John Saunders Pt. 1: A Fur Trade Childhood
- Ontario Métis Facts
- Jul 14
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 21
John Saunders was born in 1845 at Matawagamingue, a small inland Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) post located at Mattagami Lake.
John’s father, Valentine Saunders, had been born in Moose Factory on James Bay and had joined the HBC as a teenager. John was one of 18 children in a mobile Métis household that relied on hunting, fishing, and trading to sustain itself in remote areas.
Although Matawagamingue was the administrative centre of the Kenogamissi River District, it was tiny by Company terms—only a handful of HBC servants and families lived there at any time. Supplies came from distant Moose Factory and life at the post required the contributions of entire Métis families, like the Saunders.
In addition to teaching his children a self-sufficient way of life, rooted in the lands and waters, Valentine Saunders raised John and his siblings to hold deep community-focused values that would later come to define John’s life and leadership within the Métis world and beyond. In the winter of 1848, for example, Valentine Saunders’ resilience and generosity in the face of personal hardship were commended by an HBC postmaster:
“For poor Valentine notwithstanding his numerous and needy family has presently given Tom both fish and hares when he would not procure them himself.”
At just nine years old, however, after living at Flying Post for a short time following his father’s transfer within the Company, John made the 500-mile canoe journey north to live with his grandmother in Moose Factory to begin the next chapter of his life.
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