By Andru McCracken

On Saturday, June 10 dignitaries from around the province and as far as Saskatchewan came to help dedicate an unnamed mountain in Premier Range near Valemount in honour of the former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker.

MP Betty Hinton, MLA Shirley Bond, Mayor Jeannette Townsend, village councillors from Valemount and McBride and representatives from the Friends of Valemount the group that spearheaded the application were all there for the ceremony.

Chief Wayne Christian, the co-chair of the Shuswap Tribal Council began his tribute to Diefenbaker by acknowledging his ancestors from this area and their present day ancestors.

He said that before confederation, small pox wiped out most of his people in the area, but reminded those present of a land claim currently underway at Tete Jaune Cache. “We have a presence in the area even though we are not here physically,” said Christian.

“I also want to acknowledge your ancestors who have been here for many, many generations.”

Christian said that the native people have a special relationship with Diefenbaker.

“The man you people know as John G. Diefenbaker, our people know him as Chief,” said Christian.

He said he was honoured and revered among his people because he was a champion of human rights and one of the few dissenters who voted against the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and that it was Diefenbaker who appointed the first woman cabinet minister.

“More importantly for our people, he gave our people the federal vote in 1960. Prior to 1960 our people were not able to participate in the politics of the country. On behalf of all people as a whole, chiefs and elders, welcome to our territory.”

Donna Birkmaier, representing the Diefenbaker Canada Centre located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, spoke about her lifelong relationship with the Prime Minister.

“I’m here because John G. Diefenbaker changed my life,” she said.

It was during a chance meeting, that Birkmaier first met Diefenbaker in Saskatoon at a train station at Christmas as a young girl.

When asked if she were looking forward to Christmas, she said no. He enquired why and found that it was because few people remembered that her birthday which fell on Christmas Day. On Christmas morning, she received a phone call wishing her a happy birthday from the Prime Minister himself.

In what would be a long relationship, Birkmaier was inspired by Diefenbaker in other ways.

“I watched a man who believed the average Canadian citizen mattered and believed that he was one of them. I watched a man who saw that if he were going to build a country he would have to recognize that all people had to be equal. When he gave Natives the vote it was because in his heart he knew that they were the country.”

“It was with great passion that I watched him put the first woman into cabinet in 1957,” said Birkmaier.

“He did change my life. He made me believe that anybody could do anything if they put their heart to it.”

She said it was Diefenbaker who looked at the state of wheat sales and made agriculture what it is today.

“I can see right now Mr. Diefenbaker is talking to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and he is saying, ‘I think I’ve elevated above you,’” she said.

There is a very fitting historical connection between the Chief and this mountain that now bears his name. The mountain is very close to the site of the Canoe River train wreck of November 1950. The wreck killed 21 men and as a result a dispatcher working in Red Pass was charged with manslaughter. That man appealed to Diefenbaker to defend him. Diefenbaker’s dying wife Edna insisted that he take the case and, at great personal expense and with exceptional flourish, he managed to clear the telegraph operator of manslaughter.

Diefenbaker was born in 1895, elected to the House of Commons in 1940 and was elected 13 times before his death in 1979. He served as Prime Minister from 1957 until 1963.