Family Resilience at Agawa Bay
- Ontario Métis Facts
- Dec 22, 2025
- 2 min read
The Métis families of Agawa Bay, along the shores of Lake Superior, share a rich and enduring history shaped by deep love, kinship, and a collective way of life.
For more than sixty years, these Métis families—the Davieauxs, Roussains, Bussineaus, and Mirons—lived closely together, building homes, raising children, and sustaining each other through hunting, fishing, and harvesting from the land and water. Their way of life was rooted in cooperation, shared responsibility, and the community resilience passed from one generation to the next.
Life at Agawa Bay was defined by community. Families supported one another through long winters and changing seasons, ensuring that children grew up surrounded by care, laughter, and shared experiences.
Late in her life, Dolores Pinder (née Bussineau), recalled a treasured childhood winter memory from Agawa Bay that reflects this closeness, describing how a beloved horse would pull a sleigh across the frozen bay while children from several families held on together:
“We used to go out on the frozen ice with him and 4 or 5 kids at a time would grab a rope off of the sleigh and away he’d go.”
Moments like these reveal how joy and connection were woven into everyday life.
In 1967, this beautiful way of life was disrupted when Métis families were forcefully displaced from Agawa Bay to make way for Lake Superior Provincial Park, and their homes that held generations of memories were destroyed.
Yet, even in the face of loss and injustice, the strength of Agawa Bay’s Métis families endured. Though the physical village was destroyed, the bonds between families could not be burned away. Through resilience and an unwavering commitment to one another, Agawa Bay’s Métis families carry their love, identity, and shared history forward, proving that true family resilience lives on long after place is taken away.
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