“I do not believe that any government in any other part of the world would allow such a stupid situation to exist.”
With those words, Wally Firth introduced himself to Parliament.
As the Northwest Territories’ newly elected MP, Wally, who was Métis, used his maiden speech in January 1973 to tell his new colleagues they were getting it totally wrong – starting with the size of the job he’d just been given.
The “stupid situation” he was talking about? Having one person represent 1.3 million square miles of land stretching from Inuvik to Iqaluit and beyond.
He went on: “In my constituency, approximately two-thirds of the population are people of native ancestry. They were at one time some of the richest people in this land. Today they are some of the very poorest people in this land.
“This is especially so in terms of very bad and dangerous housing conditions, the extreme shortage of housing, and the lack of good community services. As long as this situation continues to exist with the very first citizens of this land being the very poorest in their homeland, I fail to understand how one in this country can say, ‘I am proud to be a Canadian.’
“That is a disgrace to this nation. That is the truth, and I am sure you all know it.”
Wally passed away on Saturday, March 2, according to friends of his and the records of a funeral home in Victoria, BC. He was 89 years old.
He served from 1972 to 1979 as the NWT’s New Democratic MP, and is remembered for his bombast, personality and charisma in that role, playing his part in a broader awakening of northern, Indigenous voices on a national political level.
He was also an extraordinary fiddler, a pilot, a CBC broadcaster and one of 13 siblings.
For Dennis Bevington, a university student at the time Wally was first elected, Wally was a political inspiration.
“My parents were supporters of Wally and they helped organize his campaign,” recalled Bevington, who would go on to become the NWT’s NDP MP himself, from 2006 to 2015.
“He was the first Métis MP in Parliament and he was such a personality that he attracted a lot of attention. Prior to that, many of the MPs we had were southern people.”
Wally won his battle to have the gigantic Northwest Territories seat split into two. The NWT and Nunavut remain represented by two MPs, one per territory, to this day.
Bevington says that achievement shouldn’t be underestimated.
“When he first got into Parliament, he realized how impossible it was to properly represent such a huge area,” Bevington said by phone from Australia on Sunday.
“Getting two seats? Well, there’s a lot of competition in every province to get more seats in Parliament, and they don’t give them out. Very rarely.”
Northern and Scottish roots
Born in Fort McPherson on January 25, 1935, Walter Firth was the son of William Firth and Mary Wilson.
He prided himself both on his mother’s lineage – his grandfather on that side had been renowned in Arctic Village, Alaska, he said, as a “peacemaker” with white people – and his father’s Scottish background, his grandfather on that side having come from the Orkney Islands to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company for more than half a century.
“Both of my grandfathers were very good friends and they did much for this country in the early times,” he recalled to Parliament shortly after being elected, by way of introducing himself.
In Fort McPherson today, ties to Wally and gratitude for his service remain strong.
“He put us on the map,” said longtime Gwich’in leader James Ross by phone on Sunday.
“He went into radio, so a lot of people knew him as a radio announcer, and then he became a pilot, flying to all of the communities in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories as we know it today.”
Ross recalls Wally playing a role in the formation of the Berger Inquiry, which he now reflects on as “the very first global news piece where Indigenous people were actually listened to,” while stressing that Wally remained “a very humble man” who would not hear talk of his accomplishments.
“People will learn a lot about Wally Firth’s accomplishments in the next little while, and there’ll be truly an opportunity for people to not only pay respects, but to recognize that this is one of the unsung heroes of the North,” said Ross.
‘All we had was music’
Wally lost to Progressive Conservative Dave Nickerson by 19 votes out of more than 10,000 in 1980. While he made a less-successful attempt at a political return in 1997, much of Wally’s time was spent securing lasting fame in another area: fiddling.
“He had that ability to connect with people through music. He loved to play,” recalled Bevington.
Interviewed for the Musicians of the Midnight Sun podcast several years ago, Wally said his own father had been a “wonderful fiddler,” routinely playing until midnight at Fort McPherson’s community hall – and gradually introducing Wally to the instrument at the same time, inviting him to play along to waltzes at the hall. Young Wally’s first instrument had been a $1 plastic harmonica.
“That was our main entertainment. All we had was music – fiddles and guitars, piano, accordion and dances,” Wally told the podcast. “And the music was provided by William Firth and his boys.”
Living by the mantra that “music is a wonderful medicine,” Wally spent weeks immersed in the fiddle with all manner of other northern musicians. He recalled, for example, playing the fiddle down a phone line for Kole Crook – himself a loved and respected Métis fiddler who passed away in a plane crash in 2003 – when Crook had been trying to figure out a particular song in Saskatchewan.
“He was an awesome fiddler and he always wanted the youth to carry on the music,” said Ross.
“He spent a good amount of time with young people, all encouraging them to learn to play instruments and keep the music going.”
Students weren’t his only audience.
Three years ago, Firth fell while reaching for his bow at Victoria’s Glenshiel seniors’ residence – and promptly played the fiddle for the paramedics who showed up, the Times Colonist newspaper reported.
After one piece, he is said to have quipped: “I’m 85 years old and I still don’t have a half-decent bow.”
“Wally Firth will now be remembered,” said Ross on Sunday, paying tribute to him.
“It’s a chapter in our history of the Northwest Territories that needs a place in our schools, so people can learn that this is one of our unsung heroes from the early days.”
