Canada Post stamps honour three Indigenous sports leaders and advocates

Bryan Trottier, Edward Lennie and Wilton Littlechild are all featured on a new series of stamps from Canada Post that celebrate Indigenous leaders in sport. (Supplied/Canada Post)

Three Indigenous athletes and advocates whose influence extended beyond sports are being honoured with a new series of Canada Post stamps.

The stamps featuring hockey great Bryan Trottier, Northern Games advocate Edward Lennie and Chief Wilton Littlechild were unveiled Wednesday at Calgary’s Central Library.

Littlechild and Lennie’s son, Hans Lennie, attended the ceremony, while Trottier delivered a video message.

The three-stamp issue is being launched in honour of National Indigenous Peoples Day and is the fifth set in a Canada Post series recognizing First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders.

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Littlechild said seeing himself on a national stamp represented the culmination of his work in sports, education and leadership.

“It’s certainly a tremendous, tremendous honor. As I said, words can’t really express how an honor it is for me to be on a national stamp,” Littlechild said.

“I think it captures a lifetime of a journey through sport and also through school, through leadership. It’s a culmination of a lot of events in my life.”

Littlechild, who was born in Hobbema, now known as Maskwacis, Alta., is a former member of Parliament and commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

He helped draft the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He also worked to secure Indigenous and treaty rights in Canada’s Constitution.

His sporting accomplishments and advocacy include helping establish the National Indian Athletic Association, the North American Indigenous Games and the World Indigenous Nations Games.

Littlechild said sports offered him a positive path while he was growing up in an institution and facing the effects of abuse.

“I’ve said many times in public, and I repeat that sports saved my life and, by that, I mean growing up in an institution as a child there were options along the way for a choice in life that were not positive,” Littlechild said.

“Whether it was addictions or violence, choices of ending your life, all of those were there repeatedly, but at the same time sport was always there to bail me out, in a sense of saving my life.”

Littlechild said the opportunities provided by sports took him around the world and inspired him to pass those opportunities on to young people.

“I’ve worked in 49 countries, I’ve played hockey in nine countries. I’ve played baseball in three countries. I’ve swam in world championships in three countries,” he said.

“So, without that choice of sport and pursuit of school as a first lawyer, the first member of parliament, I’m so thankful, I’m so thankful for all of that.”

He said one of the most meaningful moments of his career came when a young man told him the North American Indigenous Games had saved his life.

“The most cherished moment from the sports activities was when I heard a young man say to us in public, ‘I was going to kill myself. I was going to kill myself, but the games, the North American games, saved me my whole career and life,’” Littlechild said.

“So that one acknowledgement of saving a life of a young person meant so much to me, and that pathway again was sport.”

Littlechild said the stamp also carries a personal connection to the years he spent separated from the grandparents who raised him.

“Tears flowed, I’ll say, when I heard that, because my first thought was the years of separation from my grandparents, but the connection was through mail, through a stamp, and in that stamped envelope was the love that I needed to carry on,” he said.

Littlechild said he hopes the stamp encourages young Indigenous people to pursue their goals.

“I hope the message would be that continue pursuing excellence in life with balance, by balance I mean physically, mentally, culturally, and most importantly spiritually,” he said.

“Seek and maintain that balance in your pursuit of excellence, and there’s no limit to what you can accomplish.”

Trottier, born in Val Marie, Sask., won the Stanley Cup six times and is a member of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Drafted by the New York Islanders in 1974, he won five major National Hockey League honours, including league and playoff most valuable player awards. He remains the Islanders’ all-time leader in points and assists.

Trottier, who is Cree, Métis, Chippewa and Irish, also co-founded the Aboriginal Alumni Hockey Team and has visited communities across Canada to offer hockey clinics and mentorship to young people.

Edward Lennie, known as the Father of the Northern Games, dedicated his life to promoting and preserving Arctic sports.

Lennie, who lived from 1934 to 2020, helped found the Northern Games and successfully advocated for Arctic sports to be included in the inaugural Arctic Winter Games.

He coached athletes in eight traditional events, including the kneel jump, two-foot high kick and arm pull.

Hans Lennie said the movement his father helped build began in the family’s Inuvik home.

“All started in our tiny little home back in Inuvik, in our kitchen room floor, where we started, where he brought the games back to life,” Lennie said. “They were disappearing. He brought them back to life, and now it’s happened nationally.”

He said his father wanted the games recognized nationally and eventually included in the Olympics.

Lennie said that legacy is now being passed to younger generations, including Edward Lennie’s granddaughter, who is taking part in a Northern Games summit.

“That was that is what my dad wanted to ensure that it was brought back and it is done properly, so that’s a big honor,” he said.

The Lennie family is also planning a gathering in his honour in Inuvik, where young athletes will demonstrate the games before the event concludes with a jigging contest.

“We’re going to all eat together, we’ll let the youth do the games, and at the end, we’re going to have a jigging contest, what he loved to do, love to dance,” Lennie said.

Julie Philippe, Canada Post’s vice-president of people and safety, said stamps provide an opportunity to share the stories of Canadians who have made a difference.

“We’re very proud to be able to honor Canadians that have made a difference, and we’re very proud of being able to contribute that part of our business and share it with Canadians,” Philippe said.

The stamp designs combine portraits of each honouree with landscapes and images connected to their lives.

Trottier is shown alongside an image of him lifting the Stanley Cup and a prairie landscape representing his Saskatchewan roots.

Lennie’s portrait is paired with an athlete performing the one-foot high kick against an Arctic landscape.

Littlechild is pictured in his signature cowboy hat alongside young athletes and the rolling hills of Alberta.

The stamps and related collectibles are available through Canada Post’s website and at select postal outlets across Canada.