Weekly Word Search: Apr 28 - May 2, 2025
- Ontario Métis Facts
- May 3
- 8 min read
Updated: May 21
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“den he freeze, mon Dieu!”
The annual spring thaw brought additional challenges and unpredictability for Métis mail carriers in the Upper Great Lakes, whose winter mail routes regularly traversed the frozen lakes and rivers.
Quickly changing snow and ice conditions often led to difficult—sometimes life-or-death—decisions, especially when Métis mail carriers found themselves far from shore. The immensity of these decisions was further heightened when they found themselves accompanied by less experienced and knowledgeable travellers.
Retired Upper Great Lakes Métis mail carrier, Louis Miron, recounted one such fateful event, later in his life, about an early spring mail run on which he was transporting a young John Egan to Sault Ste. Marie after making a promise to John’s father, and found himself on thin slushy ice far from shore:
“We were crossing the lak den and der had been a heavy thaw, and altho’ it was now 40 degré below zero, yet under the snow the water was still unfroz’ and er’ tam you plant your snowshoe it go ‘way down and you see de slush underneath.”
Miron’s deep knowledge and experience on this mail route told him it was time to calmly turn back and seek safer conditions. The inexperienced Egan quickly panicked, however, creating a life-or-death situation for both men, as well as for a third traveller who quickly abandoned Miron and Egan to the elements:
“Well I turned and go back, and wad you tink I foun? Why dat faller John when he couldn’t kep up wid us had just taken off his snowshoes to run and of course ever’ step he took he went down deep into de slush and den he freeze, mon Dieu!”
Despite the personal risks, Miron was committed to keeping the promise he made to Egan’s father and decided to stay with and care for him until they could finish their journey together:
“his feet were froze, his hand were froze, his face wus hard, he was all froze when I find him, an so I took him back to de islan’ we was just pass and light a big fire of pine and cedar and mak de big cup of tea and try to thaw him oud again.”
Thanks to Miron’s knowledge, compassion, perseverance, and calm decision-making, both men survived this harrowing early spring ordeal and eventually made it safely to their destination—just as Miron had promised.
Click here to view the original story and sources.
“Métis Nation of Ontario Recognized”
In November 1993, the Métis Nation Executive of the Métis National Council formally recognized the Métis Nation of Ontario as the “representative organization of the Métis people in Ontario.”
This recognition came just weeks after the MNO’s founding was announced on October 20, 1993—coincidentally, the same week that Métis harvesters Steve and Roddy Powley were charged with illegally hunting a moose in Sault Ste. Marie. A decade later, these events ultimately led to the Métis Nation’s landmark Métis rights victory at the Supreme Court of Canada.
In a press release issued on November 8, 1993, then-Métis National Council President Gerald Morin celebrated the MNO’s achievement on behalf of the Métis Nation, saying:
“Forming an organization for Métis people exclusively in Ontario is an exciting development… They will now have the means to stand on their own in dealing with critical issues such as Métis enumeration in Ontario… This is a bold and historic step and fundamental to self-government. We congratulate the Métis Nation of Ontario and give them our full support.”
The MNC’s formal November 1993 endorsement of the Métis Nation of Ontario built upon decades of Métis Nation recognition of and collaboration with historic Métis communities in what is now Ontario. This included their inclusion in Métis Nation Homeland maps developed prior to the MNO’s founding and the participation of delegates from Métis communities in Ontario during the Charlottetown Accord process in the early 1990s.
In 1994, the Métis Nation of Ontario was formally accepted as a Métis National Council Governing Member alongside the Manitoba Métis Federation, Métis Nation – Saskatchewan, and Métis Nation of Alberta.
This history of recognition and numerous other acts of Métis Nation solidarity were highlighted in the Final Report of the Métis National Council’s Expert Panel, which once again affirmed that the seven historic Métis communities in northern Ontario “form an integral part of the Métis Nation and its Homeland.”
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“from the lakes and rivers of Ontario”
From the moment the Métis Nation of Ontario was founded 1993 and articulated its guiding aspirations in its Statement of Prime Purpose, it has publicly asserted that the Métis Homeland extends westward “from the lakes and rivers of Ontario,” beyond those directly adjacent to the prairies in Northwestern Ontario.
The MNO’s founding 1993 description of the Métis Homeland mirrored that of the broader Métis Nation, as represented by the Métis National Council—which the MNO had not yet joined—that had recently published official documents, like the MNC’s Charlottetown Accord Backgrounder, which included a Métis Homeland map extending northeast to Moose Factory and southeast of Sault Ste. Marie to Drummond Island on Lake Huron, home of the Georgian Bay Métis Community prior to their relocation to Penetanguishene in 1828.
The MNO has also consistently asserted that the Métis Homeland does not extend east of Ontario into Quebec and the Maritimes, and that while many Métis citizens live today in southern Ontario, no historic Métis communities existed south of the Upper Great Lakes.
Since the Métis Nation of Ontario’s establishment and recognition by the Métis Nation as the “representative organization of the Métis people in Ontario” in 1993, it has steadfastly uplifted and represented Métis citizens who descend from historic rights-bearing Métis communities in northern Ontario, as well as Métis from more western reaches of the Homeland who live in Ontario today, not other individuals of mixed First Nations and European ancestry that do not descend from historic Métis communities.
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Count Me In!: A National Definition
As the landmark Métis rights case, R. v. Powley, based in the historic Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community in the Upper Great Lakes, worked its way through the courts, the Métis Nation—through the Métis National Council—collectively undertook several years of collaborative consultations, discussions, and debates to reach a shared National Definition for citizenship in the Métis Nation.
Creating a National Definition for Métis was an act of Métis Nation self-determination in preparation for the Powley case eventually being heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.
A paper entitled Count Me In!: A National Definition of ‘Métis’ for Enumeration and Registry, presented to delegates at a 1999 National Métis Rights Conference, led by the National Métis Rights Panel—which was chaired at the time by MNO President Tony Belcourt—described why creating a National Definition was of urgent and vital importance:
“If we can not agree on one definition to explain who we are, then the courts, in hunting and fishing, or land rights cases, will decide for us. Or the Government itself might try to define us all by itself, as it did with the status Indians… Because we can not control when the courts may decide on a definition, we should agree on a national definition as soon as possible.”
These consultations, collaboratively advanced by Métis Nation representatives from Ontario to British Columbia, ultimately led to the Métis National Council’s unanimous adoption of the 2002 National Definition shortly before R. v. Powley was heard by the Supreme Court. The National Definition affirmed that:
“Métis means a person who self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal peoples, is of historic Métis Nation Ancestry and who is accepted by the Métis Nation.”
Based on the understandings unanimously reached by the MNC General Assembly, MNC’s Co-Counsel in R. v. Powley, Clement Chartier, confidently asserted to the Supreme Court of Canada that: “The right to determine who is a member of the Métis Nation rests with the Métis people themselves… Sault Ste. Marie is part of the larger Métis Nation… The people who stand charged before you today are descendants of the historic Métis Nation.”
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“No… definition will be imposed”
In the years leading up to the landmark Métis rights case, R. v. Powley, being heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, the Métis Nation—through the Métis National Council (MNC)—undertook extensive consultations, discussions, and debates to reach a shared National Definition for citizenship in the Métis Nation. This work was led by the National Métis Rights Panel.
The National Métis Rights Panel was chaired by then-Métis Nation of Ontario President Tony Belcourt and included representatives from all MNC Governing Members, from Ontario to British Columbia.
Previously, under the 1993 Métis Nation Accord, the MNC had put forward a definition that narrowly described Métis as, “an Aboriginal person who self-identifies as Metis, who is distinct from Indian and Inuit and is a descendant of those Metis who received or were entitled to receive land grants and/or scrip under the provisions of the Manitoba Act, 1870, or the Dominion Lands Act, as enacted from time to time.”
This definition, which solely relied on government-issued scrip records as proof of Métis ancestry, was inconsistent with the Métis Nation’s position depicted in the Métis Homeland map included in the MNC’s Charlottetown Accord Backgrounder, which included regions of Ontario in which neither the Manitoba Act, 1870 or the Dominion Lands Act applied due to exclusionary Government of Canada policies that prevented Métis in Ontario from obtaining scrip, despite recognition by Crown officials that Métis in Ontario should be entitled to Métis scrip like their Métis relatives in the prairies.
In 2000, the MNC was also intervening in support of the Powley family and historic Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s fight for recognition at the Ontario Court of Appeal. In the MNC’s factum, MNC legal counsel Clement Chartier directly rejected the Government of Ontario’s argument that Métis rights and the Métis people are constrained to the Red River, saying:
“As well, the Appellant [the Government of Ontario] is wrong in stating the Metis Nation Accord definition ‘defined Metis exclusively in terms of Red River descendants.’”
With R. v. Powley at the centre of the Métis Nation’s rights agenda, lingering inconsistences—most notably, relying on scrip eligibility, which excluded the historic Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community from the earlier definition of Métis—needed to be addressed, so that all MNC Governing Members could enact a single consistent definition of Métis. As noted in a paper entitled Count Me In!: A National Definition of ‘Métis’ for Enumeration and Registry, presented to delegates at a 1999 National Métis Rights Conference, led by the National Métis Rights Panel:
“The MNC believes that since we are one Nation, we must have one definition. We must not let provincial boundaries split us up and weaken us in our struggle for our national rights.”
With these principles in mind, the Métis National Council recognized that “A National definition system will only work if all Métis are behind the idea” and committed to broad Métis Nation consultations toward a National Definition, so that, “Once these consultations have given the MNC enough information on a national definition, then the MNC will propose a national definition for approval by all the Provincial organizations. No Métis Nation definition will be imposed without agreement.”
