Marguerite Guilmond, the Métis matriarch of the well-known Métis Boissonneau family, was a Métis woman originally from the English River region in present-day Manitoba. As a young adult, Marguerite fell in love with Joseph Boissonneau. Joseph was born in Lower Canada in 1787 but eventually made his way westward—first to St. Joseph Island in the Upper Great Lakes before continuing farther west, where he met Marguerite. Marguerite and Joseph soon started a family together. By t

Métis communities throughout the Métis Homeland have vibrant and diverse ways of life grounded in the lands and waters that surround them. Each Métis community has developed unique food-based traditions that have sustained their families and livelihoods over generations. Small-scale farming and food growing, in particular, have taken on a varied and polarizing place both within and between Métis communities. For some, food growing has long been an important staple. For othe

Métis families across the Homeland have relied on their surrounding lands and waters to sustain themselves and their communities. Each passed down their rich place-based harvesting knowledge through stories and experiential learning. Many of these stories and the knowledge they contain have been told throughout Métis communities for generations. This includes the occasional cautionary tale. One such tale is that of Pierre (Louis) Rondeau, which was shared with journalist

The merger of the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821 marked a turning point in the fur trade. For Métis fur trade employees like Henry, Pierre Guillaume, and John Charles Sayer, the merger of the two companies brought uncertainty, as positions were reduced and once important trade routes shifted. Each of the Sayer brothers experienced and navigated this changing fur trade environment in their own way. At the time of the merger, for example, John Charles S

Many Métis communities across the Métis Nation Homeland had a distinctive way of building and designing their homes. Métis in the Upper Great Lakes, for example, including Sault Ste. Marie and Georgian Bay, generally lived in detached wooden houses built from cedar bark and logs. A home of the prominent Métis Cadotte family, for instance, located on Mackinaw Island, was described as, “Made of logs covered in cedar bark.” It is thought the materials used in these hou

Throughout the fur trade era, Métis employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company—such as Thomas Favill, Nicholas Chatelain, William Sinclair, William McKay, Bte. Jourdain, and Joseph Guimond—held numerous and diverse occupations in the Rainy Lake region. Métis workers often served as versatile jacks-of-all-trades alongside non-Métis apprentices, post-masters, and clerks. Diverse Métis occupations included fishery operations, net making, hunting, cutting cord-w