In 2007, with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, local author Laura Robinson wrote and co-produced the story of the 10 First Nation teenage boys who were chosen to run the Pan Am Games torch from St. Paul, Minnestora to Winnipeg in 1967. The film was based on the play by Robinson that she wrote in 2000 while writer in residence at the University of Calgary.
(Film link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQuUEINCJKs&t=8s).
The film is called Niigaanibatowaad: FrontRunners, and is available through the National Film Board. At 47-minutes, it won Best Short Live Film at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco in 2008.
The story tells of how, in 1967, the boys were chosen to run the distance of 800 km, which they ran in a week. Nine of them attended residential school, where they received more food if they performed well in sports. Being on teams also allowed them to escape –something the girls were not allowed to do but who consequently, ran away more often. The boys, who were good hunters, were forced to hunt them down and return them to the principal. This is a memory play and based on what happened at Birtle Residential School, and the opening of the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg.
When the runners reached the stadium with the torch, they were not allowed in and had to give the torch to a white runner. They were not even allowed in to watch the opening ceremonies.
In 1999, Winnipeg hosted the Pan Am Games again. Organizers realized what had happened, tracked down the original runners and apologized. Thirty-two years later, the runners finished their journey and brought the torch in.
“It has been an honour to work with the survivors of this story since I met them in 1999, but disappointing that it took the realization of how deadly Canadian colonial culture has been and how the people who ran these institutions ensured the deaths of, what will no doubt be thousands and thousands of children, before others woke up to reality,” says Robinson.
Having the original runners present at screenings was very powerful. In 2017, York University hosted the North American Indigenous Games, the runners and a screening of the film. Here’s CBC coverage of that occasion: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/naig/healing-indigenous-games-frontrunners-1.4213436. Let us hope that the runners–now in their 70’s–will be able to visit us, and many others again so these essential discussions continue.
