TORONTO -- One hundred and five years ago, a famed powwow dancer named Chief John Big Win from the Mnjikaning First Nation performed for Queen Victoria at the Crystal Palace in honour of her Golden Jubilee.

Yesterday, the chief's grandnephew escorted Queen Elizabeth II on her Golden Jubilee visit to Toronto. Jim Bartleman wasn't dancing -- as the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, he is one of the highest-ranking Canadian aboriginals in public office -- but he hoped he might have the occasion to tell the Queen of his family's connection with hers.

There is more than Chief Big Win's dance: Mr. Bartleman's paternal grandfather, William, was the grocer in the village of Ballater in the Scottish Highlands, the site of Balmoral Castle, at the turn of the last century.

He would deliver vegetables on his bicycle to the royal kitchen; when Mr. Bartleman was a child, his grandfather told him stories about seeing Victoria in her finery at the local railway station, there to greet Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm or the Russian czar.

"I don't want to bore her," Mr. Bartleman said modestly, hours before he was to meet the Queen on her arrival from Winnipeg. But the Lieutenant-Governor's voice quickened with enthusiasm when he expounded on the complex relationship that exists between aboriginal Canadians and the Crown.

"I have always heard the monarchy spoken of in positive terms by native peoples, and that's not surprising," he said.
"Throughout Canadian and pre-Canadian history, the Crown to a great extent protected native people against the settlers, though they may have had altruistic purposes."

A royal proclamation in 1763 prohibited white settlers from buying land from individual native people, he noted, requiring that negotiations be with nations as a whole. "In the War of 1812, it was Anishnabe from Upper Canada plus huge numbers from the Ohio Valley under Tecumseh who flooded up and fought under General Brock, and prevented the Americans from taking Ontario," he continued.

Seventy native fighters from the area where he grew up, around Lake Simcoe, joined that battle. "They essentially saved Ontario from the Americans, and it was very much in their interest. If they hadn't, native people here in Ontario would have been expelled to the West just like in the States."

Indian relatives of Mr. Bartleman's fought with the Crown in the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837, while relatives on his white father's side were supporters of William Lyon Mackenzie. "My ancestor, Chief Thomas Nanegeshkung, of the Rama Indians, was mobilized with other Indian warriors from Rama to guard Upper Canada against Fenian invasions [in 1866] . . . Sir Francis Bond Head [lieutenant-governor in 1837] wanted to exile all native peoples in Southern Ontario . . . the Crown, prompted by the Anti-Slavery Society, stepped in and blocked that, and that isn't forgotten either."

Mr. Bartleman believes the connection between Canadians, native and non-, is as strong today as it was 150 years ago.

"Societies need traditions and ceremonies to provide meaning to our lives; without that we are an empty shell," he said. "The monarchy is something above politics and has over the years provided a unifying force for Canada. It is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago when there were basically two national groups in Canada, the French and the English; now there are 185 groups in Ontario and . . . the Queen is still a unifying force."

Mr. Bartleman, who was Canada's high commissioner in Australia when that country held its referendum on the monarchy in 1999, said he found the republican movement mystifying. "I was frankly very puzzled: Australians are pragmatic, much like Canadians, and [here] we have something that works and is not really a source of controversy in the country -- despite the remarks of [Deputy Prime Minister John] Manley . . . why change something that works so well? In a world of rapid change, the Crown provides a sense of continuity with the past."

Noting that the Queen has visited Canada 22 times and the Duke of Edinburgh has been here 55 times, he added the "outpouring of support" for them on this tour was the result of their hard work to keep the institution relevant.

Mr. Bartleman served as ambassador to the European Union, Israel, Cuba and NATO; he was high commissioner to Cyprus, Australia and South Africa. Later, he was a policy adviser to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.