Michilimackinac, or Mackinac Island, was “an eighteenth century nexus for the Great Lakes fur trade” where many Métis families like the Langlades, Cadottes, and Nolins emerged as leading families within the emerging Métis political consciousness in the Upper Great Lakes. Within that often male-dominated business world, Métis matriarch Madeline Laframboise was renowned for her entrepreneurial prowess and success. Laframboise was “a tall and commanding figure, and most dignifie

George Harvey was born on December 16, 1856 at Michipicoten on Lake Superior to a Métis mother, Jane Flett, and Scottish Hudson Bay Company employee, Alexander Harvey.  The next year, the Harvey family moved north to Moose Factory on James Bay, where the young George spent many of his formative years deeply engrained within the region’s bustling fur trade economy and growing Métis community.  In 1870, when George was just 13 years old, he was sent to Stromness in Scotland’s O

The Roussain family, from the historic Métis community at Sault Ste. Marie, have been prominent advocates and organizers throughout Métis...

After the War of 1812, the Nolin family began to expand their connections and influence westward beyond the family’s home at Sault Ste....

Charlotte Turner was born in Moose Factory, in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s (HBC) Rupert’s Land territory, on or about July 11, 1828....

By the time Pierre Guillaume Sayer retired from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1832, his family had grown and settled in Grantown (later...