Mi’kmaw elder and author fighting cancer after a lifetime fighting racism

Mi'kmaw author and elder Daniel Paul spent decades fighting for the renaming of landmarks bearing the name of Edward Cornwallis -- and won.

Now, the 84-year-old is in a fight against terminal cancer.

Paul recently went public with his health battle in a Facebook post, sharing the news that doctors had diagnosed him with incurable liver cancer, giving him three to six months to live.

But he says his latest round of chemo went well, and wrote in a follow-up post this week, “it might prove to be little harder to kill off this old goat than first anticipated…!”

“Nothing to fear,” says Paul in a recent CTV Atlantic interview.

“I fully intend to live until I die. I don't intend to live a life of living dead, waiting for it,” he adds.

Born during a blizzard and raised in poverty on the Indian Brook reserve, Paul says he experienced racism early on and knew he always wanted to fight it.

“We had nothing to eat for three days,” he recalls. “And mom asked the Indian agent for some assistance, and he made her beg and cry.”

“And I said to myself, ‘when I grow up, no bastard like you is going to do that to me,’ and I can guarantee you no bastard like him ever did,” Paul grins.

Expelled from Indian day school at 14-years-old for scoring 100 per cent on a math exam and refusing when a nun insisted he write the test again, Paul then worked as a labourer on both sides of the border.

He eventually decided to return to Nova Scotia to complete his education at Truro’s Success Business College, studying to be a bookkeeper.

He chuckles as he pulls out his 1962 report card.

“English, 72.5 per cent,” he laughs.

In 1993, Paul published his first book, one that would become his seminal work.

“We Were Not the Savages" highlights the historic and systemic racism faced by the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia. It was within those pages Paul exposed Colonel Governor Edward Cornwallis’s 1749 bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps.

“What we had up until the point of 'We Were Not the Savages' was fairy tales in many ways," says Paul. For him, education has been the key to creating change for First Nations.

“It had to be incremental, I had to educate the public first," he says.

The book led to a life of public advocacy, fighting for Mi’kmaq rights and the removal of Cornwallis from public landmarks and placenames.

Canada’s first Mi’kmaw Member of Parliament, Jaime Battiste, says he first heard of Paul’s work while studying at university, reading Paul’s book for a course.

The two have since become friends and fellow advocates.

“He was one of the first ones to write about the true history that we live in in the Atlantic,” says Battiste.

The MP was there when Paul visited what is now Peace and Friendship Park in Halifax for the first time after the city removed a statue of Edward Cornwallis from the site in 2018.

Battiste took a photo of Paul beaming in front of the bare concrete pedestal.

“People will go after him personally and people question his findings and things like that, but he's never shied away from telling the truth about Nova Scotia's history,” says Battiste.

“Canadians have opened their minds and want to learn more real history,” says Paul, who believes Canada has come a long way in its relationship with First Nations.

While undergoing chemotherapy, Paul recently published the latest revised edition of the book he’s most known for.

He says he and his wife Pat still go out often, and he’s “comfortable and not bed-ridden.”

No matter what happens next, Paul’s place in history is certain.