How Kenneth Moore became the 1st Indigenous person in Canada to win Olympic gold

June is National Indigenous History Month. To celebrate our accomplishments, CBC Indigenous is highlighting First Nations, Inuit and Métis trailblazers in law, medicine, science, sports — and beyond.

If you won one of the highest honours in athletics, you'd likely display it for the world to see but that's just not who Kenneth (Ken) Strath Moore was, according to his granddaughter. 

"When my grandfather passed, I was 15 years old … I remember going through some cupboards and some drawers and pulling out a hockey sweater," said Jennifer Moore Rattray. 

That's when she found her grandfather's Olympic gold medal.

Moore was the first Indigenous person to represent Canada at the Winter Olympics, and the first Indigenous person in Canada to win an Olympic gold medal, in the 1932 Games at Lake Placid, N.Y. 

The first Indigenous person to win a gold medal at the Olympics was Jim Thorpe, from the Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma, in Stockholm in 1912. The first Indigenous person to represent Canada at the Olympics, in St. Louis, Mo., in 1904, was Peter Deer from Kahnawà:ke. 

Moore Rattray said it wasn't a secret that her grandfather was an incredible hockey player and had gone to the Olympics, but he was humble and it wasn't spoken about much when she was growing up. 

"It's the kind of person he was that he wouldn't have talked about this a lot," said Moore Rattray, who is a current member of the CBC's board of directors. 

Moore was born in 1910 on the Peepeekisis Cree Nation in Saskatchewan and was the third of eight siblings. 

His two older brothers were sent to residential school — one died in the care of Brandon Residential School and the other became sick at the residential school and died in a sanatorium. 

"Our family decided to leave the First Nation in order to be able to basically save my grandfather," said Moore Rattray. 

The family moved to Regina to avoid their other children being sent to residential school, and that's where Moore's sports career started.

Moore excelled in baseball, lacrosse, rugby, basketball, and speedskating, but was most passionate about hockey, according to his family. 

He played for the Regina Junior Hockey Association as a right-wing and was awarded a medal for sportsmanship. He earned a scholarship to Regina College (now the University of Regina) and played for the varsity team. He then joined the Regina Pats and scored the goal that won the team the 1930 Memorial Cup.