Eustache Lesage was born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1833.
In November 1849, at the age of only 16, Lesage, fellow Métis leader Charles Boyer, several dozen armed Métis men, and their Anishinaabe allies confronted operators of the Quebec Mining Company, roughly 100 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie.
Together, armed with guns, knives, and a cannon they had borrowed from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Métis and First Nations allies shut down the mine without bloodshed as an act of resistance against colonial encroachment on and exploitation of their shared territory.
After the Mica Bay Incident, Lesage became one of two Métis leaders who voluntarily surrendered themselves to Crown authorities to avoid violent escalation and bring their grievances into the colonial legal system. He was ultimately acquitted on procedural grounds.
Following the resistance at Mica Bay, Eustace Lesage became a farmer and married Melinda Schwink. Together, they raised a family of at least 14 Métis children. Between 1863 and 1870, the Lesage family moved back and forth across the St. Mary’s River between Ontario and northern Michigan (Sugar Island).
The Lesage family continued building relationships with other Métis families in Sault Ste. Marie and throughout the Upper Great Lakes, with Eustache’s descendants marrying into the Boissonneau, Corbiere-Nolin, and Sayer families, among others.
Eustache Lesage’s legacy of Métis leadership lives on through his descendants—including Steve and Roddy Powley, whose participation in the Métis Nation’s Hunt for Justice continued Eustache’s fight to protect Métis rights and led to the landmark Supreme Court decision, R v. Powley, over a century later.