“a broken English patois… all their own”

Historic Métis communities in northern Ontario have been bound together by common history, culture, kinship, and political identity for generations. This includes a common language that has distinguished historic Métis communities from neighbouring peoples.

For example, the Georgian Bay Métis Community has been noted for and identified by its common language and distinct linguistic style for nearly two centuries. 

In his 1901 chronicles of the historic Georgian Bay Métis Community following its relocation from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene after the War of 1812, journalist A.C. Osborne “endeavoured to gather this story from the lips of the few survivors who migrated at the time”. Several of Osborne’s accounts highlight the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s common and unique language, that set it apart from other communities around them.

For example, on Métis matriarch Angelique Longlade, Osborne noted that, “Her command of English is very limited, but her mixed dialect is so picturesque and pointed that I am constrained to present it in her own words”.

In his own account, former Métis mail carrier and political advocate, Michael Labbate, spoke to Osborne about the origins of his Métis community’s distinct linguistic style, saying: “Nothing but French and Indian was spoken at Drummond Island. I learned English at Penetanguishene, where I first heard it spoken.”

Two decades later, in 1921, a visiting reporter from the Toronto Star similarly identified unique and common language as one of the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s distinguishing features: 

“Pinery Point is a wooded peninsula directly across the bay from Penetanguishene… Along its shores dwells a group of people half French and half Indian, isolated in location, distinct in habits and privileges, and fiercely resentful of intrusion on either. It is the origin of these picturesque metis or halfbreeds … they are almost all illiterate and speak a broken English patois which is all their own.” 

A century onward, the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s common language, way of life, and political identity were again recognized in the Métis National Council Expert Panel’s landmark Final Report which found that the Georgian Bay Métis Community “clearly meets the threshold and is a member of the Métis Nation” as per the National Definition and contemporary Métis governance, and “strongly satisfies each of the four Sash Threads of distinct Métis ancestry... and cultural distinctiveness even through the 20th century.”

See Our Sources

• The Migration of Voyageurs from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828

• “Strange Old Legends Surround Penetang”

• MNC’s Supreme Court Factum in Powley

• MNC Expert Panel Final Report

• Upper Great Lakes Submission to the MNC Expert Panel

• Threads of the Sash: Georgian Bay Historic Métis Community

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