This article is part of an ongoing series of stories by ICT examining the complicated issues of Indigenous identity.
Miles Morrisseau
ICT
The Métis people have been intertwined with the creation of Canada since the country’s inception.
Louis Riel, a Canadian politician and Métis leader, formed the provisional government for Manitoba in 1870 to become the fifth province in the fledgling Canadian Confederation formed in 1867.
Within the Manitoba Act was protection of minority language rights, which in Manitoba at the time was English, and instructions for the Canadian government to make a treaty with First Nations people. Treaty 1 was signed in 1871.
Laura Forsythe, a Métis historian and associate professor at the University of Winnipeg, says that the contribution of the Métis people has long been ignored or forgotten, cast aside after Riel was hanged as a traitor for leading an uprising.
“We underestimate the power of Louis Riel and the provisional government,” Forsythe told ICT. “We forget that, at that time, that America wanted to expand beyond the 49th parallel. We forget that there are many nations not wanting to become part, or many people not wanting to become part of Canada itself. It was really Louis Riel and his provisional government that was made up of everyone that lived here in Winnipeg and in this area, who came together, who created the list of rights to say, ‘Yes, we want to be part of you, but these are some of the things that we demand.’”
Forsythe, an acknowledged expert on Métis history, said she gained the knowledge by looking at her own history, her own identity and what it meant to be Métis.
“My understanding when I was a little kid of what that meant was really flawed,” Forsythe said. “I would always say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m English, I’m French, and I’m Indian.’ …That was my understanding, and a widely accepted understanding of Métis in the 1980s.”
The Métis are among the three legally recognized Indigenous peoples in the Canadian Constitution, which also includes First Nations and Inuit.The Métis are descendants of First Nations people and Europeans who moved into their area around Manitoba.
A distinctive identity
For students in the Canadian school system, the story of the Métis was short and simple.
“In K-12 education, you learned that your people essentially were defeated when Louis Riel was hung in 1885,” Forsythe said. “That was kind of the end of the Métis story as far as our education system is concerned.”
She did not see herself with a distinctive identity and history beyond being mixed. When she began her own investigation into her personal history, she began to see her people’s history.
“My ancestor Joseph fought in the Victory at Frog Plain, or also known as the Battle of Seven Oaks, or the Massacre of Seven Oaks, in 1816. He was there,” Forsythe said, referencing the first time the blue-and-white Infinity flag of the Métis was flown in battle.
“That’s one of the markers of our people,” she said. “That’s when the nation became a nation. We fought under one flag against the colonial government. And so that person is in my genealogy, I can see that my connection to the Red River goes beyond just being here in this space.”
She also found that her family had scrip — the documents that promised land to Métis families to settle the constitutional requirement of 1.4 million acres of land for the Métis people that was part of the Manitoba Act 1870. It was nearly impossible, however, for Métis to get land and to date there is no Métis land in the province.
Forsythe can also trace her lineage back to Rooster Town, a Métis community that flourished while the city of Winnipeg grew around it. In the 1950s, the city conspired with local media to drive the Métis families out, which ended when the last houses in the community were bulldozed and destroyed in1960. It’s a history that the City of Winnipeg has acknowledged as part of its reconciliation efforts.
Forsythe wants her students to learn a more detailed and definitive story of the Métis and not the limited version that still is widely taught in Canada.
“This evening’s class was a class called, ‘Beyond Riel,’” she said, “bringing Métis content into the classroom, because we understand that there is this misconception of who the Métis are and what are their experiences collectively here in the Red River Valley, that make them a people, a distinct people with their own languages and their own culture and practicing various realms of spirituality here.”
Forsythe says though her people may have been burdened by their history in the creation of Canada they will be a significant part of the country’s future.
“I think that people are underestimating us as a nation,” Forsythe said. “We’re the fastest-growing nation, Indigenous nation in Canada and largely because people are feeling pride to come back to the nation. Of course, there’s also those who are misidentifying themselves. But every year, thousands of people are applying to the Manitoba Métis Federation and are being granted a citizenship card, because their roots truly do come from this place and space.”
Connection to community
David Morin, director of culture and heritage at the Gabriel Dumont Institute in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, said he did not see his own people’s stories and history, either, when he was in school.
The institute was created in 1980 with the goal to “promote the renewal and development of Métis culture through research; materials development, collection, and distribution; and the design, development, and delivery of Métis-specific educational programs and services.”
The institute is working to spread the word, he said.
“Growing up, I did not see Métis stories on the bookshelves in our school libraries,” Morin told ICT. “So our department, like the publishing program, started in 1985 and we’ve published well over 300 resources on Métis history and culture. Since then, a large focus has been children’s books, getting our stories told to the youth so that they can see themselves on those school bookshelves.”
For Morin, it is important to recognize that being Métis is not about mixed blood but about being connected to the Métis community.
“It doesn’t mean that I’ve got 50 percent First Nations blood or 50 percent European,” he said. “It is about being a part of the community, reaching back to Red River when the Métis Nation was born. That’s our homeland, because we were a part of the growth of Canada.”
He continued, “We moved from Red River. We moved out to Alberta, to North Dakota, Montana. So the Métis nation spread throughout Western Canada, a little bit into the northern United States.”
In 2002, the Métis National Council adopted a definition of Métis that was accepted by its members, which at that time included the Métis representative organizations from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
The definition states that Métis is 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.”
It was the Métis ability to take from their First Nations roots and European roots that defined the people.
“The Métis were adaptable and are adaptable, and used the tools that they had at hand to be innovators, like with the Red River cart,” Morin said, referring to a two-wheeled cart the Métis used in hunting and carrying furs. “Finding a tool that can be used to transport hundreds of pounds of furs and animals in a way that could be easily repaired when you’ve got hundreds of carts on the trail, following the bison.”
The sash is another identifier that was adopted into the Métis culture. It was first seen in Assumption Quebec but became adopted by Métis people. The woven sash is now used as a belt, among other uses, and is a recognizable part of Métis dress.
“They made it their own, being the children of the voyagers and coming up in the fur trade and having your family’s finger weave sashes with the material they had on hand,” Morin said. “So you can tell that a certain family had distinct sashes … but then it definitely became a symbol of the nation pretty quickly.”
Looking ahead
The Métis identity continues to evolve with representative organizations like the Manitoba Métis Federation adopting an identity as “Red River Métis.” In Alberta, the Métis Nation of Alberta has recently rebranded as the Otipemisiwak Nation.
“Otipemisiwak means ‘the people that govern themselves’ and this change happened in October of 2023,” Andrea Sandmaier, resident of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government, told ICT. “Otipemisiwak was a name given to us by our Cree kin and we embrace this name because it embodies our peoplehood, freedom, and independence as well as our personal and collective sovereignty.”
The 2023 general election was the first under the new governance structure outlined in the Otipemisiwak Métis Government constitution.
“The Métis Constitution was ratified with approval from nearly 97 percent of citizens in what was the largest voter turnout in Canadian Indigenous history,” Sandmaier said.
Morin said the evolution of Métis identity continues to be intertwined with Canada, past and present.
“The Métis have a role in shaping the country to be what we need it to be and recognizing the value that the Métis bring to the world view of Canada,” Morin said. “Canada exists as it does today because of the Métis.”