“If we preserve our identity, everything else will just come naturally,” says Henry Hall. He is Métis and is married to a woman from Six Nations. Together, they have six children. He was born in Winnipeg and raised in Petersfield until he was a teenager, then he lived on the streets of WInnipeg until he moved to Calgary and Vancouver. Now 69 years old, he works as the hall monitor at the Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary High School in Selkirk, Manitoba. He was asked by the lead Aboriginal school teacher to be one of the school’s elders and he’s done presentations across Canada, working with different school districts.

Hall joined the Eastern Fraser Valley Métis Association three decades ago when he found out he was Métis, and he had limited knowledge of his heritage. He started the Fraser Valley Métis Association, with the organization he initially joined eventually disbanding.

In 1996, Hall worked with the native court workers and counselors of British Columbia, serving on its board for a decade, working as a treasurer and as a courtworker. Standing in front of judges, advocating for Indigenous clients and sharing what they had been through, he found he would get emotional. With such a high rate of Indigenous people in contact with the justice system, he was their voice at sentencing and judges relied on his words. He helped with obtaining legal aid and getting access to lawyers and he felt his work helped many avoid prison. The work was rewarding but he had to resign when his father fell ill. He sold everything and moved back to Manitoba to care for him.

Before Hall moved, he also worked as Cultural Director for the Métis Nation of BC, a role he enjoyed because of all the travel and opportunities to discuss Métis culture and history and to represent his people. He later successfully ran for Regional Director for the Lower Mainland of the Métis Nation of BC, representing 2500 constituents. He resigned from the local association to work provincially and served while working as a courtworker.  

When it comes to inspiration in his work, Hall felt led by his family. He recalls how when he was working, his son told him that he wanted to do work like him one day. This impacted him because growing up he was teased a lot for his identity and he didn’t know anything about it. He had to make peace with his misconceptions about Indigenous people as he learned more about his identity and looking back, he knew his life would have been different with a stronger connection to his identity.

“I swore at that time right there, that none of my children were going to grow up not knowing who they were. They all know what they are. They all have their identities, and I'm solely responsible for that as a parent, and I'm proud that I've done that for them,” Hall beams.

His advice to youth struggling with their identity would be, “Talk to your elders. Go to your community, talk to your family, talk to your parents, talk to your family, your cousins, your uncles, your aunties, your kokoms, your moshoms,, find out who you are. Don't leave your community until you know who you are, because you're vulnerable. It will take you down. I'm walking proof that it happened, and it can and it still happens. Know who you are, know what you are, that's it. It's all about your identity. You need to know it's not just about a name. It's about your history, it's about your background, it's about all your ancestors, because that's who you should be proud of. Because if it wasn't for our ancestors, we wouldn't be here today.”

His advice for youth needing to leave home to go to school is, “Carry yourself very proud with your head up. Choose a path that you're going to walk and then walk it in your education. If you find that you're getting along and you want to change that education, do it because it's what makes you happy inside. It's your path you're walking, it's your career. It's important that you still keep in contact with your community. Don't lose that connection to your community, to your elders. You need to have their support, their wisdom. It's part of your journey…. Be careful... stay focused, keep on track. You got a voice, use it. Also ears, so listen too.”

To maintain his mental health, he’s been researching his genealogy and finding great pride in his discoveries. “I’m so grounded, and I'm so connected to this land, the Red River Valley, to the whole province of Manitoba. It's like my heartbeat. I just love it…If it wasn't for our ancestors, I wouldn't be here, and I'm so proud of them, and even though some of them probably did things they shouldn't have, it doesn't matter. They're still my ancestors. They're my bloodlines,” Hall gushes. Being a pipe carrier and knowledge keeper and sharing the teachings he has learned with young children has been an honour for him as well, watching kids absorb all he has to share.  

Thinking about if he had a message to share with his younger self, Hall reflects on how he wishes he knew he was Indigenous growing up. “I didn't have that and through not having that, through my journey, I had hatred, I had anger, I had frustration, I had failure,” he remembers. Accordingly, his message would be, “Know who you are, don't forget who you are, don't forget where you come from, and know where you're going. Don't have any roadblocks in the way, and look beyond the labels of what we've been stereotyped as you're better than that. You can do so much. There's so much out there, so many careers that can be had. You can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, you can be a judge, you can be a nurse, you can be a psychiatrist, if you want. You can be anything you want. Just start right now by knowing who you are, you won't be sorry, you won't regret it.”

At the root of everything for Henry Hall was identity and that’s what he’s trying to share with youth in his work. Knowing what it’s like to grow up not knowing his roots, he is determined to pay forward the cultural pride he found along the way. Getting to know his history took his future on a path to leadership, and now he’s becoming the elder he needed all along.

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!