Documentary reveals famous bell not what it seems
- EFN Staff | April 11, 2014
It turns out the Bell of Batoche may not be the Bell of Batoche after all.
Last summer, the Bell of Batoche was returned to the Métis Nation after being taken by Canadian soldiers 128 years ago. However, a CBC documentary reveals, in fact, the bell is the Bell of Frog Lake.
"We saw enough of a paper trail during our research to say this is the Bell of Frog Lake," says Wayne Chong, producer of "The Myster of the Bell." (Read our publisher/editor John Lagimodiere's opinion piece, Time to rewrite history.)
The initial story of the bell was that after Batoche fell on May 12, 1885, soldiers stole the nine-kilogram bell from the church as a trophy.
It had been on display in the Legion at Millbrook, Ontario until 1991, before Billyjo DeLaRonde liberated the bell, thinking it was the "Marie Antoinette," and later returned it to Batoche.
The CBC started working on the documentary this past summer after the celebrations surrounding the return of the bell to Batoche.
The suggestion that the bell was from somewhere else "was already out there," says Chong, pointing to a Robert Winslow play from 2000 that floated the idea. There have also been rumblings in the Métis community. Chong says the team knew they would research that angle when they started looking into the history of the Bell of Batoche.
He says diary entries from soldiers from Millbrook, as well as letters from the National Archives, all talked about soldiers who took the bell from scaffolding in Frog Lake and then took the bell to Millbrook.
In the archives, Chong says you can read about the reactions of Millbrook citizens saying "they're not giving the bell back," as well as the Bishop asking for the return of the bell to Frog Lake.
So, if the bell is the Bell of Frog Lake, what happened to the Bell of Batoche?
"That was the next question that popped into our heads," says Chong. "We were able to solve that mystery."
The documentary reveals evidence that a few charred pieces from the bell are now part of the shrine at St. Laurent de Grandin, located about 12 kilometres from Batoche. The documentary suggests the Batoche bell was moved to a church in St. Laurent, which then burned.
Now some residents of Frog Lake would like their bell back. It's not clear if or when that will happen, nor is it clear if the charred remains of "Marie Antoinette" will be moved to Batoche or stay at the St. Laurent shrine.