The Abitibi Inland Métis Community was known for its distinctive building practices that drew upon both First Nation and European materials and techniques. These distinctive Métis building practices have been noted throughout the historical record.
Unlike their First Nations neighbours, who typically resided in tents or wigwams made of natural materials, members of the Abitibi Inland Métis Community were regularly recorded as living in detached wooden houses.
Métis homes, constructed from cedar bark and logs, reflected a coming together of traditional local materials with contemporary woodworking skills that many Métis developed while working for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Many members of the Abitibi Inland Métis Community also cultivated gardens around their homes.
In 1845, for instance, surveyor William E. Logan noted the Abitibi Inland Métis Community’s distinctive building practices and way of life: “There is a small quantity of cultivated land about the house...a few wooden houses in the vicinity...all inhabited by halfbreeds.”
Recognition of the Abitibi Inland Métis Community’s distinctive building practices persisted into the 1900s.
In 1900, for example, surveyors for Ontario’s Department of Crown Lands noted that the Métis “usually have huts or log-houses and show more thrift...with a little garden of potatoes, onions, etc.”
While also noting similarities in Métis and First Nations' ways of life, such as winter fur trapping, the surveyors noted Métis building techniques as a clear point of distinction between Métis and First Nations, who, “live in tents the most of the year, a few of them build teepee or wigwams in the winter, but most of them live in tents even in the winter.”
Distinctive building and homesteading techniques are just one example of a unique place-based Métis cultural identity and way of life that set the Abitibi Inland Métis Community apart from their European and First Nations neighbours.