Meet Joseph Gagnon, An Algonquin WW1 Veteran

Joseph Gagnon, An Algonquin WW1 Veteran

​​​Joseph Gagnon was an Algonquin First World War veteran. Although his service papers list his birth year as 1890, his baptismal document and marriage record list it as 1888 and this is the year I rely on. Joseph died in 1939. His regimental number was 246266 and he was a Private of the 207th battalion. He enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force on May 12, 1916. His date and port of embarkation was May 28, 1917 at Halifax, travelling on the RMS Olympic. His date and port of disembarkation was June 10, 1917 at Liverpool, England. Interestingly, it is said the RMS Olympic, known as ‘old faithful’, was a sister ship to the famous Titanic.

​Joseph arrived in France on January 19, 1918 where a few days later, on the 21st, his feet landed on the battlefield. On September 6, 1918 he became a casualty of war, with gunshot wounds to his right arm and left leg. He returned to Canada on December 30, 1918 travelling on the RMS Carmania. He was discharged from the military on January 24, 1919.

RMS Olympic

RMS Carmania

​Based on his military record it is said Joseph would have been entitled to the British War Medal and the British Victory Medal. Unfortunately, the medal card is missing from his Attestation papers meaning current family members, such his grandchildren, are unable to confirm if he received these medals.

1931 Census Record

Frank Meness

Joseph’s parents were Joseph Gagnon and Angeline Jocko of Calabogie, Ontario. His mother was Algonquin; his father French. He was married to Ann (Annie) Jane Meness, and both were members of the Golden Lake Reserve, now called Pikwàkanagàn First Nation, and this is where they resided, at least for some time until … . Joseph and Ann Jane were enumerated in the 1931 census (see figure 4) as living in the reserve community. At this time Ann Jane’s father, Frank Meness (see figure 5), is recorded as living with them. Their five children were also enumerated: Viola, Cecelia, Gordon, Kenneth, and Stephen (Canada, 1931). Viola was my grandmother.

Initially Canada, or Britain, was reluctant to recruit Indigenous men because it was said the “Germans might refuse to extend to them the privileges of civilized warfare” (Lackenbauer, 2009, p. 119). Regardless, after December 1915 this practice shifted to a process whereby the British Government actively recruited Indigenous men within their reserve communities (Lackenbauer, 2009).
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Indigenous veterans faced the possibility of being enfranchised. Essentially enfranchisement would terminate membership in their home and family communities. Yet, due to racism, they would remain marginalized versus fully integrated into white society. In this way Indigenous veterans had to deal with double-racism: First, they were removed from their home communities; and second, they were marginalized in white settler society. Regardless Indigenous warriors were proud people and many enlisted. It is said that all but three eligible men from the Algonquins of Golden Lake band enlisted (Canada, 1996; see figure 6). It is now known that when Indigenous veterans returned to their families and home communities, they were stripped of Indian status.

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Duncan Campbell Scott (1919)

When Indigenous and non-Indigenous soldiers returned home from the battlefields, as per the 1919 Soldier Settlement Act (SSA), all were entitled to benefits consisting of financial aid to help them purchase a farm, or a 160-acre land grant. As veterans they were only required to pay 10% of its overall value where the remainder could be paid back over 20 years. Loans were also available to help them purchase farm equipment, live stock, and/or aid in the construction of a house or a farm. While both Indigenous and non-Indigenous veterans were entitled to these benefits, the Department of Indian Affairs administered them for Indians. Disturbingly, this extra layer of administration resulted in them being denied or ignored. In other situations, Indian veterans were provided with ‘location tickets’ for reserve land, which remained crown land, rather than being offered 160 acres of fee simple land; and whereby loans for the purpose of purchasing farming supplies were much less than loans provided to non-Indigenous veterans (Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek, 2018).

It is also said, that under the SSA the government of Canada confiscated 85,844 acres of land from various reserves to provide to non-Indigenous soldiers (Sheffield & Gallant, 2022; Ellis, 2019). I should also point out that this process of Indigenous land denial was similar to the 1853 Public Lands Act and the 1868 Free Grant and Homestead Act that gave 100-acre land grants to settler people for agricultural purposes, yet Algonquin people did not qualify (Huitema, 2001).

Further to this, when claiming a disability pension due to war wounds Indigenous veterans again had a second layer of administration over non-Indigenous veterans, resulting in a more challenging process. Similar to non-Indigenous veterans they had to prove their disability was attributed to an active theatre of war, but unlike non-Indigenous veterans, they also had to prove to their respective Indian Agent that they were financially responsible before receiving their monthly pension (Story, 2018). Truthfully, I don’t know if Joseph received a pension.

What is more, the Last Post Fund, in cooperation with Veterans Affairs Canada, in operation since 1909, ensured that all veterans would receive dignified funerals, inclusive of burial and a grave marker stone. Despite this, many Indigenous soldiers such as Joseph, along with their right to SSA benefits and pensions, were deprived of this honour (Baldwin, 2020; Veterans Affairs Canada, n.d.).

​Relying on my grandmother’s, Viola Gagnon, oral stories and confirmed in the 1931 census record, sometime after 1931 Joseph Gagnon, Ann Jane, and their children were “escorted out” of the Golden Lake Reserve community. Although technically at this time an SSA loan should have been made available to Joseph, an Indigenous man now without a home, without a community, and now isolated from his family, with no job in the prevailing cash economy, would be considered a credit risk. Through a Library and Archives Canada researcher, I learned that Joseph did not receive any such soldier benefits. It should not take much to reason that this situation was a horrible way to treat a veteran.

Previously my recounting of my great grandparents’ story has been couched in enfranchisement due to sex discrimination in the Indian Act, meaning they were escorted out of their community because Joseph’s mother Angeline Jocko married a French man, I am now of the thought that he may have been enfranchised because of his WW1 military service (Gehl v Canada, 2021). Regardless, if I am now closer to the truth about what happened, Ann Jane and their children, who under patriarchal rule were regarded as mere appendages of a husband/father, were automatically enfranchised through Joseph. It is in this way that Ann Jane’s, and their children’s, enfranchisement was layered in terms of both her husband’s military service and sex discrimination in the Indian Act against Indian women.

Annie's Letter with photograph

Dr. Lynn Gehl

After his death in 1939 Joseph Gagnon was buried in St Columba’s Cemetery, located in Pembroke, Ontario. Sadly, although he fought in Canada’s First World War, he was buried unceremoniously in a pauper’s grave without a marker where, as a result, his exact resting place is unknown to his descendants. Regardless, what is known is that he is buried in group plot 216, in section B1, with his parents buried nearby in group plot 654, in section A2.

It was some time after Joseph died, in 1945, when Ann Jane sent a letter to the Golden Lake Reserve Indian Agent, H.P Ruddy, asking if she was counted as an Indian. His reply was both racist and sexist.

While it was said that the Germans may not have respected an Indigenous soldier’s right to civilized warfare, it was the British who categorically denied Indigenous veterans, such as Joseph Gagnon and their families, the right to their own land, a dignified life, wellness, and for that matter an honourable burial.

Although Joseph and his family were relocated out of their reserve community of Golden Lake, he and consequently my great grandmother Ann Jane and their children were never fully enfranchised into white society, neither in life or in death. They and many of their descendants were and remain marginalized within the nation state called Canada.

In August 2024 a grave marker stone was installed for Joseph. Because his exact resting place is unknown this marker has been placed in a designated area.

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Lynn is an author, advocate, artist, and public speaker. She is one of only two Algonquin in the world with a doctorate in Indigenous Studies. Her work encompasses both anti-colonial work and the celebration of Indigenous knowledge. She challenges Canada’s practices, policies, and laws of colonial genocide such as the Algonquin land claims, and in 2017 she was successful in Gehl v Canada regarding unknown and unstated paternity in the Indian Act. She is fascinated with Indigenous knowledge, in particular ancient modalities of symbolic literacy and she continues to learn about them.