Champion of Métis culture a master outdoorsman

Community, teaching always top of mind for Indigenous elder

By: Tyler Searle

When Paul Joseph Desrosiers stepped up to the podium to deliver his acceptance speech for the Prix Riel, he wasted no time talking about himself.

Instead, the former schoolteacher and champion of Métis culture extolled the virtues of kindness, compassion and community-mindedness that had long guided his life.

Desrosiers earned the prestigious award (also known as the Riel Prize) from the Société de la francophonie manitobaine in recognition of decades of contributions to the province’s francophone community, of which he was a proud and outspoken member.

The moment marked the culmination of his life’s work — a life lived with an unrelenting fervour and dedication to Indigenous culture that embodied the spirit of Lois Riel, the forefather of the Red River Métis.

“That’s when I really realized that my dad was a big thing. Before that, I didn’t realize that he packed the punch that he does,” said his son, Ron Desrosiers, who watched his dad receive the award in 2019.

“He’s was a very outgoing man, but he was very humble.”

Desrosiers also ensured his speech was sprinkled with his trademark humour.

The highlight included a story about one of his former students, who once brought a baby skunk to school.

“(The student) was under the impression that a baby skunk couldn’t spray, so, for show and tell, this young man showed up with a skunk and held it on his hand. Just as he got it close to his face, it let rip on him and he screamed in French that he was blind,” Ron said, pausing to let out a belt of laughter.

“My dad told that story and it brought down the room.”

Desrosiers died of cancer on June 27, 2023, at 85. He left behind three children, six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and nearly a dozen surviving siblings and in-laws.

While his death was met with sorrow by his family, the triumph of his life — and the undeniable impact of his legacy — will be felt for generations to come.

Born Jan. 6, 1938, Desrosiers was one of 17 children raised by parents Emilien and Ernestine.

The family lived on a farm in St. Malo, where Desrosiers spent his youth exploring the Manitoba wilderness. The experience fostered in him a lifelong passion for nature that later formed him into a master outdoorsman.

By his teens, he had enrolled in a boarding school associated with the Collège de Saint-Boniface.

“He was always the leader of the family. He was picked to be the priest, but that didn’t work out so well. He got kicked out of St. Boniface College for going to a party,” Ron said.

Teaching came naturally to Desrosiers, so he enrolled in Normal School where he earned a teaching certificate.

What followed was a career that spanned 33 years and introduced him to the love of his life, Shirley, who was also training to become a teacher.

The pair married and had three children, eventually moving to Poplar River First Nation (about 450 kilometres north of Winnipeg) when Ron was just a boy.

The family spent five years there, with Desrosiers serving as the principal of the local school and Shirley teaching grades 1 through 3.

It was in the tiny community on the east shore of Lake Winnipeg that Desrosiers instilled his love for the outdoors in his children, teaching them to hunt, fish, trap, forage and successfully live off the land, Ron said.

Community leaders mentored him on traditional Indigenous ceremonies and practices that would become invaluable later in his life when he, too, became an Indigenous elder.

“He was really liked by the community up there because at least 30 years after, people were still calling and coming to visit,” Ron said.

“He seemed to understand that some of those students would not be going on to university so he would help get labour permits for them and help them find jobs in the workforce.”

The family moved back to Winnipeg when Ron, now 63, was in Grade 3. Desrosiers returned to university and upgraded his teaching certificate to an education degree.

He started working in St. Adolphe before moving to Lavallee School in the Louis Riel School Division. Desrosiers remained there until age 59, when he retired from his role as the acting vice-principal in 1997.

“For his hunting career, it was magnificent,” Ron joked. “Once he retired, we started going on month-long hunting trips out in the Melita area.”

Desrosiers had little difficulty filling the free time afforded to him in his retirement.

By 1999, his name began appearing in board-meeting minutes with the L’Union Nationale Métisse Saint-Joseph du Manitoba — the oldest Métis organization in Canada, dedicated to protecting, promoting and honouring the traditions and culture of the Red River Métis.

He was admired within the group for his ability to recruit members. Over more than 20 years of service he connected scores of Métis people to their history through activities, workshops and community gatherings, said L’Union chairwoman Paulette Duguay.

Desrosiers led educational workshops in schools and communities, displaying a variety of Indigenous arts including drum-making and taxidermy.

Duguay, a close friend of Desrosiers, compared him to Gabriel Dumont, another prominent Métis leader remembered for his selflessness, bravery and his unrivalled skill as a hunter.

“He was like a firecracker. He was not a tall man, but he was so dynamic, full of energy, very engaged in the Métis culture and the promotion of it. He was very outspoken and he was not afraid to go to speak to people and say, ‘Hey, you’re Métis … we need your help,’” she said.

Speaking to the Free Press in 2006, Desrosiers said he traced his ancestry back to Josette Lagimodière, the daughter of Marie-Anne Gaboury, one of the first European women to settle in Manitoba. Gaboury was the grandmother of Louis Riel.

Duguay helped nominate Desrosiers for the Prix Riel; she also put his name forward to receive the Capot honorifique, a traditional voyageur-style coat made out of a white blanket with blue stripes awarded to volunteers with the Festival du Voyageur.

Desrosiers was gifted the coat at the festival in 2016.

His other contributions to the Métis community included years of spearheading the Métis Pavilion at Folklorama alongside his wife, Shirley.

“He was thrilled,” Duguay said of Desrosiers receiving the awards. “You don’t do all of this volunteering work with the aim of getting recognition, but I know that it made him very happy.”

More than a year after his death, conversations around L’Union’s board table continue to linger when Desrosiers’ name comes up, with members asking each other, “What would Paul do?” Duguay said.

When he wasn’t volunteering, Desrosiers spent time training birds of prey as one of a handful of licensed falconers in Manitoba during the early-aughts.

When speaking to a Free Press reporter in 2006, he described the hobby as “10 times better than hunting.”

Desrosiers captured and cared for adult hawks, using them to hunt small game along the Seine River or near his family’s homestead in St. Malo.

“He had an interesting way of catching a hawk,” Ron said. “He would buy a hamster at the pet store and put it in this cage and these hawks would attack and get caught in snares. Then he would return the hamster to Petland and say, ‘This thing’s no good. It’s nervous.’”

Desrosiers continued his hobbies late into his life, making annual trips to Crowsnest Pass, Alta., where he would spend three weeks at a time visiting Shirley’s sister Carol and her husband, Vic Bergman.

Bergman, a fellow outdoorsman who operates an angling shop in Crowsnest Pass, introduced Desrosiers to fly fishing.

It was a rare opportunity to teach something to the man who dedicated so much of his time teaching others, Bergman said.

“He was an amazing guy and he was an amazing student as well,” Bergman said.

Desrosiers would pack a lunch of sausages and bannock before setting out to spend his days fishing rivers in the area.

When he wasn’t on the water, he hosted drum- and rattle-making workshops with residents, continuing to share his culture with others.

During those trips to Alberta, Desrosiers participated in bear-watching programs, journeyed to Pine Coulee, Alta., to view Indigenous pictographs, and collected feathers dropped by golden eagles during their moulting season, Bergman said.

“We had a lot of good times. He was patient and calm. I never saw him get stressed with people or with anything,” Bergman said.

Desrosiers was predeceased by his wife, Shirley. The pair were married for 62 years.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca