Daniel Levac memorial draws hundreds of mourners

Students at Dennis Franklin Cromarty First Nations high school in Thunder Bay had a chance to say a final good-bye to a murdered classmate at a memorial in the school gymnasium.

Daniel Levac, 20, was fatally stabbed outside a movie theatre on Friday night in the city. He was from the remote community of Sachigo Lake First Nation.

"I knew he was going to go a long way...I knew he had potential." said Sachigo Lake Chief Alvin Beardy, after seeing Levac's casket in the gym. "So looking at him like that, breaks my heart."

Beardy remembered taking Levac out to his trap line during Sachigo Lake's cultural week and teaching him survival skills such as how to cut up a moose, snare rabbits and hunt ducks and partridges.

"He liked learning," Beardy said, adding that Levac helped him build a trapper's cabin. "He still has his blankets and his mattress [there]."

'Culture shock'

But the skills Levac learned on the land were no match for the city, Beardy said.

"It's very difficult to handle, especially coming from a remote community," he said. "There's a culture shock that happens and they [students] have to adjust to it."

Levac is the eighth First Nations student, the seventh from Dennis Franklin Cromarty school, to die in the city since 2000. There are no high schools is the small fly-in communities that send their students to the city for secondary education.

Natasha Sakchekapo-Lalonde is a childhood friend of Levac. She said she hadn't heard from him for years, but came to the memorial to let his parents know what a positive influence he had been on her life. Sakchekapo-Lalonde said the violent nature of Levac's death is alarming.

"I'm still in shock actually, it's not something that happens often, go to the movies, [then] whatever," she said, her voice trailing off.  "Hopefully that can be sorted out soon, whatever is going on in the city."

'You don't really know what's safe'

A 19-year-old has been charged with second degree murder in the case. Police say the two young men were not known to each other.

Sakchekapo-Lalonde, who recently moved to Thunder Bay from Sioux Lookout, said she doesn't feel safe in the city.

"You want to get out there, you want to socialize but you don't really know what's safe, where to go," she said.

But Levac's grandmother said she was impressed with the support her family had received.

"I hear so many bad things about Thunder Bay, but what I've seen here overrides it all," Grace Matawapit said. "I even shook hands with the mayor. I didn't know who he was."

'He was a very loving guy'

Matawapit took to the stage at the memorial to encourage Levac's classmates.

"I just want to tell the students to keep going with your education," she said. 

She also expressed her love for Levac.

"That's my grandson," she said, pointing to the casket. "I loved him very much and he knew it. He was a very loving guy."