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Writer's pictureOntario Métis Facts

Sayer Family Pt. 1: Upper Great Lakes Roots


Growing up in the heart of the historic fur trade, the Sayer brothers—Henry, Pierre Guillaume, and John Charles—were part the emergent Métis kinship network that extended throughout west central North America.


Their father, John Sayer, was a trader who married Obemau-unoqua, an Indigenous woman, in the traditional manner known as à la façon du pays.


Born around Lake Superior between the 1780s and 1790s, Henry, Pierre Guillaume, and John Charles Sayer were raised within the bustling fur trade. Their father worked for years in the Upper Great Lakes, operating his own company and forming important alliances with Métis traders. This included Michilimackinac and Sault Ste. Marie—both important trade locations where Métis traders and their families congregated.


In 1793, the family moved to Fort St. Louis, the headquarters of the North West Company’s Fond du Lac department. This fort, located at the western point of Lake Superior in present day Wisconsin, was a key depot for goods and supplies. While there, John forged trade alliances with Jean Baptiste Perrault and Jean Baptiste Cadotte, whose Métis descendants—like John’s—later settled in the Upper Great Lakes, Red River, and beyond.


At Fort St. Louis, Henry, Pierre Guillaume, and John Charles Sayer were integrated into the trading world, learning from their father and visiting Métis traders who lived and worked throughout the Métis Homeland.


Surrounded by stories of the fur trade in the Upper Great Lakes, the Sayer children absorbed valuable knowledge that would later serve them in their careers. Each would go on to further deepen the rich trading and kinship networks across the Métis Homeland.


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