The Métis of Rainy Lake and Rainy River—known today as the Northwestern Ontario Métis Community—are one of the many distinct Métis communities that emerged along the major waterways of west-central North America during the last decades of the 1700s.
Owing to its unique geography, Lac La Pluie (Rainy Lake) became a vital hub in the North West Company’s expansive fur trade network. Located near the height of land midway between the fur-rich Athabasca region and North West Company headquarters in Montreal, canoe brigades from both directions could complete a round-trip journey to Rainy Lake in a single season, returning home before the winter freeze-up.
As a transportation and commerce hub, Rainy Lake became a location for relationship building and deep intercultural exchange, for generations.
Even after the North West Company’s merger with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821, Rainy Lake remained a district headquarters and home to a large company workforce. This was increasingly offset by a growing number of locally born “freemen” who were not employed directly by the HBC, but who were relied upon by the HBC for their knowledge of the territory and ability to deliver essential goods and services, from food provisions to language interpretation.
By the mid to late 1800s, a distinctive Métis community emerged “in the shadows of the HBC post” in what is now Northwestern Ontario. This community included the inter-connected Métis populations “in and around: Lac La Pluie (Fort Frances); Rat Portage (Kenora), Eagle Lake (Dryden/Wabigoon) and Hungry Hall (Rainy River). The Lake of the Woods area includes Rat Portage, White Fish Lake, Northwest Angle, Wabigoon and Long Sault”.
In addition to a distinct economic identity, the historic Northwestern Ontario Métis Community was extensively inter-connected through kinship connections such as marriage, as well as godparenting and witnessing relationships. The community formed its own settlements, elected its own leaders, and collectively advocated for its own political interests.
The Northwestern Ontario Métis Community also maintained deep marital and economic connections with other Métis communities and families across the Métis Homeland.
In addition to their own strongly held Métis identity, the Northwestern Ontario Métis Community also gained recognition as a distinct place-based Métis collectivity by Europeans and First Nations alike—eventually signing the 1875 Treaty 3 Half-Breed Adhesion as a distinct Métis collective.
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