In the 1869 Canadian Government system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups. The Métis, who fight for their land, and the Canadian Government, who try to negotiate for said land. These are their stories.

Alright. I know I’ve used this reference before, but it’s a pretty good joke. As you can tell, this intro was my segue way into Canadian History. This post will focus on Louis Riel and the Red River Rebellion, as well as the dynamic of power throughout history.

As always, we started with a driving question, which, for this project, was:

How does Power Impact Relationships between Individuals and Societies?

Now, without further ado, it’s time for some content.

But first of all, the title. The title references the fact that I included planes in my initial story… in 1880. Yeah, I’m stupid. I know. Now, let’s start for real.

Chester Brown’s Louis Riel

As you readers may know, we sometimes like to use a book to help with our studies, and this unit, we read Chester Brown’s Louis Riel graphic novel adaptation. This book was packed with information and did not exemplify traits of too much historical bias, so it left for some good, neutrally-viewed Louis Riel reading.

The Book was not only entertaining to read, it really helped me understand Louis Riel’s story a bit better. The characters were drawn incredibly well, and it was represented accurately. The author states the book cuts out a lot of information due to the long nature of Riel’s story, but still highlights the important parts.

The book is split into four parts, and for those of you who don’t want to get spoilers, scroll down past the warnings.

SPOILER ALERT

The book focuses on Louis Riel and the Red River Rebellion in part one, and scaring off the Canadian surveyors. They engage in battles with Doc Schultz, and Thomas Scott, an Anti-Métis person, was executed. In Part 2, Louis pretty much gets elected a bunch of times, but never takes his seat because Schultz is still hunting for him. He has a vision on a mountain in Washington, and gets thrown in an asylum. Part 3 sees our hero out of the asylum and Gabriel Dumont leading their forces against the Canadians in war, at the end of which, Riel surrenders. Part 4 sees Riel’s trial, and his execution.

SPOILER ALERT OVER

The Great Debate

After the novel study, we engaged in quite a few activities, such as role-playing as surveyors and First Nations, offering land for other goods. We also made slides about powerful people and influential figures, but the most important (and fun) activity was the great debate.

The debate featured pitting two halves with separate opinions of Louis Riel. We were the hero side, in favour of Riel, and the other side was the villain side, trying to prove that Louis Riel was a villain. We both started off strong, and the closing statement became a tie-breaker. However,  in the end, our closing statement beat out theirs, and the Hero’s came away with a W.

The Animation

Halfway through the unit, we started our main project, the animation. This was a relatively simple-sounding task, but trust me, it was not. The animation consisted of a 2-3 minute animation featuring a powerful Canadian figure. We picked this with the wheel of death, and I came away with Andrew Onderdonk, Contractor and recruiter for the CPR.

Onderdonk himself did not lead too interesting of a life, so I focused my attention on the Chinese immigrants. These people were heavily disempowered by the government, taken advantage of and used for only the dangerous tasks. Onderdonk had both influence and control over the immigrants, and recruited more and more for his cause, mostly for tunneling through the Fraser Canyon, which was before been impenetrable.

The Animation took painfully long, especially when I deleted my entire intro with a frame mishap. However, in the last little bit of time, I was able to scramble together something resembling a somewhat good animation. I used good ol’ FlipaClip to animate the video, and iMovie (my old friend/enemy) to put it all together. Here’s my second, terrible, audio-less Draft.

Here’s my final draft, with audio and everything. Hopefully you don’t hate it.

Reflection

This project was one of my favourites all year, as I’ve been planning to take up animation as it has always been one of my interests. This project gave me the “kick in the pants” I needed to get on FlipaClip. As for content, this project had very interesting content, with the Head Tax, National Policy, and the dynamic of power in Canada.

This project really taught me perseverance, even when I hit rock bottom (deletion of layers), I never gave up and just re-drew everything that got deleted. This project also helped me brush up on iMovie, something I hadn’t used in a while. The book also helped my liking of this project, as it was a great way to learn about Riel as opposed to the textbook/worksheet technique.

Nothing about this project bothered me too much, other than the animation deletion (I know I mention it a lot, but it was really frustrating). The project was a great way to start off Canadian history, something I know we’ll be focusing on for the rest of the year.

This is Jason, signing off.