Larissa Ledoux looks on as her uncle Joseph and father Gordon embrace for the first time. Photo courtesy Larissa Ledoux.

NOTE: A video of half-brothers Joseph and Gordon Ledoux meeting for the first time in 70 years can be viewed here. Video courtesy Larissa Ledoux.

Half-brothers Joseph and Gordon Ledoux were both a bundle of nerves in the hours before they saw each other face to face for the first time in 70 years.

Their Muskeg Lake Cree Nation mother, named Clemence, died soon after Gordon was born. The two boys were separated before they were able to make memories with each other.

Gordon was adopted into a Mistawasis family and didn’t know he had a brother until he was in his late teens, whereas Joseph always knew he had a brother but didn’t know “where he was or what he was doing.” Joseph lived with his aunt and uncle for years before being adopted into a British Columbia family.

Gordon and Joseph lived with no knowledge of each other until one of them sent a letter to the other in the late 1960s. They both have different recollections of who sent the first letter, with Gordon saying it was Joseph, and vice versa. Regardless, they exchanged letters and pictures over the years, hoping “someday that we could get together and meet. But we never did, we sort of went our separate way. I lost his address,” Joseph said.

When Joseph moved to Calgary in recent years, he decided to reach out to Gordon’s band office and get back in touch.

From there, further obstacles popped up with scheduling and financing. That’s when Mistawasis community members pitched in to help Gordon, who is an Elder.

Without his knowledge, people held a bingo to gather money so that Gordon, his daughter Larissa, and her boyfriend could make the drive to Calgary.

Before they made the Dec. 4 trip, Joseph sat in his Calgary living suite speaking hurriedly over the phone as he told MBC how he was feeling about meeting Gordon face to face.

“To be honest with you, I’m very, very nervous. My stomach’s going upside down,” Joseph said.

Gordon and Joseph Ledoux in Calgary. Photo courtesy Larissa Ledoux.

He said he planned to go downtown, drink coffee and visit with friends to try to relax “because I know when he comes I’m going to be very nervous.”

Larissa said her father told her he “had butterflies,” and was fidgeting as they neared Joseph’s place.

When the two men first saw each other and hugged, Larissa saw an immediate familial bond as Gordon poked fun at Joseph.

She said in the following days they did a gift exchange, and the men talked nonstop: about their families, about how they are both “obsessed” with decorating their homes with eagles and wolves, and about planning their next visit.

Speaking by phone with MBC afterwards, Gordon had a tough time describing how the whole experience made him feel. Larissa said it’s been an emotional journey, and that her father cried the first time he told her he had a brother.

Larissa said much of Mistawasis feels invested in the journey Joseph and Gordon have been through, and Gordon said he’s happy about where they’re at.

“It’s nice that I got it out in the open now that I know I have a brother,” he said.

Gordon said he and Joseph still have a lot to catch up on. He wants to bring Joseph to their mother’s home reserve during the summer powwow “to come and visit me and where I live and all that. Show him off to the people.”

Gordon said he is very thankful for the efforts of nearby First Nations that made the December visit possible.