The story of Louis Riel: The Riel facts

Over time, the way we have perceived Louis Riel has changed. From being called an insane rebel to an Idealistic hero. Riel was born in Manitoba 1844, and died in 1885, but he lives on today through the province of Manitoba and its people. He grew up in a small town, with other Métis people. He started his education at the late age of seven when a school was established by a Christian Brother. He started his formal education at a law school in Montréal. But abruptly decided to go back to defend his people with his newfound knowledge.

Even today, there are people who still think of him in a negative way. There are three major statues of Riel that all portray him in different ways. The first statue made by Lemay and Gaboury was unveiled in 1973. This statue shows Riel as very frail, weak and bare. Somebody viewing this statue would probably think of him more negatively and this statue was how they chose to share that. The next statue, made by Miguel Joyal in 1996, is a much more positive depiction of Louis Riel, showing him fully dressed, standing tall, with a scroll in his hand. This statue looks proud, strong, and selfless. The final statue seems to be in the middle of the previous two, he is wearing a cloak, but nothing else and he is reaching towards where the moon is, as if he could reach out and talk to God.

The way we have looked at Louis Riel has changed over time with us taking a better look at our history and how everything actually happened. During the years that Riel gained infamy, the majority of white people viewed him as insane, and a lunatic. Many of these thoughts came from how much he believed that he was doing God’s work and that he was the messiah. The character of Riel is shown many different times, starting with him helping defend his cousin’s ranch*, and even helping make the town of Batoche, which he nicknamed the “city of god”. Even though Riel knew that defending the land of the Métis people as well as their rights would make his life harder, he did it without hesitation, showing his selflessness, and true dedication to his cause.

When Louis Riel was

*War stories. “Red River Rebellion: The Métis Nation’s Fight for Survival | Nations at War | War Stories”.

You can feel the suspense in the air, will it work? Everything has led up to this moment, you push the first ball… It’s a success! Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog. How do ideas drive change? that was our driving question, and in this project we learned about revolutions, a lot of them. We also got to learn about Rube Goldberg machines and how they work. The project revolved around how revolutions affect everything, one of the first things we learned about were the stages of a revolution, and how eventually a system similar to the one before the revolution happens, we did an infographic all about that.  We also read Animal Farm, which I found interesting to read, albeit the ending was rather sudden. This was our project for the winter exhibition, unfortunately I was sick so I could not attend, but my group members did really well.  For our final product we had to build a big Rube Goldberg machine, that was a metaphor for a specific revolution! My group got assigned to the Haitian revolution. We also had to document the process of making the machine, its up on YouTube now! Metaphor Machines! Ideas can drive change by the people with new ideas and hopes for a better world, ideas make people motivated, and are the reason that we live in such a good place in the world. Overall I very much enjoyed this project, it really stuck out for me because it combined a lot of creativity, with video making, and learning about history. See you next time!