Their lawyer, Bill Gang, says the discovery that Richard and Eddie were switched at birth was shocking BBC. “They lived very different childhood lives. They each had their own sense of who they believed was taken from them.”
Richard, who ended up in a boarding school as an alleged stillborn, lived through dark times there. “I saw what the government did to indigenous children because they thought I was one of them,” he told the Canadian news site last year. “A lot of white people didn't see what I saw there. It was cruel and despicable.” The Globe and Mail. He eventually ended up in a loving foster home.
Richard carried his alleged indigenous background in his heart. He was a fisherman and was proud to own the only all-original fishing boat on the British Columbia coast. “He now realizes that everyone is indigenous except him,” says attorney Bill Gang.
Eddie was never aware of his indigenous background. Now he and his daughter have joined the Manitoba Metis Federation, an organization for residents with mixed Indigenous European roots. The beginning of a long journey to connect with a culture and family that is foreign to him.
