While harvesting for food and furs occurred throughout the year around Northern Lake Superior, it took expert knowledge of the waters and lands to harvest throughout the notoriously harsh winters—knowledge that Métis, born and raised in the region, were well-equipped with. For instance, the 1858 Michipicoten post journal identifies six out of the post’s nine post harvesters as Métis. Like many fur trade posts, Michipicoten relied heavily on skilled Métis harvesters to conduc

Métis women played an essential role in provisioning the fur trade posts of the Abitibi Inland and western James Bay regions. Métis women from the Abitibi Inland Métis Community are documented hunting, trapping, and snaring a variety of birds and game, including geese, partridges, beaver, martins, and rabbits. Fishing—especially for whitefish—was common too. In addition to hunting, snaring, and fishing, Métis women actively participated in maple sugar production, as well as o

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

Like many Métis, the Métis of the Abitibi Inland and western James Bay regions began transitioning away from traditional fur trade occupations in the early 20th century. Many entered employment in new and rapidly growing regional industries such as the railroad and forestry. Despite these profound economic changes, hunting remained an integral part of life for the Abitibi Inland Métis Community. The continued practice and importance of the Abitibi Inland Métis Community’s tra

After the height of the fur trade, commercial fishing became a way of life for many Métis communities, including those in the Upper Great Lakes. Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s, records began referencing Métis or “Half-breed” fishermen along the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, particularly around Penetanguishene. The emergence of commercial fishing as a Métis way of life in the Upper Great Lakes is explored, among others, by Dr. Arthur Ray in An Economic History of the Robins

In letters, journals, and reports from the 1820s through the 1850s, missionaries, government officials, and Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) personnel frequently identified Métis people and families in the vicinity of Mattawa-area fur trade posts on the Ottawa River. Métis people in the Mattawa region were often documented and referred to by various names such as ‘bois brulees’ and ‘halfbreeds’. For example, in the journal of his 1821 tour of Canada, Lord Dalhousie, the new Governo