Lance Corporal Johnson Paudash MM (29 January 1875 – 26 October 1959) was an acclaimed

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Biography

Paudash, an

Ojibwa The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

native, joined the

21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF The 21st Battalion (Eastern Ontario), CEF was an infantry battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War. History The battalion was authorized on 7 November 1914 and embarked for Britain on 6 May 1915. It disembarked in France ...

on 11 November 1914 at

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between Toro ...

(his younger brother, George Paudash, 24, also enlisted at the same time). After training he embarked aboard the SS ''Metagama'' on 6 May 1915 and sailed to Great Britain. In July 1915 he was promoted to lance corporal and in mid-September of the same year arrived in France. On 22 September, whilst fighting at Messines, Paudash was shot in the right leg. After recuperating from this wound, Paudash rejoined his unit south of Ypres in Belgium. It was here that Paudash showed the skills required to be a sniper.

Post war

Paudash became a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

with the federal government. He was considered by the Indian Commission to be "almost as smart as any lawyer regarding Indian treaties or legal paper". Johnson Paudash was responsible for bringing the commission's attention to the errors regarding lands described in or thought to be governed by earlier treaties and helped correctly define the treaty borders for the 1923 treaty.Judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada

References

Paudash, Johnson 20th-century Canadian civil servants Canadian Indigenous military personnel Ojibwe people 1875 births 1959 deaths Canadian recipients of the Military Medal {{Canada-mil-bio-stub