ONTARIO MÉTIS FACTS

Elizabeth Dusome was born in 1847 at Highland Point, “across the bay” from Penetanguishene into the large and deeply connected Métis family that had moved from the Red River to Georgian Bay in the Upper Great Lakes in the years before her birth.   As a “pioneer resident” of the region who grew up at a time when Penetanguishene was a “cedar swamp with a scattering of Indian wigwams and fishing shanties”, only a generation after much of the community had been relocated there fr

Angelique Langlade was one of the historic Georgian Bay Métis Community’s Métis matriarchs who, despite relocation from Penetanguishene to Drummond Island after the War of 1812, kept her Métis community’s spirit and memories alive. Later in her life, “at an advanced age” that not even she could remember, Langlade shared her memories with journalist A.C. Osborne. Identifying herself as a “half-breed,” and despite her limited command of the English language—a reality for many f

Born in Penetanguishene in 1846, Sophie Beausoleil’s life unfolded within the tight kinship networks of the Historic Georgian Bay Métis Community. Sophie’s father, Alexis Beausoleil, was a signatory to the 1840 Penetanguishene Halfbreed Petition, alongside other Métis community members from families such as the Longlades, Trudeau-Papanaatyhianencoes, Payette-DeValleys, Labattes, St. Onge, and Vasseur-Longlades. Sophie was one of eight children, all born in Penetanguishene. He