Métis Fishing and Resistance in Nipigon
- Ontario Métis Facts
- Jun 17
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 18
For generations, family fishing—including commercial fishing—has been an important component of the Upper Great Lakes’ Northern Lake Superior Historic Métis Community’s traditional Métis way of life, including for the numerous Métis families living around Lake Nipigon.
The Nipigon-area’s prominent Métis de Laronde family, for example, has practiced a Métis way of life rooted in the region’s lands and waters for generations. The de Laronde’s fishing traditions are immortalized in a 1901 painting by William Armstrong, entitled Miss Le Ronde, Hudson Bay Post, Lake Nipigon, which depicts a young de Laronde family member making fishing nets at the water’s edge near the HBC post.
These important Métis family fishing traditions continued around Nipigon into the twentieth century. Lake Nipigon Métis Association founder, Patrick (Paddy) McGuire, for instance, “started working for the Hudson’s Bay Company at age 14, but soon started working on the fishing boats of Lake Nipigon an occupation he pursued for close to four decades.”
Like in other Métis communities across the Homeland, attempted imposition of government fishing regulations would eventually spark collective organizing and resistance by Nipigon’s Métis families.
A November 24, 1969 Calgary Harold article about a national Métis leadership gathering, for example, describes the ultimately successful “radical tactics” used by the Lake Nipigon Métis Association after the Government of Ontario refused to grant them a commercial fishing licence. Within the piece, Lake Nipigon Métis Association representative, Mike McGuire, explained:
“Finally, when we’d tried everything, we told them: ‘if the lake isn’t going to be good for us, it isn’t going to be good for anybody…’ We told them we’d put lampreys in it and stuff like that.”
Despite their radical threats—made to protect Nipigon’s longstanding Métis fishery from “white ‘racist’ discrimination”—the McGuires and other Métis families in Nipigon have always retained a deep and driving commitment to conservation and the preservation of their region’s precious natural heritage for future generations.
Before his passing, for example, Métis Elder and Captain of the Hunt, Phil McGuire dedicated his final years to raising awareness about protecting spawning walleye mothers—taking time each year to lift them one-by-one over the dam at the Black Sturgeon River on Lake Superior, to ensure they could reach their spawning grounds.
Phil’s “Save the Mothers” campaign remains a testament both to his personal passion and conservation ethic, as well as his Métis community’s rich and enduring fishing traditions.
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