From foot soldier to general

Page 15

Samuel John Sinclair was born November 22, 1926 in Slave Lake. He Started his education when he was five years old, in a one-room school in the old town which is by the river. Sam was sent home because he could not speak English. This is the reason why. The class was learning how to count and they were asked to repeat the numbers from one to 10 after the teacher. Mr. Sinclair couldn't say the numbers in English so he translated them this way. 1- fence post, 2-5 couldn't think of anything which looked like the numbers, 6- cat tail, 7- axe. By this time the teacher had had enough and Sam was sent home, however, he was back the following year.

Sam says he did grade three to six in two years instead of four. In 1935 he missed school for two years because of a flood, and his family homesteaded and lived off the land from 1935 ? 1937. The only things they bought in those years were tea, sugar, flour and lard. They put in their own garden and had had about 20 head of cattle and six horses.

The family moved back to Slave Lake in 1937, and according to Sam, he was totally bushed. They hadn't seen a whiteman in two years. He remembers walking to town with three of his other brothers and meeting a white kid who wanted to join them. They immediately remembered the warning their grandmother had given them about whitemen being dangerous and ran home.

Their new home for one and a half years was on the road allowance on the nineteenth baseline. They lived in a tent and shack all winter and two summers. After they purchased a lot in the center of Slave Lake behind the Legion Hall.

Sam remembers that a quarter section east of main street used to belong to Emile Sinclair in the early 1900's. Emile left for Wabasca in 1914 when the war started and they just took the land away.

All the kids went back to school in 1937. Sam remembers another incident in Slave Lake which scared himself and his brothers. They had to meet the train, which was a steam engine in those days. He remembers that the ground shook so much that they ran home and on the way got tangled up in a wire fence.

Sam's first involvement with a Metis organization was at a meeting at the Legion Hall in 1938. The local Half Breed Association president was Pat Courtoreille. The guest speaker was Peter Tompkins, who was one of the original big five who started the Metis Association of Alberta. Sam went to the meeting with his cousin because his dad was hard of hearing. He left the meeting very impressed because they were talking about traplines and because they had become accustomed to the bush life. He left the meeting feeling that some day he wanted to be like one of those leaders.

Sam continued school until the summer of 1942 when he worked on the railroad in the extra gang. Sam trapped on holidays and weekends to help the family out financially. They slept outside in a lean-to in 40-50 below weather and only killed 19 squirrels, which were worth about 20? a piece then. Sam's dad also killed a moose, rabbits and bush chickens to feed the family.

In 1941 Sam took a leave of absence from school and took a job taking bunk cars to Edmonton. He had to accompany the cars as a guard.

It was at this time that he met five young Metis boys from Kinuso, High Prairie and East Prairie. He had three days off from work and hung around with the boys who were all about 17 and 18 years old. It was at this time they decided to join the Canadian Army. Sam was asked for a birth certificate but told the recruiting officer that he didn't have one. Although he was only 15 years old he said he was 18 and was accepted. In part of Sam's training he was taught how to salute officers. The trainer told him that officers wore peaked caps. In Edmonton he was saluting anything from salvation army officers to street car conductors.

In late 1943 the army found out he was underage and was asked to take an honorable discharge or to stay in the army and go to school. After D day, around June, the Candian Army suffered a lot of casualties and he was sent to train in the infantry.

Sam was sent overseas in the fall of 1944 at the age of 17 years, and was stationed in England for three months of further training. He was sent to Europe in January 1945, and joined the Clagray Highlanders in Holland while the war was in full force. The war ended on May 8, 1945 while Sam was in Germany.

While in Germany and Holland he got into track and field and into boxing. He won the middleweight championship of Northwestern Europe in Germany. He couldn't participate in the Inter-Allied Forces boxing tournament held in Amsterdam on August 1945, because he had volunteered to go to Japan. Two of the tournament winners however, became world champions later on. These two were Marcel Cerdan and Ezzard Charles.

On a leave of absence for two months, Sam worked on farms and was sent back from Germany to Calgary on August 15, 1945 because the South Pacific war had ended.

Sam stayed in the Canadian Army in Edmonton until March 6, 1946. At the age of 19 his tour of duty had lasted three years, four months and six days.

In Edmonton, Sam applied for a job at the employment office, but the only job opening was as a train porter on the Edmonton-Prince Rupert run. He turned down the job because he was still naive enough to think that only colored people did jobs like this. He therefore had to settle on cutting green spruce and pulp wood for $5.00 a cord. He had to cut, peel, and pile them at that price so he would have been better off taking the job as train porter.

In the fall of 1946, Sam went working on a threshing team and on November 26, 1946 he got married to Edna Pierce of Canyon Creek. He worked all winter driving an old truck and working as a cutter for the Swanson Lumber company.

Sam turned to professional boxing in the spring of 1949. He fought Louis Demer of Legal and won. A month later he moved to Prince Rupert and continued boxing, taking in four bouts.

Sam boxed again in Edmnton and won eight of nine bouts. One of these bouts was against Gordon Russell, now with the Edmonton Friendship Centre. This was in July of 1953. Sam says Gordie still claims he won the bout but at the time Sam was two years younger than Gordie and that Gordie now claims to be younger than Sam.

Two months later Sam became foreman in charge of a 40-man sawmill planer. In his spare time he coached the Salve Lake baseball team. In the years between 1951 and 1956 they won championships and tournaments. At about the same time, from about April 1951 to December 1955, he worked for Ed Only. He then transferred to MidRadar Lines. Sam started off as a laborer, but shortly became labor foreman until it disbanded in 1957.

In November 1957 Sam started in another career direction. He started with the Forestry Department and helped build lookout towers and forestry residences. In August 1958, he was promoted to assistant forest officer and dealt with fires and fish and game. Besides dealing with official fishing regulations he had extra office responsibilities as a game officer, fishing guardian and fire guardian.

Sam was loaned to the Wabasca and Calling Lake Cooperatives as an economic advisor in 1965, and returned to forestry work in 1966 for six months. He then went back to Slave Lake, Wabasca, Calling Lake as an economic advisor. The people who worked in these positions were later known as community development officers. He then transferred to Hinton on September 8, 1967 and his family still lives there.

Working as a community development officer, Indian-Metis liaison officer and with the Native Secretariat filled Sam's time until December 15, 1978 when he left with the official title of Economic Development Officer.

Sam then started in January 1979, in the private sector as a logging manager in the Hinton area. In July of that year Sam was asked to run for the presidency of the Metis Association of Alberta (MAA). He won that year and is now in his third term as MAA resident.