Angelique Langlade was one of the historic Georgian Bay Métis Community’s Métis matriarchs who, despite relocation from Penetanguishene to Drummond Island after the War of 1812, kept her Métis community’s spirit and memories alive.
Later in her life, “at an advanced age” that not even she could remember, Langlade shared her memories with journalist A.C. Osborne. Identifying herself as a “half-breed,” and despite her limited command of the English language—a reality for many from Drummond Island—Angelique’s “simple but expressive style” of storytelling was so compelling that Osborne felt the need to present it almost verbatim.
Angelique’s rich sense of humour, in particular, shone throughout her recollections in the absurdities—big and small—that she pointed out in herself and the events of her life.
In one example of playful self-deprecating humour, the then-elderly Angelique Langlade couldn’t help poking fun at herself about her age—and perhaps her failing memory—in her broken English, saying: “I not know how old I be—ha-a—I no chicken—me.”
When she similarly couldn’t remember her exact age when her family was relocated from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene, Langlade playfully brushed it off, saying:
“I tink bout seven, ten, mebbe thirteen year ole when we come Pentang. Mebbe some day God tell me how ole I be when I die.”
Yet, Angelique’s humour enabled her to clearly recall a particular priest’s amusing mistake that left a particularly interesting mark on her family—two sisters with the same name:
“Ma fadder, mudder, Charlie, Louie, Pierre, two Marguerites, Angelique, dats me, an Delede, all come in big bateau from Nort shore. Priess mak mistak an baptise two Marguerites.”
Despite forced relocations, restrictive government policies, and countless personal hardships, Angelique Langlade’s rich sense of Métis humour remains one of the many enduring bonds that connects the Métis in the Upper Great Lakes to this day.
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