A bell which had once hung in a small church in the heart of the Northwest Rebellion in Saskatchewan has been returned to the Métis community, after being stolen from a Legion branch in Ontario 22 years ago.

Though local people came to call it the Bell of Batoche, the bell that was on display at Millbrook Branch, 115 kilometres northeast of Toronto, was really from a church at Frog Lake, Sask. It had been taken in 1885 as a war trophy after the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel was put down. General Frederick Middleton’s troops defeated the rebel forces at Batoche and captured Riel.

After the fighting Sergeant Fred McCorry brought the bell to his home town of Millbrook. He turned it over to the town which hung it in the tower of the local firehall. However there was no place for it when a new firehall was built in the 1960s and the bell was given to Millbrook Branch, which was formed shortly after the Second World War.

The solid silver bell, which stands about 30 centimetres high, was placed in a glass display case.

After years of subtle negotiations, the bell was finally presented, not to the branch, but to the Catholic Diocese of Prince Albert in Saskatchewan.

The branch has said that it is glad the bell has been recovered and presented to the diocese. “It was stolen property all along. As far as I know, we were never at war with the Catholic church,” said Millbrook Branch President John Pike.

In presenting the bell, Billyjo DeLaRonde, a former leader of the Manitoba Métis Federation, admitted he was the one who, along with unnamed accomplices, stole the bell in 1991.

“I believe I repatriated the bell,” he told the Canadian Press in July. “There was no intention of ever stealing the bell from them because it was ours.”

DeLaRonde told reporters he had been a guest at the branch in October 1991. He and his friends had their picture taken with the bell. A few weeks later they returned to the branch and made off with the bell. Since that time it was kept by several different people.

The bell was formally turned over to Monsignor Albert Thevenot wrapped in buffalo skins and a Métis flag, at a service before thousands of people in Batoche. The bell will initially be displayed at the St. Boniface Museum in Winnipeg.