Claude Petit in Winnipeg, 2011. (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

By Logan Lehmann

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Born in Duck Lake on October 1, 1935, Claude Petit grew up to be one of the most influential men in the local First Nations community.

From a young age, Petit was introduced to the sport of boxing thanks to two of his uncle’s involvement with the sport in the Second World War. From there, they gave him his own pair of gloves and his love for boxing took off from there.

“We used to mess around with (the gloves), in the barn mind you,” he said laughing. “It was a lot of fun. You think back on it, there was quite a few kids that used to come around on Saturdays and we used to go after, really go after. No referees there.”

In 1951, he followed in his uncle’s footsteps and joined Canadian Armed Forces and served as a paratrooper in the Korean War. Upon returning to Canada, Petit remained with the army and maintained to work at boxing and eventually found himself fighting competitively.

His hard work paid off, becoming a five-time Canadian Army heavyweight boxing champion between 1958 and 1963, and in 1964, became the only Canadian ever to win the British Army Heavyweight Boxing Championship, which earned him a spot in the Canadian Forces Sports Hall of Fame Honour Roll.

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He went on to continue boxing as an amateur, winning the Edmonton Golden Gloves four times, as well as the Vancouver and Billings Golden Gloves.

“The one in Vancouver was the one that kind of struck me,” he recalled. “They’re all talking that (my opponent) fought Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) at that time and I said, ‘What? I’m going in with this guy?!’”

Claude Petit during his days as an amateur boxer. (Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame)

Following his boxing career, Petit shared his love for the sport with others and helped grow the sport in Saskatchewan through his development of coaches, referees, and judges. He later became the recreation director of the Metis Society of Saskatchewan and set up boxing clubs for youth in Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert, Île-à-la-Crosse, Green Lake, and Meadow Lake, all of which were successful.

Petit went on to serve as the President of the Saskatchewan Boxing Association for nearly a decade and coached the sport competitively for Team Canada at international competitions in Denmark and in France in 1989 and 1990. He also officiated boxing at the first North American Indigenous Games held in Saskatchewan, hosted in Prince Albert in 1993.

His love for the sport continued his drive and led him to help bring the 1991 and 1994 Canadian Amateur Boxing Championships to Saskatoon. Outside of boxing, he founded the Western Canadian Native Minor Hockey Championships in 1987.

Petit was also a prominent leader in the Indigenous community, playing an essential role in creating the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument in Ottawa as well as the Aboriginal Veterans Millennium Medal. Additionally, he was a founding member of the organizing committee for Back-to-Batoche and stayed as a member for 23 years.

Claude Petit talking with Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the National Aboriginal Memorial in Ottawa in 2006. (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

“The Aboriginal Veterans (memorial) were to recognize them,” he explained. “My grandfathers on both sides, my mother’s dad got killed in France at Vimy Ridge in the First World War, but the thing is that they’re not recognized.”

For his commitments, Petit was named the Saskatoon Citizen of the Year in 1994, received the Order of Canada in 1998, and was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2002.

Petit has since been inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame as a Builder in 2014 and has a park named after him in the Dundonald neighbourhood of Saskatoon.

– With files from Sask. Sports Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, The Canadian Encyclopedia, and Windspeaker.com.

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logan.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @lloganlehmann