By Melissa Ridgen
APTN National News
“Where is the Bell of Batoche?”
That question has burned the minds and souls of the Metis for 20 years since it was taken, under the cover of darkness, from a legion hall in Millbrook, Ont. where it was kept as a war prize from the North-West Rebellion.
APTN Investigates host/producer Todd Lamirande knows the answer to that burning question.
“As a Metis person, a journalist and a history-lover, the mystery of the Bell of Batoche has been near and dear to me. I’ve been working on this story for most of my career,” said Lamirande via phone from an undisclosed location near where the bell is being held.
There’s been buzz over the bell’s whereabouts ever since the fateful night it vanished in 1991. Just three weeks prior to the break-in, a number of Metis leaders, including Yvon Dumont, had been at the legion and were photographed standing next to the bell in its secured enclosure. They were smiling. Did they know something?
When pressed years later, Dumont denied any knowledge of the identity of the bell liberators, though he suggested if a Metis person was responsible, he was a “hero not a criminal.”
Then in 2005, Gary Floyd Guiboche, who was a member of Dumont’s group that night in 1991, dropped a bombshell, telling The Globe and Mail that he and an unnamed partner reclaimed the bell from the legion three weeks after the visit. He was quoted saying the partner “has kept the bell hidden too long for no reason” and also had medals taken from the legion that belonged to a Millbrook soldier who fought against the Metis at Batoche. Guiboche never gave up the identity of the partner or the bell’s location.
After the Globe story the trail went cold again, aside from rumor and innuendo that never panned out as fact.
Until now.
Tune in to APTN on Aboriginal Day for special coverage from the latest in Lamirande’s quest to find the Bell of Batoche.
