Louis Riel: Father of Manitoba

Louis Riel is one of the most commanding and complex public personalities in Canadian history. More distinctive yet, he is the only truly romantic figure--fighting for a small, threatened people, and dying for them--that we have ever had.... Once regarded as a traitor, he has since been sanctified by the state, with public statues erected in his honour. He now carries the title of Father of Manitoba.

--Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald; His Life, Our Times (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2012), 102.