Filling the Ice House

Métis communities throughout the Homeland practiced a way of life that followed the seasons, nourishing themselves with what the lands and waters provided. 

Filling the ice house was an important spring tradition in many Métis communities to help store perishable foods for the warmer months ahead. Ice houses preserved meat, fish, vegetables, and grain throughout the warming spring months and during the summer heat and helped keep food away from hungry animals.

As winter turned to spring, families would chop blocks of ice from frozen waterways to fill their well-insulated ice houses. 

The small Métis fishing village of Killarney, on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, was one of many Métis communities that made use of this important food-related practice. As noted by one traveller to the region in the 1800s:

“There was a small shop, a fish-packing and ice house, two or three shanties, then a large tent occupied by a half-breed family, the father a fisherman, with sons who aided him, and two pretty daughters.”

While modern refrigeration has largely made ice houses a thing of the past, Métis communities across the Homeland continue using their resourcefulness and knowledge of the changing seasons to preserve as much of the harvest as possible.

See Our Sources

• The Georgian Bay: An Account of its Position, Inhabitants, Mineral Interests, Fish, Timber and Other Resources: Papers Read Before the Canadian Institute

• Five Fur Traders of the Northwest

• Métis Food and Diet

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