Rest In Peace, these are the words said over the graves of the dearly departed.  How much peace do our ancestors have?

    We are here today to speak for the people who can not speak for themselves. We are here to remember them.  We are here to remember what they did for your great great grandparents and mine.  How they provided food for them during the violent winter storms.  There were no better hunters, than the Metis. They were the ones that kept the white colonists alive throughout the winters when food was scarce. It is because of the Metis that even the people of the First Nation survived in many instances.  Everyone, whose ancestors go back a few generations, knows this.  And this is the thanks that our ancestors receive.  It is not really much to ask.  Just leave them Rest In Peace.

    We are here to honour our forbears.

    Some people say,  “Why are you just speaking up now”?  Many of us didn’t know where our ancestors were buried.   And those of us who did, believed that we could go to Pembina whenever we chose to do so, and find the graveyard that protected the remains of our loved ones.  But unfortunately that is not true.   Now through the use of technology there are many people becoming aware of the fact that this graveyard has been desecrated.  These people are becoming politically involved.  There are doctors, lawyers, teachers, historians and people of all professions who are coming on board.  The descendants are becoming aware of this outrage.  People who are not working towards the protection and preservation of this graveyard are starting to feel the discomfort of their acts.  It can only get worse until they do what is right, what is honourable.

    This graveyard is the oldest graveyard in North Dakota and has been used and abused by the people who are supposed to protect it.  It has been used to the advantage of the people with hidden agendas.  Agendas that were to help them in their careers.

    This land, the final resting-place of our ancestors, was supposed to have been purchased in 1893 and preserved as a graveyard.  The people of that time made the right gesture, but never carried it through.  Where is the honour of these people and the people who have followed?  Who is accountable?  The people who have had the power to do something have always thought in terms of their own gain and not in terms of what is right and honourable.  How can they sleep at night?  But they know God knows and they will be accountable to Him some day.  What will be said then?  We only pass this way but once, what are we survivors going to say about the people who made the decision about this cemetery?  Are we going to say the people concerned in this issue,  “ were good and honourable people”?  Are we going to bless them, are we going to bless you?

Delivered to the Pembina county commissioners on June 22, 1999.
 

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