Elder dies just before 100th birthday
Dettah elder remembered as a 'great storyteller' who was involved in the community, friends say
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 18, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
One of few remaining Northerners who experienced Yellowknife before and after the prospectors arrived died in his home Monday morning at the age of 99.
Michel Paper, who died Monday two weeks shy of 100th birthday, was a regular sight at the bingo hall. He was born years before Treaty 11 was signed and Yellowknife was settled. - NNSL file photo |
Michel Paper, an elder from Dettah, was only two weeks away from his 100th birthday.
Jonas Sangris, the former chief in Dettah, knew Paper since he was a boy of five or six years old and fondly recalls selling fish to him in exchange for movie money.
"I always remember he used to live in Willow Flats. Sundays, I used to bring him a couple of fish," Sangris recalled. "In those days, I'd come all the way from Dettah by three dogs to Yellowknife and give him a fish and he'd give me 50 cents so I could go to the show ... that's the thing I remember, looking forward to Sunday night all the time."
The elder was also a big part of the community and a great storyteller, Sangris said.
"He'd tell you stories for hours and hours, sometimes about the old ways, sometimes about religion," he said. "When we had elders' meetings, he always talked about religion, which was very important to the culture."
In May 1995, Paper stood before Parliament as a member of the Elders Advisory Committee and spoke of the effects Giant Mine had on the Yellowknives Dene. Paper spoke of living off the land in his speech, which was translated and can be found on the Parliament website.
"My father, his father, and his father before him - three generations - have always lived around the Yellowknife area. The water was fresh, the fishing was good, the land did not burn. We took good care of the land," he said at the time.
Born in 1913, Paper grew up in the traditional Dene way of life, living off the land, following the caribou herds, and travelling by dog team. When gold-seeking prospectors arrived in the 1930s and asked the Yellowknives for young men to work, Paper signed up and began work at a rate of $1.50 per day. He worked for Giant, Negus and Con mines before working with the federal government for 26 years helping to build the highways in the NWT, according to his parliamentary statement.
Paper was also known as Dettah's millionaire elder after scratching a $1 million Set for Life lottery ticket just a few weeks after his 97th birthday. First, he donated $5,000 to the Catholic Church, and then bought furniture for the home he lived in with his son Jason and daughter-in-law Shelly Leonardis, and their children.
To those that knew him, though, Paper was not a man who cared about material worth - instead, he valued hard work and the old ways.
"I'll always remember one time we were having a meeting talking about housing, and he got up and said, 'When I was young I'd get up, grab my axe, go cut logs and build my own house!'" Sangris said. "He said nowadays, you flip a switch to get light, turn a knob to get heat - houses do all the work now. We don't do the work."
Paper was legendary for his almost daily visits to the Yellowknife Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant for his one-piece chicken meal and coffee.
There were plans to celebrate Paper's 100th birthday at the restaurant, just as his 99th was celebrated, owner Gabi Jason said. She and her staff surprised Paper last November with a cake and balloons, apparently one of many celebrations the elder was treated to that day.
Jason said Paper had been a regular customer since the restaurant opened in 1968, and that he was close with her staff who served him during his nearly daily visits.
"It was maybe 15 or 16 years ago when he and I actually became close," Jason recalled. "He would come in every day and bring his little granddaughter, Rosalie Paper, and they would sit and have their milk - it was so sweet to see them together."
She said Paper would always share stories of what life was like when he was growing up, and his disappointment in the way the world had changed.
"He spoke very quietly and sometimes he would just talk and talk," she said.
"He was disappointed in how people sit at home now and watch TV, and 'play those video games' as he would say ... he was truly from a different era."
A funeral service was held for him yesterday at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Parish.
