An Agawa Bay Education

Métis children in the Upper Great Lakes consistently found ways to access formal education, including through correspondence schooling for the Métis families of Agawa Bay. Within these close-knit families along the shores of Lake Superior, children learned together while staying on the land and close to home. 

In her handwritten memories of childhood at Agawa Bay, Métis Elder Dolores Pinder (née Bussineau) described her experiences as an enthusiastic correspondence student and the challenges she faced with this type of learning.

“How it worked was by the 1st of Sept you were supposed to get your books and supplies along with your first 2 or 3 months of lessons. If we were lucky we’d get the books and lessons by the 1st of Oct, so as we all wanted to learn, we’d do our school work really fast, then we’d have to send them back to Toronto to be graded and finally by Christmas we’d get new lessons. It was very frustrating for kids who wanted to learn.”

Some Métis families who had been displaced from their River Lots after 1850 went on to rebuild their lives at Agawa Bay in the early 1900s. By the mid-1900s, they were once again threatened with dispossession of their homes by the Ontario government. Beginning in the 1960s, the Métis children were barred from accessing correspondence education, marking the first major sign of change in this small Métis village.

See Our Sources

• Dolores Pinder Photo Collection, Sault Ste. Marie Métis Heritage Centre

• Dolores Pinder Interview

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