New year, new project, new blog post. This was a very quick project because we had to squeeze it in before the end of the first semester. Enter: Let’s get Riel.
In this project, we learnt about the evolving portrayal of Louis Riel while improving our writing skills along the way. We started by learning about the Red river settlement and how Riel drove the Canadian surveyors away in 1869. Then, we made Frayer Layers to expand our vocabulary.
After that, we looked at some texts to see how he was portrayed. We looked at three statues of Riel which were all very unique and told very different stories. We read through some primary sources (Newspapers from the 1800s, a documentation of Riel’s speech to the jury from 1885) and we watched a Louis Riel Heritage Minute by Historica Canada. Here is a paragraph that I wrote about it:
In this text, Louis Riel is portrayed very calmly as he reflects upon his life and the battles that he fought. He says “I battled an insane and irresponsible government” which shows how Historica Canada looked back at what Riel did and interpreted his opinions. He mentions how he fought not only for himself, but also for the people of Manitoba and the North West. In the video, it seem as though Riel has accepted his fate because of how calm he looks. It seems somewhat uncanny to me, because if I was in his shoes, knowing my upcoming death, I would be very frantic. I wonder if he was this calm when it actually happened.
It was time for the final product! Can you guess what it is? It is drumroll please… More writing!! It is a writing project after all. This time it’s a multi paragraph response to the driving question, “How has the portrayal of Louis Riel changed over time?”. But nothing’s ever perfect on the first try, so I sent it to my teacher for feedback.
And here’s the final copy:
The Evolving Portrayal of Louis Riel
Louis Riel’s life was a hard and controversial story. It involved a lot of struggles against the Canadian government for the rights of his people, the Métis. However, he wasn’t always portrayed as a hero. From the perspective of the Canadian government, he was a menace. When Canada was buying Rupert’s Land in 1869 (Modern day Manitoba and surroundings), they sent surveyors out to map the land into square lots, but Riel and a dozen other armed Métis drove them away. Riel became president of a new provisional government and executed a member of the Canadian party (A group of settlers trying to overthrow Riel’s new government), resulting in the Canadian government executing him for treason in 1885.
A great place to look for examples of how the portrayal of Louis Riel has changed over time are statues of him. In 1973, Lemay and Gaboury's unveiled a statue of Louis Riel in Winnipeg. This statue shows Riel standing naked in the middle of an imprisoning structure. This statue portrays him as weak. Taking off someone’s clothes makes the person seem powerless and the enclosure made him look trapped. In 1991, that statue was taken down because of the arising controversy, and replaced by one made by Métis artist, Miguel Joyal. This one made Riel look powerful and important by putting him on a pedestal and giving him an intimidating pose. This shows how his portrayal changed in the 18 years of the first one standing.
Louis Riel was a very divisive figure in Canadian history. For over a century, he was known as a traitor to the Canadian government because the English people were the dominant population. But now that the colonial settler community has stepped back a bit, we can let the Métis people tell their story. To them and many others, Riel was a very strong and powerful leader who would do anything to protect the Métis land. Looking back from a more modern perspective, this has allowed a more accurate portrayal of Louis Riel to be adopted.