The Killarney Historic Métis Community is part of the broader Upper Great Lakes Métis Community, situated at the entrance of the North Channel on the northeast side of Georgian Bay.
References to a distinct “half-breed” population in Killarney appear in the historic record as early as 1836. In that year, a steamship captain passing through stayed at the Lamorandiere home, where he, “danced away to the merry sound of the fiddle, with the gay and lively half-breeds.”
In 1838, Métis in Killarney voiced concerns about their fishing rights to a travelling priest on the north shore of Lake Huron. This priest later wrote on their behalf to the Lieutenant-Governor:
“I had repeated and earnest solicitations from the Half Breeds… to use my best endeavours to obtain for them and their families the same privileges and advantages as the pure Indians have acquired by their arrangement made with Sir Francis Bond Head…and the permission to fish in the waters which wash the shore…”
In 1857, a published guidebook, Upper Lakes of North America, noted that in Killarney there was, “a convenient steamboat landing, a church, a store, and some ten or twelve dwellings, inhabited by Canadians and half-breeds.”
Killarney’s Métis population remained significant into the 1870s. The 1871 Census, for example, recorded a group of Métis families in Killarney. These included members of the Lamorandiere, Solomon, Rocque, Proulx, and Pilon families.
In 1875, a travelling Jesuit priest also described the “little half-breed village” at Killarney.
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