Belgium honours Indigenous First World War veterans

As Jeff Purdy retraced the steps of his great-great-grandfather, Sam Glode, in Belgium during the First World War, he marvelled at the depth of the tunnels dug by his own flesh and blood beneath German lines. 

"I've always wanted to come here to Belgium, and walk around, but I never dreamed that I'd be able to walk where Sam walked," he said, standing at the edge of a crater in Sint-Elooi, Belgium, believed to be left behind after an explosive detonated in a tunnel his ancestor helped dig. 

Purdy is part of a Canadian delegation touring Flanders Fields as part of a week of commemorative events for Remembrance Day, on Monday, and Canada's Indigenous Veterans Day on Friday. 

This year, for the first time, Belgium is holding a national ceremony on Friday, to honour the approximately 4,000 Indigenous soldiers who fought in the First World World.       

"Unfortunately they didn't get the recognition they deserved during and after the war, so we want to give them now, that respect, and give them our eternal gratitude for what they did for our region," said Veerle Viaene, co-ordinator of heritage for Visit Flanders, an organization that works to attract international visitors to the region.

Visit Flanders invited the Canadian delegation, comprised of Indigenous people from Eastern and Western Canada, to honour two veterans: Glode — a Mi'kmaw soldier from Nova Scotia's Acadia First Nation — and Alex Decoteau of Saskatchewan's Red Pheasant Cree Nation, an Olympian and Canada's first Indigenous police officer.

"It's important to make people aware that people from diverse backgrounds came to Flanders Fields to fight and strive for peace," Viaene said in an interview at Tyne Cot cemetery, the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world. 

Corps Sgt. Major, Christa Laforce, a member of the Edmonton Police Service, with which Decoteau served, will on Wednesday unveil a plaque honouring him near the Passchendaele New British Cemetery, where he is buried. One of his descendents will be present. 

Later that night, there will be a ceremony at the Menin Gate, on which the names of 55,000 soldiers are written – soldiers whose bodies were never found on the battlefields of Flanders.  

Every night since 1928 – with the exception of the Second World War years – buglers have played the Last Post, the traditional salute to the fallen, at the Menin Gate, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But on Wednesday night, for the first time, Canada's Indigenous people will bring their culture to the Last Post ceremony, performing a smudging ceremony and the Mi'kmaq Honour Song, a spiritual anthem performed at gatherings and celebrations. 

Being in Belgium for the ceremonies "just gives you a deeper appreciation of reconciliation, respect, honouring," said Andrea Paul, Nova Scotia Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations. 

Paul was also part of the delegation retracing Glode's steps. 

Their guide, Erwin Ureel, a former soldier with the Belgian army and a volunteer with the Passchendaele Society, hadn't heard of Glode prior to learning about him from Canadian organizers about the tour.