Rick Gilbert from Sugarcane, the Williams Lake First Nation community, passed recently after a bout with cancer. My wife and I visited him in his home as he was saying his goodbyes to friends and associates.
His dignity, grace and good humour is an example we can all follow. My deepest memories go back to our days when we shared classes at the Williams Lake high school during our senior year there.
Rick was one of the students from the residential school at St. Joseph’s Mission outside Williams Lake. That was when the integration was happening of First Nations students into the B.C. school system.
Just before the COVID epidemic, we shared a reunion of close high school friends from our class. Rick was a respected member of that group.
He was dedicated to making life better for his communities, serving as the first full-time band manager at the Williams Lake First Nation, and also as chief for a time.
Recently, he accompanied the First Nations delegation from Canada that visited the Pope in Rome to seek an apology for mistreatment of children in the residential schools.
He knew that might be a critical early step towards reconciling the two overarching cultures in Canada: the European and the Indigenous.
What was remarkable in his life was that he remained a Catholic until the end, sharing his spirituality with the whole Christian world and the whole inhabited earth. This gives him an ecumenical quality.
I know his religious faith kept him strong. His close friend and partner in marriage, Anna, was also a strength to him. Bless her.
When we were in our late teens and early twenties we shared many hours of discussion about the relationships between our cultures.
Rick is a hereditary descendant of the several chief Williams from T’exelcemc (Williams Lake First Nation) of the Secwepemc (Shuswap Nation).
I would like to honour his leadership in this region. He was an outstanding citizen and friend.