Draft:Brad Firth (Caribou Legs)

Brad Firth (1970 ? - ) is an Indigenous man who ran across Canada several times to raise awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. He is also known under the nickname Caribou Legs, and is recognizable due to impressive war paint on his face, and Indigenous regalia.

Firth is of the Gwich’in Indigenous Nation (First Nations) in Yukon, Canada. In 2016, he was said to be 46 years old, and running up to 90 km in one day, usually 60 km a day, crossing Canada on the Trans-Canada highway. He disappeared in 2019 and has not been seen since.

Biography

Firth had a tumultuous upbringing. He was apparently born in the Yukon, and raised by foster parents in Nova Scotia (Source needed).

Brad Firth may be related to the Firth twin sisters, Shirley and Sharon of 1970’s Olympic fame in cross-country skiing.

In his twenties and thirties, he lived in Vancouver’s East-Side neighbourhood, notorious for its users of hard drugs. In his forties, he was initiated to long-distance running, by a local man of Asian descent (source needed). He apparently stopped drugs thanks to long-distance running.

As of 2014, he starts to run solo across long parts of the country, eventually going coast to coast, running through communities and on roads where Indigenous women had been abducted, gone missing, or murdered. His runs are well documented on his Facebook page, and in local press. Eventually he got some national media attention .

During a run across the Rocky Mountains, Firth was hit by a transport truck, and suffered important injuries to his left arm. Surgery left him with a metal rod making his forearm much larger than normal (source needed).

Firth was often met with great anticipation in Indigenous communities, and was regularly invited to speak with students. Firth was regularly intercepted by police which he attributed to racism in Canada.

Running through Quebec towards the Maritimes, he met students at Dawson College, in Montreal in the fall of 2016. He then continued on highway A20, where police forced him off the highway. He ran towards Sorel, and then met Indigenous students at Kiuna Institution, an Indigenous college, in Odanak. While goofing off in a Trois-Rivières park, he attempted to run through a water fountain and sprained his ankle. He took a bus to Ottawa to heal at a friends’ house. Meanwhile, a Kiuna student, Miguel Coocoo-Chachai, ran on his behalf, with Firth’s regalia, to Quebec City – over three days. Firth met Coocoo-Chachai in Quebec City and proceeded to run towards the Maritimes .

Firth’s runs were not highly organized. He would ask for money on his Facebook page for new running shoes, or shelter. He often slept in parks, and refused any kind of corporate sponsorships.

Trouble with the law

Firth was found guilty of defaming his brother-in-law, over the causes of the death of his sister Irene Korte. She died in Yukon in February 2015 after a series of falls due to dizziness, which a coroner’s report found to be accidental. In 2016, Firth declared to several media that her death was not an accident, and that spousal abuse was involved. Firth’s other sister, Eliza Firth, contradicts this story. She contends that Irene was not a victim of spousal abuse, and that Brad’s allegations were very disturbing to the family. In 2017, Firth was ordered to pay 60,000$ to his late sister's husband, Raymond Gagnon, for defamation.

Missing

Brad Firth has disappeared since his last Facebook post on 29 May 2019.