Gabriel Dumont (very belated book review)

Gabriel Dumont by George Woodcock
Hurtig Publishers, 1975, 256 pages


I grabbed this book on a whim during a winter visit to the small Marmora Library. I wasn't sure I'd really read it, but I thought at least I'd do some browsing and stir memories from over four decades ago when our nationalist Canadian Liberation Movement was disbanding.

The CLM dissolved in 1975, the year this was published. It was a somewhat schizophrenic political organization, with a very positive pro Canadian nationalist aspect and a destructive, sectarian Maoist side. Being in CLM gave its members lifelong lessons into many aspects of Canadian culture and history, which we believed would help us counter the pervasive and reactionary American culture dominating Canadian society - this was the tail end of the Vietnam War, or as the Vietnamese called it, the American War.  

The cover picture of Gabriel Dumont is the same one iconic Canadian painter Charles Pachter used as the model for his painting "Ancestor". Pachter's large 1969 print of Dumont, in his buffalo hunting jacket and cradled rifle, has loomed in my several living rooms since 1976. It's an incredibly powerful picture of a powerful man, and the haloed background of a spectral skull makes the effect even more haunting.

George Woodcock was a renowned Canadian author, poet and academic, and although I'd once carried a well hidden copy of his George Orwell bio, The Crystal Spirit, on a hippie trek through Franco Spain, I'd forgotten what a great writer Woodcock is. Early trepidation that this book would be very hard academic going were quickly dispelled, and I read through Dumont's amazing story in less than a week. I won't recount the historical narrative of the Metis Red River Rebellions and the battle of Batoche, I'm too lazy and Woodcock does a great job of giving historical lessons through his careful depiction of Dumont's life.

Almost all earlier historians had focused on the leader of the rebellions, Louis Riel, but it's Woodcock's belief that the neglected Dumont is perhaps the more interesting, and even as historically important a figure, as Riel. Dumont's life is also the tale of the last of the great buffalo hunts, of fighting and allying with the First Nations rather than fighting against them, as represented in inaccurate and shamefully misleading titles such as Gabriel Dumont: Indian Fighter.

Woodcock's bio gives Dumont a far more major role in Canadian history, and I wish I'd read this historically enlightening book some 44 years ago. In a way I'm glad I didn't, though, as I couldn't put this book down, which gave me a lot of entertainment and historical insight in this 70th winter of my discontent.

 
Chris Faiers
Marmora, Ontario 



note: I couldn't find an online pic of Pachter's "Ancestor" painting or print. I did find pics of two other Pachter prints which line my walls, "Moose Amour" and "Streetcars". The smaller "Moose Amour" print which I found on an art dealer's site is listed at over $1,100, so it can pay to support Canadian art and culture.