Once our class was well-educated in the lives of the Canadian soldiers of world war one and all of the treacherous events that took place, we returned to our main focus from the beginning of the year, Canada’s history.

The first focus of the course was, “who are the Metis”? This group of people began with the French Canadian fur traders, in the mid-1700’s when the number of fur resources where declining, they decided to learn more about the land from the indigenous group residing there at the time. And eventually, after spending so much time together these European settlers ended up marrying the indigenous women, creating a new group of people. In partners, we all summarized a couple of readings about who the culture and who they were, we also watched an interactive video all about their way of life.

In partners, we all summarized a couple of readings about who the culture and who they were, we also watched an interactive video all about their way of life. The land called the Red River Valley, now known as Manitoba. This was the area that the Metis peoples resided at the time, this was also the place where a large amount of conflict occurred between Engish settlers and the Metis.

Which leads on to the next part of this unit, the Chester Brown Comic Strip. For our book study in this course, we were provided with a 4 part comic strip all about Louis Riels life and his fight for the Metis people.

 

How the story goes in short form is, Louis Riel is a Metis man who has very strong beliefs and is a born leader, the Hudsons Bay Company claims to own the Red River Valley when they really just want the Metis and their land to be apart of Canada and the pro Canada men want to have control over all of Canada. All of the French people want a provisional government with Louis as the president, but there are many men such as Dr Shlutz who hate Louis and will do anything to bring him down and many times he tries to stop him but Louis is much too clever and strong. Louis ends up being in charge of the murder of Tomas Scott for his constant rude and racist remarks, causing an explosion of controversy over Riel. During the middle of the story, Louis ends up going against the Queen of England and turns himself in and is sent to court immediately. Many witnesses tell their story about their conversations with Louis and the things he planned to do. When Louis finally had the chance to speak on his own behalf he pleaded innocent but the court decides that he would hanged on November 16th, 1885.

Once our class finished the comic we had a short debate about if

Louis Riels death was justifiable or unjustifiable, I argued that his death was unjustifiable because he wasn’t creating the violence it was the people around him that caused the conflict. People were blaming him for the deaths when it was really just the people who either disagreed or agreed with his beliefs. We were also required to do a final reflection on the book stating our opinions, thoughts and arguments.

The next part of this course was a short unit on the CPR and John A. Macdonald. We learnt about the leaders of the construction of the railroad such as (of course) John A., Cornelius Van Horne, Andrew Onderdonk and Sandford Fleming. But most importantly, we learnt about the 17,000 Chinese workers that took the dangerous trip across the Pacific ocean to work on the railroad in B.C. The employer of these immigrants was the contractor, Andrew Onderdonk, he promised them a dollar for a day of work and a great job opportunity. He painted them a picture of a great positive experience to work and live in a beautiful new land when really, he only brought them there to benefit the railroad. These immigrants ended up being forced into living in small camps and eating cheap food while working full days on the railroad in dangerous working conditions. Hundreds of Chinese workers died every month, as many tragedies occurred during the construction, with tons of explosives and small working space, bad things were bound to happen.

Another part of this unit was (of course) the Canadian Government wanting more land, no they wanted the prairies to be available for European settlers, but there was a problem; the and was own by the two indigenous groups, the Saulteaux and Cree. Since the Canadian Government was relentless with their plan the Indigenous groups new that they needed to share some of their lands, it was tradition to settle these types of agreements in a treaty.

These treaties were contracts signed between the two groups/people to keep laws, rules or agreements,  these Indigenous groups were forced into living a new way of life and live by the standards of the European settlers. And nowadays these important agreements are almost completely forgotten by the people of today, we have taken over the land that had been promised to the native groups in different areas and most people don’t even know it.

The last small part of this course before the project was the topic of the gold rush and how it affected Canada and the Indigenous groups around it. The obsession with digging up gold began in Rupert’s land in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the search for gold expanded indigenous people vocalized that they didn’t want gold miners to inhabit their land. But the men searching were aggressive and desperate and they didn’t stop for anyone; even if these men did find gold these men would still return home with empty pockets because of their money being spent on many things such as alcohol, women and gambling.

Another part of the gold rush that we focused on was the importation of camels for material transporters. Why camels you ask? The men had been using donkeys to move their supplies but they kept passing away and needing excess amounts of water. The workers decided to purchase 23 camels to see how they would do the job. And at first this decision went as planned and was successful but as the days went on the miners realized that they had made a mistake, camels weren’t meant for rocky terrain like this, their hooves began to tear and died from the conditions they were put in because these creatures were meant for the desert and not the mountains.

Now for our project, to wrap up our course we were assigned a project based on power and how it alters relationships. The format of this project was an animation, this was something we hadn’t done yet in class and I was looking forward to trying something new.

The first task we had to complete was choosing a topic to base our animation around; we used both books and the internet to find the topic that we were most interested in. Ms Maxwell introduced me to the topic of the Komagata Maru, a large ship bought by a wealthy businessman named Girdit Singh, he took more than 300 Sikhs men across the Pacific ocean to live and work in Vancouver, Canada. But when the boat arrived in Vancouver the racist beliefs of the Canadian at the time turned sent them straight back home.

Once we had our topic we had to dig deeper into the topic find more information in order to create a story out of the facts.

As the last preparation before I began the actual animation, I created a storyboard to layout the different shots to go along with the dialogue for the story.

As I began to bring the story to life I had to keep in mind the concept of power and make the shift of power obvious in the animation. I worked extremely hard until the very last day on our timeline to complete this project, spending every spare minute finishing my drawings. My storyboard really helped me through the creation of the animation, it guided my drawing and made the drawing of the scenes very efficient and organized. After a long 3 weeks of drawing, I was very satisfied with my final product, with the amount of time we were given I was nervous that my ideas were too big to be completed in that amount of times and I’d have to cut out most of m storyboard but I did it. I only ended up cutting out two or three scenes because I wanted extra time to complete the narration and add music.

Once the day came to show our animations in front of the class I was definitely nervous but I also knew that because of all of my hard work it would all pay off and I really think it did. I’m very proud of it and even though there always things to fix, I think that I truly told the story in an understandable and artistic way.

To sum up this large diverse unit, I will explain what makes a person powerful. From Louis Riel to Andrew Onderdonk to Girdit Singh all of their stories include a shift in power, either becoming powerful or powerless, either way, power is created and maintained by having strong beliefs, taking action a]upon them and being a leader for others. I believe that some of the most powerful people are the ones who don’t need followers or people to agree with them all they need is themselves.