Charlie Weaselhead, former chief of the Blood Tribe, was just made a Member of the Order of Canada for his years of work on addictions issues. Weeks before the recognition was announced, his son Keston Weaselhead died on the streets of Lethbridge.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail
One afternoon this spring, a Ford Bronco pulled up near the homeless shelter in the city of Lethbridge. At the wheel was Charles Weaselhead, a veteran leader of his First Nation, the Blood Tribe. He had come to see his 24-year-old son, Keston.
Once a popular kid who loved skateboarding and riding horses, Keston was living on the streets and addicted to drugs. Every now and then, he would reach out to his father, whom he idolized. Mr. Weaselhead would come into Lethbridge from his ranch, a long trip through the vast, wind-raked plains of Southern Alberta.
When he found Keston, he would take him for a drive. He knew better than to lecture his son. Keston might simply hop out of the car and melt back into the streets. Instead, Mr. Weaselhead would get him a fast-food meal, remind him that his family loved him and show him pictures of his brothers and sisters.
This visit was much like many others over the years. They stopped at a pizza joint to get a slice. They went to a store to buy Keston underwear, socks and jeans.
His father asked Keston if he would go to the hospital or the local detox, just to give his wasted body a rest. Someday soon, Keston replied, but “not now, Dad. Not now.” It was the last time father and son would speak.
Mr. Weaselhead has spent the past half-century striving to help his people escape the plague of addiction, as he himself once did. For those efforts, among others, he was made a member of the Order of Canada in June.
The one thing he could not do was save his own son.
Mr. Weaselhead is the eldest of nine children born to a hard-working ranch hand and a devoted homemaker. One winter, when he was 25, his parents were driving home in a blizzard when a transport truck jackknifed in front of them. Both were killed. Mr. Weaselhead had to grow up fast. A big drinker, he quit alcohol so he could take care of his younger brothers and sisters.
He found a job in addiction treatment and worked his way up, eventually becoming a hospital director and leader of the Blood Tribe’s health department. He was elected chief in 2004 and served for a dozen years, then became chancellor of the University of Lethbridge.
Along the way, he and his wife, Rhonda, who works in child protection, took in and raised a six-year-old girl, Jessica Good Rider. When she had a son, they adopted the boy: Keston Sage Weaselhead Good Rider.
As a late addition to their brood of eight, he was their golden child, with a mop of curly, fair hair. Adventurous, even fearless, he would always rush to the highest diving board at the pool. One day, Rhonda found him riding one of the family’s big racehorses. Keston, around 8, had climbed up on a fence and somehow slipped a halter over its head.
As he grew, he learned piano and guitar and could pick up tunes by ear. One of his favourites was Break It to Them Gently by Burton Cummings. In its eerily prophetic words, a heartsick fugitive pleads with a stranger to tell his loved ones he won’t be coming home.
Like many young men on the Blood Reserve, Keston started experimenting with drugs. One day, Mr. Weaselhead found him passed out on the couch from an overdose. His father shook him awake till the ambulance arrived. A grateful Keston made his dad a cup in pottery class. On it were the words: My hero, my saviour.
But Keston kept getting worse. His parents tried everything: rehab programs, new schools, stern warnings. Nothing took. After he left for Lethbridge, they even built a separate tiny home for him on their ranch, hoping he would come back and live there. He never did.
When Keston was still in his teens, his biological mother, Jessica, died of an overdose in prison at the age of 37. Then, this spring her daughter, Amber, had an overdose. She was only 16.
Keston took it hard. He had always said he wanted to shake his addiction so he could take care of his little sister. His mother brought him to the hospital to get one last look at Amber before she was taken off life support and her heart was donated to someone who needed a new one. He couldn’t face it.
Already weak from his years on the street, he had started having seizures, falling and hurting himself. He was so skinny his ribs and spine stood out.
On May 5, at around 7 in the morning, Mr. Weaselhead got a call. Keston’s body had been found near the Lethbridge shelter. It wasn’t an overdose; his body just gave up.
Mr. Weaselhead struggled to take it in. They had spoken only days before. He struggles still. “Sometimes I wonder what I am doing this for,” he says of his work on health and addictions. “Am I doing anything of value? Am I moving the yardstick?”
First Nations people in Alberta die of overdoses at eight times the rate of the general population. The 13,000-strong Blood Tribe, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, has been devastated. Everyone knows someone who has died: a niece, an uncle, a cousin.
But Mr. Weaselhead, who just turned 75, isn’t giving up. As great as his loss was, he says it has given him a second wind, a determination to “roll up my sleeves a little higher.”
The Blood Tribe recently began work on a new, 75-bed long-term recovery centre. Its detox unit is using Blackfoot traditions such as sweetgrass picking and sweat lodges to help its visitors. The Lethbridge shelter, run by the First Nation, is expanding.
Mr. Weaselhead, still vice-chair of the health department, has 29 grandchildren. For them, and for Keston, he will carry on.