20 Ògmhios, 2024 the Order of The Buffalo Hunt

The Order of the Buffalo Hunt was the highest honor Manitoba could bestow on a person...

 

I receive a weekly on-line newsletter from CBC Radio. info@newsletters.cbc.ca Its programs educate me about Canada, and in particular the province of Manitoba, 26-miles north of Wannaska near where we live in Roseau County. Over the years Canadian town and city names have become as familiar as those in Minnesota; many of Manitoba's events and holidays the year around are anticipated here, their southern neighbors. Once in a while, something pops up in Canadian news that makes a person take notice.

Over the years, I've learned a lot about Canadian Parliament and MPs (members of Parliament) and PMs (prime ministers) the current one being Justin Trudeau, Canada's 23rd Prime Minister, whose vision of Canada is a country where everyone has a real and fair chance to succeed. Enter First Nations Premier of Manitoba Wabanakwut "Wab" Kinew the 25th premier of Manitoba since October 18, 2023, the son of an Anishinaabe chief from the Onigaming First Nations land in Manitoba’s neighboring province of Ontario. 

Kinew is not the first Indigenous premier, but he is the first First Nations politician to lead the province. Manitoba’s first Indigenous premier was John Norquay from the Metis community. He took office in 1878.

 Becoming the 25th leader of Manitoba was significant for Kinew and people from the First Nations, especially since Indigenous Canadians were not allowed to vote until 1960. Several Aboriginal rights weren’t fully recognized until 1982.

Manitoba has the highest proportion of Indigenous people in Canada. According to the 2021 census, there were 164,289 registered and 63 different First Nations in the province alone.

Before becoming the NDP leader in 2017, Kinew was a member of the hip-hop groups Slangblossom and the Dead Indians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L-gQqqoPSQ He also worked as a journalist and university administrator.

In his victory speech, he said: “That is a testament to our province and country moving forward. It still has a long way to go, but you cannot tell me that we haven’t made progress.

 “I was given a second chance in life.”

https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/orderofbuffalohunt.shtml 

The Order was the highest honour the province could bestow on individuals who demonstrated outstanding skills in the areas of leadership, service, and community commitment. The nomination process was open and non-partisan. Any person or group could propose someone for membership by submitting a nomination in writing to the Clerk of the Executive Council for the Province of Manitoba. 

Established with an Order-in-Council of the provincial government on 25 March 1957, Manitoba’s Order of the Buffalo Hunt was originally conferred on people who, though not necessarily residing in Manitoba, were “known to be kindly disposed towards Manitoba.” [1] The award was accompanied by a certificate of membership, signed by the Premier and sealed with the Great Seal, and a buffalo statuette with an appropriately inscribed brass plaque affixed to its base.

Premier Wab Kinew revoked one bestowed in 1982 to a prominent Manitoban whose support for the Nazis came to light in the past year. Kinew struck the name of Ferdinand Eckhardt from the Order of the Buffalo Hunt but said he wants “the stain to remain” on the record.

“This is a person who, to speak very frankly, pledged an oath of allegiance to Hitler, and he has no place being honored in the public sphere here in Manitoba,” Kinew said after an unrelated news conference. “Once our team here realized that he had been in receipt of this honor from the province of Manitoba, we took immediate action to revoke it.”

 

Eckhardt, a former Winnipeg Art Gallery director who died in 1995, is alleged to have been a Nazi supporter while living in Germany in the 1930s.

In 1999, when the Order of Manitoba was established, the Order of the Buffalo Hunt was reconfigured as a symbol of provincial recognition for noteworthy achievements in sports and other public endeavors, with recipients selected by the Premier of Manitoba.

The levels of appointment in the Order are as follows:

• Chief Hunter
• Captain of the Hunt
• Provost of the Hunt
• Buffalo Scout
• Achievement

 Perusing the lists of Order of The Buffalo Hunt recipients I interestingly discovered that Gatzke, Minnesota's own Delmer Hagen received the Order of The Buffalo Hunt award in 1958: 

 

Delmar Hagen

Provost

20 July 1958

On the occasion of Marshall County’s Ox Cart Trek to St. Paul during the Minnesota Centennial, Warren, Minnesota, 1958

I would have thought Hagen's neighbor, Orlin Ostby, would've received the award in 2008, having been encouraged by Delmer to do the same thing fifty years later; as did Orlin's wife, Amanda, son Christopher, and daughter Catherine who accompanied him, as did Tom Thronsedt of Jamestown, ND, Jackie Helms and Steven Reynolds of Wannaska. We're still awaiting recognition for it, sadly.

Peter Greuel

February 1966

For traveling 1,100 miles from Churchill to Winnipeg by snowmobile, the longest such trip of its kind at the time. See also Kurt Hild.

L. Johnson

Captain

4 April 1957

The Mayor of Brainerd, Minnesota, he was inducted during a publicity tour for the Pine to Palm Highway, 1957.

Orville L. Freeman

Captain

4 April 1957

The Governor of Minnesota, he was inducted during a publicity tour for the Pine to Palm Highway, 1957.

Check the lengthy list out when you have nothing else in the world to do; you might see someone you know. or do not, but instead is worth a look for Canadian trivia answers, eh Mr. Hot Coco?

Constable Emil J. Kiss

Scout

19 February 1958

Of RCMP Winnipeg, for participation in what may have been Manitoba’s last Buffalo Hunt, the shooting of a buffalo escaped from Assiniboine Park Zoo