Following their exclusion from the 1850 Robinson-Huron Treaty and despite Treaty Commissioner Robinson’s recognition that the Métis were in “free and full possession” of their lands, the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s families found themselves without government-recognized title and were forced to relocate from their River Lot homes. Over the next decade, town sites at Sault Ste. Marie were opened to Ontario settlers. As a result, by 1861, Sault Ste. Marie was swamped by

On October 21, 1850, Treaty Commissioner William B. Robinson formally submitted a petition to the Governor General, Lord Elgin, on behalf of the Métis of Sault Ste. Marie. Alongside the Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition, Commissioner Robinson provided a handwritten cover letter advocating for its just implementation, stating: “I will thank you to lay the accompanying paper before His Excellency the Governor General. They are those to which I alluded in conversation with His Exc

On October 21, 1850, Treaty Commissioner William B. Robinson delivered a petition to the Crown on behalf of the Métis community at Sault Ste. Marie seeking recognition and protections for their River Lot homes along the St. Marys River. The 1850 Sault Ste. Marie Métis Petition was penned following the advice Treaty Commissioner Robinson gave the Métis during the recent Robinson-Huron Treaty negotiations, after asserting he “had no power to give them free grants of land” as pa

Marie Anne Cadotte was born in 1789 at La Pointe on Lake Superior in the Upper Great Lakes to fur trader Michel Cadotte le Petite and his Ojibwe wife Charlotte Okapeguijigokoue. Growing up enmeshed in the thriving Upper Great Lakes fur trade, Marie Anne regularly interacted with travelers and traders from locations throughout the historic North-West on both sides of what is now the Canadian-American border, including her future husband, fur-trader Francois Xavier Biron. Marie

Elizabeth Dusome (nee Longlade) was the matriarch of a large community-minded Métis family whose service and connections have spanned generations. Elizabeth Longlade was born in 1859 into a large Métis family—eventually reaching ten siblings—within the richly interconnected Métis community at Penetanguishene. Elizabeth’s father, Louis Longlade, had been born on Drummond Island in 1816 and relocated to Penetanguishene with his parents, Charles—a War of 1812 veteran—and Josephi

The Métis Nolin family, originally from the Upper Great Lakes, have left a legacy across the Métis Homeland. This includes the Nolin sisters, Marguerite and Angelique. Marguerite and Angelique Nolin were the children of trader Jean Baptiste Nolin and his Métis wife, Marie Angelique Couvret. Raised on Michilimackinac, the birthplace of many Métis families in the region, the Nolins moved to Sault Ste. Marie in the late 1780s and quickly set down roots along the St. Mary’s River