Winnipeg Tribune, 23 April 1969
Will Riel House be the final depository for Riel’s own 32-page account of the 1870 affairs? The National Historic Sites bid $16,000 for it at auction in Montreal last week—and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board owns the old log house at 330 River Rd., St. Vital.
A Manitoba Archives’ spokesman said the “logical place” for it is in the archives, housed in the Legislature, “along with the rest” of the Riel papers.
“This is a fireproof building, and the log house is, after all its historic value, only wood.”
A spokesman at the archives said $16,000 was a fantastic price, $500 per page. What would Louis have done with money like that? There would have been no rebellion.”
The contents of the 32-page account have been published in French and English. Le Metis, a French language paper here, issued it Feb. 28, 1874.
Far more valuable, said the archives’ spokesman, is its own ownership of Louis Riel’s pocket notebooks kept in jail, the last week before he was hanged in Regina, Nov. 16, 1885, “because they reveal his state of mind at the end, and also, and more important, because they’ve never been published “
The Manitoba Historical Society also is interested since “we were the catalysts for purchase of the house,” said Wilson F. Green, secretary.
Page revised: 10 June 2021
