R. v. Howse - Part 6

Defence Testimony

 [#14]     Dan LaFrance spoke on his own behalf and on behalf of all the defendants during the introduction of the defence evidence.  He and the other defendants and a gallery full of their supporters appeared during the trial wearing their Métis sashes.  He explained that the sash is a powerful symbol to Métis people.  They take pride in wearing it.  They can hold up their pants with it.  It has limitless uses t them.  It is colourful.  He said the green threads represent mother Earth.  The blue threads reflect their connection to the Great Spirit.  The yellow threads remind them of the rising sun in the east where good things come from.  The red threads sadly remind them of all the shedding of Métis bloo during the history of the Métis people.  I noted that the sashes are predominately red in colour.  The white threads represent the clear vision the Métis have of the future.  Dan LaFrance stated that the sash used to have black thread woven into it, but that it is no longer used.  Black represented the dark years the Métis endured.  Dan LaFrance explained that during his adult life he has carried a medicine pouch containing items sacred to him.

 [#15]     Dan LaFrance had this to say of his history:

I would like to share with you a brief account of my history of hunting, fishing, trapping, and guiding.  This brief explanation will demonstrate beyond a doubt that I have lived the "Indian mode" way of life as a Métis person all my life and continue to live that way to this day.  This account is not meant to be detailed nor exhaustive, rather it will give you the sense and feeling that the LaFrance family continues to live our culture and traditions.

Starting at the very early age of five I was not only taken out to fish by my Dad, but I am told that my Mum used to send me out at the back of our house, where there was a creek, to fish on my own.  I guess you can say that from that time I was to build a relationship and respect with the land, that continues to be a driving force within me now.  I remember my Dad taking me down to the Fraser River numerous times to fish, and bringing home supper, as we were very poor.  He explained to me that we might not have much money, but there is always fish to catch.  The LaFrances were one of the Métis families that were brought out from Manitoba to work at the West Fraser Mills in Port Moody.

We moved to Manitoba not long after that and this [was]when I started to hunt.  I used to go out with my step Dad and hunt for white tail deer and game birds.  If it were not for our sustenance hunting, we would not have had much meat on the table.  In the summer months we would put in a big garden, and catch and can quite a lot of fish.  I remember at the age of nine, going down to the Assinaboine River when the fish were running and in a weeks time catching enough fish for the winter months when everything was froze up and we could not get fish. As a family we spent many a day in the Clearwater Lake area hunting and fishing.  I have fond memories of those days and I learned a lot from my Mum and Dad about our culture and traditions while out on the land.

By the age of twelve we had moved back to BC.  The hunting and fishing continued to supply our family with sustenance on a year round basis.  At the age of twelve I was competent enough to be able to hunt for grouse on my own, and did so often.  As a matter of fact we ate more grouse than chicken in our household.

By the age of seventeen, we were taking trips up into the interior of the province to hunt for moose and the creater has given me a moose to feed my family every year since. At the age of twenty, I married a Métis gal named Cathie, she was seventeen.  We have been married for twenty-six years this year, and to this very day we continue to not just practice our culture, but rather, we live it every single day.  In doing so we have brought up our two boys in a Métis household, teaching them the ways of our ancestors.

By the time our first child Josh was two we had move up north to our trapline.  This trapline is in a very remote part of BC.  You had to fly from Smithers 180 air miles north to the headwaters of the Skeena River, were we had built our cabin with our own hands and material from the woods.

This began our life as trappers, living a very traditional lifestyle.  I guess I don't have to explain to you that there are no supermarkets up there to go to and shop for food.  If we had been lazy and did not go and get our meat, fish and berries from the woods, we would have starved.  That year we had spent ten months in the bush trapping and guiding.

By the time our next child Cody was born, we have moved to a different trapline and were living there all year round.  This trapline was south of Vanderhoof about an hour and a half drive.  Again, we built everything ourselves with materials coming from the bush.  On a trappers income, a big garden, moose, deer, and fish was the only way we could feed our family.

It was at this time that we managed to purchase a guiding territory, and built a small business guiding non-resident hunters and fishermen.  In this respect I am continuing on with a traditional lifesstyle for my ancestors were trappers, guides and middlemen for the Hudson Bay Company.

The only reason we decided to move off the trapline was so that our boys could receive a proper education in school for up until now my wife had been teaching them home school.

What brought us to the Cranbrook area was work.  I was hired to manage a guiding territory for Three Bars Ranch and did so until that fall when the guiding was over and I was laid off.

This year I was asked to work as a guide for an outfitter up in the Hudson Hope area, by the name of Ray Jackson.  Respectfully, I turned the job down as I was  running my own business on Vancouver Island and could not take the time to leave and spend some time in the mountains.

This brings up another point.  I have a full time farrier business on southern Vancouver Island.  My oldest son works in the business with me as we both are certified journeyman farriers.  The Métis people are known for their ability and expertise in working with horses.  In a lot of cases in the old days a families wealth was marked by how many horses they had and having horses, working with horses, or being involved with horses in some way is a part of Métis culture, past and present.  I have been around horses all my life, and have been a professional farrier and trainer for twenty-six years and have handed this skill down to both my boys. So I not only feed my family in a traditional manner, but we make our living in one of the most traditional ways a Métis person can, with horses.

There will not be a year ever that goes by that I will not obtain some of my sustenance in a traditional manner from our homelands, honoring the land, animals and fish that our creator the Keeche Manito (Great Spirit) has provided for us Métis people.

Lastly, I leave you with this analogy.  The Métis people are like the grass that grows throughout our homelands.  People have plowed it under, they have put chemicals on it, and they burn it on a regular basis, they even build cities on it - why - to try and get rid of it.  But every spring there is new growth and the grass continues to grow strong as it has done since the dawn of time.  This is because the grasses of our homelands have deep roots.  The Métis people are like the grasses of our home lands, with roots that are every bit as deep and secure.  We survive because we have a strong culture and traditions, that has been handed down from generation to generation and will continue so for time immemorial.

A very big part of my culture and traditions is hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering that I inherited from my ancestors.

 [#16]     Dan LaFrance told the court about his ancestry. Gail Morin of the St. Boniface Historical Society has traced him back the year 1580.  He is related to Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont.  He is connected through the Sansregret Métis family of the Red River Settlement.  He produced a map showing that only a short distance, as the crow flies, from where the Kootenay Hunt took place a creek named LaFrance Creek runs into Kootenay Lake.  The documentary evidence and testimony of
 Dan LaFrance is evidence of his ancestral links to the Métis nation.  He told of his position as Captain of the Hunt.

 [#17]     Dan LaFrance said of the captain of the hunt:

I was mandated on November 11th and 12th 1996, in Kelowna at an AGM of the Métis people of the province.  Prior to that, I was mandated in 1994 of the Métis Nation in B.C., which was the governing body at that time.  Prior to that, I held it in a more traditional manner, that I was appointed by Gerald Morin, who was the president of the Métis Nation Council, at a meeting in Kelowna.  They asked me if I was interested in the position because of my lifelong way of living, and that I guess they felt I could help the Métis people in that respect in the hunting and fishing area."

 [#18]     Dan LaFrance is registered as a member of the Vancouver Island Métis Nation.  Prior to that he belonged to the Pacific Métis Federation.  Throughout all this time he has carried on as a hunter, trapper and guide.  During the time of these offences in late October, 1997, Dan LaFrance was living near Cranbrook British Columbia for the Three Bars Ranch.  He was managing their guiding territory for a salary of one thousand dollars per month.  He said he had to supplement his  salary in the Métis traditional way of hunting, fishing and food gathering to feed his family.

 [#19]     Dan LaFrance explained to the court that two kinds of trapline licences are issued in British Columbia. One is issued without fee to aboriginal trappers.  The other is issued with fee to non-aboriginal trappers.  His trapline was registered to him on November 29th, 1995.  The trapline licence exempts him from having to obtain hunting and fishing licences pursuant to s. 11(9) of the Wildlife Act, R.S.B.C.1996, c. 488.

 [#20]     Dan LaFrance described to the court his knowledge of aboriginal rights and his interest and connection with those rights.  He pointed to government documents that have been issued respecting the rights of Métis people, but he says, the BC Government never consulted with the Métis Nation
before printing and circulating the pamphlets.  For example, one of his pamplets is entitled "Fishing Aboriginal Rights." In it there is this statement:  "...If you are a Métis you must exercise your Aboriginal fishing right to fish for food, Ceremonial or social needs in Métis traditional territories.
 For more information, contact the Métis National Council."  He had this to say about the pamphlet:  "...You know, they say we can fish in our traditional territories and that's great....and they publish a booklet like this and distribute it all over British Columbia and then when we go to practice our culture and carry on our traditions, we are either put under investigation and/or charged."

 [#21]     Dan LaFrance spoke of his role as the Provincial Captain of the Hunt on December 9, 1995 when the Métis people of British Columbia held a traditional hunt at Toquart Bay on Vancouver Island.  The hunt was collective with 45 hunters participating.  He told of Métis hunters coming from the Kootenay Métis people to take part in the Vancouver Island hunt.  The Kootenay Métis Nation then asked him to call a hunt  in the Kootenays.  The October 25th Kootenay Métis hunt was organized during the Annual General Meeting of the Kootenay Métis.  Dan LaFrance drew up plans for the hunt and took those plans to the local Métis Elders for their input and approval. Everyone was satisfied that those who were going to participate in the hunt needed winter meat to feed their
 families.

 [#21 again]     During and after the hunt local conservation  officers patrolled the hunt area.  When one of the Métis hunters produced his Métis membership card to a conservation officer, the officer was heard to say that the card meant nothing to him.  When one of the Métis hunters was stopped,  for inspection, by a CO, the officer expressed his opinion that there would probably be lots of drinking going on that night because the Métis were hunting there.  However, this discrimination was to be out done by another group according to Dan LaFrance.  After the plans for the hunt were drawn, Dan LaFrance, along with Elder Bassett, went to meet with the Ktunaxa people, at the St. Mary's Indian Band Office, to advise them of the hunt and to obtain their blessing to the hunt.  The hunt area was within traditional Ktunaxa territories, but the hunt area is also claimed as traditional Métis homelands.  The Ktunaxa people refused to give the hunt their blessing.  Dan LaFrance said,
 

"It is probably one of the first times I felt very, very discriminated against as a Métis person by another aboriginal person...I invited them to come on the hunt."

 [#22]     John Grant Howse testified about his history and his genealogy.  He is a descendant of Joseph Howse, who was born in 1743, in Cirencester England.  Joseph Howse came to what is now Canada.  He was with the Hudson's Bay Company as a cartographer.  Howse Pass is named after him.  He used the Pass in 1809 to gain access to the Columbia River system west of the Rocky Mountains.  Later he left the Hudson's Bay Company and became an ambitious fur-trader.  He returned to England.  There he wrote a book called "A Grammar of the Cree Language".  The Columbia River system starts at Canal Flats just a forty minute drive north of Cranbrook, B.C.  In
addition to Howse Pass, there is Howse River and Howse Peak. John Grant Howse is the son of Joseph Harold Howse who died  the year that John Grant Howse was born.  He had this to say of his upbringing at TaTa Creek, which is 30 minutes north of Cranbrook, B.C.
 

"...I have always known that I was a little bit differently raised, although parts of my family did not admit it.  My mother did not like the word Indian mentioned in our house.  Some of my brothers and sisters don't like that word either.  I cannot change who I am.  And I've stated in my statement to the CO's on the weekend of our gathering out near Cherry Lake that I had not purchased a hunting licence since around 1985.  But I was not welcome to be with my white friends when we hunted because I wouldn't buy a licence.  I was asked by a cousin of mine who lives in the Invermere area also, as I do reside today, if I would attend a Métis gathering and I agreed.  It was the first meeting or gathering was held at the Columbia Lake Indian Band hall in the spring of ninety-'94.  It was a good gathering and we got to write our family on a large piece of paper in the hall and this is where - excuse me- this is where I found that I felt comfortable.  I felt comfortable because I was with people that believe in our culture...And I was asked to -if I would like to join the Kootenay Region Métis Association and I did.

 I paid my dues.  I submitted my name, my families names as stated on my application form and I was given a card of recognition...There were lots of people that liked to talk about going hunting and fishing and it was nice to be with them.  You had the same values.  Nobody judged you differently.  No one stated to you that you couldn't hunt or you couldn't fish because you didn't have a licence.  So I preferred to hunt with them.  When they talked about a hunt at Cherry Lake, Kerry Boyer was to organize it for a certain weekend.  I understood that Kerry Boyer and Elder Boyer worked on the location and it was pretty well arranged that we would meet somewhere in the vicinity of Cherry Lake where we would  camp and get together.  So I took my family and we went there to see if we could find our harvest for the fall."

 [#23]     Latrica Nicholas testified that she has been a sitting director since September 23, 1995 on the Métis Nation of British Columbia, which is affiliated with the Métis National Council.  She described the difficulties being experienced by people trying to organize Métis people, but she identified the Vancouver Island and Kootenay Region Métis Associations as the best organized Métis groups in BritishColumbia.

 [#24]     Doreen Yvonne McGee is a Métis Elder in the Kootenay Region.  She had this to say:
 

 "...I, myself, was not really aware of my Métis heritage until about seven years ago. I knew there was always something at home when I was young but actually, in our family, we were more ashamed of it because of of the sad things, and I say this with absolutely no prejudice intended in any way, but we were never accepted by Indianpeople or by normal society.  We weren't.  My mother and her sisters and brothers were often said that they were ridiculed in school and called Nitchy which meant half-breed and so on.

 And I think this problem exists today, still today, that this is a sad and sore point.  That we actually are a nation from Canada.  We should be accepted as such.  A Métis could come from nowhere else in the world, only from Canada.  I'm proud of that. I'm very proud of that.  I wish the Canadian government was as proud of that as we are.  But anyway, to get back to this, my mother's family, it's through my mother's lineage that I am Métis.  We could trace our line back to the paper what my great-grandfather signed for land in Manitoba....I have never cured a hide or anything, I would like to know how but I never - after I grew a little older, that part of our life was kind of hid until 1995 when we became aware that there was a Métis organization in B.C.  We joined it, became a part of it and worked hard to be part of  it....I felt the singing, the dancing, the music playing.  My people did it when they were young.  It's always been a par  of our life to this very day.  We do it with our own family and that was something I felt an instant rapport with when we joined with other Métis people somewhere that - that the feeling was just there.  It was almost like a homesickness in me when it started, when at the first A.G.M I went to and they had the gathering and it started.  It was just like I had been there before....I don't know for sure how to - how to end this except to say, I don't believe Métis people are asking for anything that shouldn't be theirs....I am very proud to be a Métis.  And I'm always sorry, it's a sad fact that my mother and her people, especially in that particular generation, couldn't feel the pride of being a Métis.

 [#25]     Leonel Courchaine told of his early life in Manitoba in the following terms:
 

"...As we were growing up, we hunted and fished with my dad and uncles in groups for our meat for the winters.  We took part in the Métis Days.  There was a Métis community just north of Winnipeg where my grandparents lived that we were there just about every weekend and we took part in their snowshoe races and wood sawing competitions that they had every winter....I trapped rabbits and shot rabbits and we ate everything that we shot and we - -we had to, we weren't that wealthy.  As I was growing up, I got a Manitoba guide licence so I took people out for bear hunting and we would eat the bears that we shot....The year that I got my moose....I had only worked twelve weeks that year.... We hunted the Friday, Saturday, Sunday with nothing and Monday I ran across a bull moose which I shot and he was halfway up the mountain.  I cleaned him all out and cut him up and it took us each two trips to walk him down off the mountain to the vehicle.  I brought him home, hung him for ten days, took the meat to the butchers to get some sausage and pepperoni and jerky made up."  Leonel Courchaine was asked to report to the conservation officers in Creston.  He was told by them that Métis people don't have no rights.  He was threatened with obstruction charges if he did not turn over the meat he had at his residence.  The Cos told him they would be giving the meat to a needy family.  He paid one hundred twenty dollars to the butcher for his services, but he never did get his moose meat.

 [#26]     Leonel Courchaine produced documents showing that his grandmother's Godfather was Louis Riel.  He moved to the Creston, B.C. area (the Kootenays) in 1983.  He has hunted for
 winter meat every year of his adulthood.  He joined the Kootenay Regional Métis Association in 1996.

 [#27]     Frederick Laboucane said that he was born a Métis.  He said,
 

"My family dates back to - - past the Louis Riel days.  The name has been changed over the years.  I don't know why but it did.  I only joined the Métis Kootenay Region Métis Association in 1997.  I moved to the Kootenays twenty-three years ago....so I've been in B.C. now for almost sixty-one years.  I've never lived in any other province....My hunting history started when I was about four years old or five, and fishing with a family of fifteen that I come from. We needed moose meat and deer meat and fish and berries.  But  like the elder said today, during grade school years, the Métis were frowned upon, both by the Indians that were actually living separate from everybody else and the whites who we went to for education.  You had to learn to protect yourself pretty well and we did learn that.... Now, hunting and fishing was always a part of my family.  I have not missed one year of hunting and fishing until last year after my riflewas taken away.  I didn't get it back, by the way.

 [#28]     Frederick Laboucane told the court about shooting the white tail deer.  As he was transporting the deer he was stopped by the COs.  He produced his Métis card.  They told
him that didn't give him any rights.  They seized the deer and his rifle.

 [#29]     Frederick Laboucane told the Court that his Métis homeland is all of British Columbia because of the records he has of his ancestors who were voyageurs with both the Hudsons Bay Company and the Northwest Company.

 [#30]     John Pratt filed as an exhibit his genealogy.  He was born in Pre-St. Marie, Saskatchewan.  He said that by the time he was twelve he was hunting, shooting partridge, prairie chickens, white-tail deer.  He trapped muskrats and weasels in the winter time and sold the hides.  Of his early lifehe recalls advice from his father:
 

"...When I was growing up, my dad told us that we were part Indian but he said, "Don't talk about it because they will call you half-breed.  So it was a - - in our house, it wasn't talked about that much."

"Well, that don't mean nothing, a Métis card."

"I've hunted from all four provinces. I've been in all four provinces.  I'm a typical Métis.  That's about all."

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