ONTARIO MÉTIS FACTS

Métis couple, Annie McDonell and Walter Ferris, were married on July 28, 1864, in the Mattawa region. Annie McDonell was born around 1844 in Moose Factory to Mary Ann (nee McKay) and Alexander McDonell, a lifelong Métis Hudson’s Bay Company employee whose career and connections spanned the Métis Homeland, including the Swan River, Lac la Pluie, and Abitibi Inland regions. By 1848, Annie and her four siblings had relocated to the Mattawa region with their parents, where they b

On May 18, 1870, John Saunders married Frances Swanson in Moose Factory. Their union of proud Métis families both reflected and continued to strengthen the enduring kinship networks of their Métis fur trade community in the Abitibi Inland region.  Frances herself came from a Métis fur-trading family, making the union of the two families a continuation of a familiar way of life shaped by shared work, culture, and community ties. John Saunders was born in 1845 in Matawagamingue

In 1847, Michel Toussaint Sayer married Marguerite Biron, uniting two prominent and proud Métis families within the historic Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community. Michel Toussaint Sayer was born around 1821 in Red River to Henry R. Sayer and Mary Cameron. While Michel Toussaint was a child, their family returned to the Upper Great Lakes where his father’s family was from. As an adult, Michel Toussaint worked as a postmaster for the Hudson’s Bay Company and, following his marriage