How runner Michael Thomas inspired his great granddaughter to find her heritage

Michael Thomas is well-known to Islanders as an outstanding distance runner, a member of the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame and the first local to run in the Boston Marathon.

But for Rebecca Thomas, her great grandfather was much more than a stellar athlete. He offered a way for Rebecca to learn more about her Mi'kmaq heritage.

To hold up this man for his athleticism but then deny him and his ancestors and his family all of these other rights as a citizen, it's really an intense juxtaposition.- Rebecca Thomas

"As a young person, I was very disconnected from my Indigenous background," Rebecca Thomas told CBC Radio's Island Morning.

"I knew I was different, but I didn't know why. My dad wasn't around too much when I was growing up. He would be there when he was and when he wasn't, he was gone. And so, I knew there was something different about me but I didn't necessarily know how to articulate it as Mi'kmaq or Native or whatever."

Thomas says learning more about her great grandfather was a way to better connect to her heritage outside of her immediate family.

"And so, to be shown this connection was one of the first times that I had that realization that there were people I was related to and connected to that were outside the immediate family," she said.

'An intense juxtaposition'

On Saturday, Thomas paid tribute to her great grandfather by running in a race in Stratford that bears his name. A statue in the town has also been built in his honour. 

Michael Thomas finished 26th when he ran the Boston Marathon in 1911. He died in 1954.

As a youth, Rebecca Thomas's father, a residential school survivor, would take her to the P.E.I. Sports Hall of Fame to visit her great grandfather's display. 

Since April, Thomas, 30, has served as poet laureate for Halifax. At Saturday's race, she read a poem in honour of her grandfather. As she read, she noticed tears in her father's eyes. 

The poem was a way to honour her great grandfather but also a way to point out that, even though he was a great athlete, he was also denied basic rights, such as the right to vote, and wasn't a "full citizen," she said.

"So, to hold up this man for his athleticism but then deny him and his ancestors and his family all of these other rights as a citizen, it's really an intense juxtaposition."

Thomas finished the five-kilometre portion of the race, and next year, she said she hopes to finish the 10-mile portion. 

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