Queen Street decorated to celebrate the season
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notllocal.com NOVEMBER 21, 2019 Volume 1 • Issue 45
Michele-Elise Burnett, organizer of a ceremony to honour Indigenous veterans held at the Landscape of Nations Memorial in Queenston Heights Saturday, performs a smudging ceremony after the laying of wreaths. It was the first such service in NOTL, planned to become an annual event. (Fred Mercnik)
Indigenous veterans honoured at Queenston memorial Penny Coles The Local
When Michele-Elise Burnett helped the dream of the Landscape of Nations Memorial in Queenston Heights become a reality, she and others began planning a ceremony to honour Indigenous veterans. That came to fruition Saturday, with an Indigenous Veterans’ Day service at the memorial. The date is officially Nov. 8, and the ceremony was planned as close to that day as possible, given other similar events, Burnett says. The service involved a wreath-laying ceremony, to remember Indigenous veterans and ancestors who helped make this country what it is, she says. “It as an occasion to honour, acknowledge and reflect on the efforts of Six Nations veterans, something we’ve been working on for years,” says Burnett, a Metis Algonquin, Bear Clan, whose father, grandfather and cousin are veterans. Her cousin, Joe Paquette, was instrumental in forming the Metis Veterans’ Council, her father was a fighter pilot in the Second World War, and her grandfather an artillery soldier in the First World War. “When we built the memorial, we knew it was going
to be a place to reflect and to pay tribute to the sacrifices of Indigenous warriors,” says Burnett. To see the event unfold and the many people who attended, was “heartwarming and emotional for me. We planned to keep the event small and grow it,” she says. It was an opportunity “to pay respects to my family, and all the Indigenous veterans who fought for our freedom. The service is a fitting tribute to Six Nations and native allies who have made a difference in the history of Canada.” Burnett was part of the original committee that planned the Landscape of Nations Memorial, which opened in October, 2016. The project was a legacy of the bicentennial celebration of the War of 1812, intended to recognize the role of First Nations in the outcome of the war. Since then, she says, the memorial has been used, by herself and memorial cochair Tim Johnson, “in so many different ways, with Indigenous education initiatives and tours, as a tool for education and acknowledgment of the Indigenous contribution to that war and others since.” The memorial, she says, has become an out-
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