agent.
It was not until 1956, thirty-eight years after the war, that First Nations men and women were granted citizenship as Canadians.
