Michel Trudeau talked of faith before death
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, MB–Michel Trudeau, youngest son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, died tragically when an avalanche swept him into the freezing Kokanee Lake November 13.
While most remember him as the son of a prime minister, Dennis Walker remembers him as a young man wrestling with his faith.
The two met in July under unusual circumstances in Walker's hometown of Portage la Prairie, a small city along the Trans-Canada highway.
Michel Trudeau was driving back to Ottawa with his dog Makwa, a black Labrador-Shepherd cross, when a truck broadsided 22-year-old Michel's truck, forcing it into the ditch. After rolling several times, Makwa leaped from the totalled truck and ran off. Michel, unhurt, spent almost a week in Portage searching for his dog.
It was during that time Michel was befriended by Walker, a local pharmacist. He had heard about the accident and the lost dog.
"I visualized a young man desperate to find his dog companion and stranded without wheels in a strange city," says Walker. He offered Michel his old Pontiac to use in his search for Makwa and later invited Michel to his home for supper.
Walker, an evangelical Christian who attends a nondenominational church, also invited Michel to attend a tent evangelistic service with him. Michel initially refused, saying his cathedral was mountains, lakes and evergreen trees. Besides, he had not attended church since he was 13.
"I went on to explain that I don't believe major life-threatening events in our lives happen by chance, that God was trying to tell him something by this accident. I knew where he could hear God's message and that was in the tent."
Just before the service began, Michel changed his mind. "Let's go to the tent," he said.
After the one-hour service, he met several people who said they were praying that God would help him to find the dog. He later told Walker, "You know, sometimes I think churches actually get in the way of people getting right with God, because they think the church saves them, but actually it's a personal faith in Christ that saves no matter what church you go to."
Walker agreed, and told him about the central message of the Christian faith.
Two days later, his dog Makwa walked out of some bushes into a campground near the town and the two were soon reunited.
After driving Michel and his dog to the airport in Winnipeg, Walker gave him a pamphlet that explained how to get to heaven. Michel promised to read it.
"What he did with it, I don't know," says Walker.
Four months later, witnesses who had been wilderness skiing with Michel in B.C. said the avalanche swept him 40 metres out in the glacial lake, wearing a 20-kilogram pack, skis and hiking gear. He struggled for some time, called for help, then disappeared. The lake froze over before divers could recover the body.
But Walker is hoping to see Michel again.
"I personally believe that a person can get saved in the final moments of life...like the thief on the cross," says Walker.
"God spoke to Michel that week in July. Now he's speaking to all of us, the whole nation," he says. Quoting Amos 4:12, Walker says the message is, "Prepare to meet thy God."
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