Celebrating Métis Week - Starting off with our History
- auindigenousstuden
- Nov 15, 2025
- 5 min read
Between November 15-22 the AU Indigenous Student Alliance is celebrating Métis week through a series of posts highlighting the history, culture and presence of Métis people. On November 22 we will gather for a fun game testing our knowledge, gifting prizes and connecting as AU students and alumni! All answers from the game will be within these posts, so come back each day to take a read and RSVP on our eventrbite page.
This is a short overview of Métis history, which can barely touch the surface of how the Métis came to be, what has been experienced and endured and what it means to be Métis. This post honours and acknowledges the vast history and the stories that it cannot contain in words.
Who are the Métis people?
The Métis people represent a unique blending of peoples and cultures, who as a result hold specific traditions and a cultural identity.
Mixed-ancestry children of First Nations peoples and Europeans (including English, French and Scottish)
As European settlers came to North America and the fur trade became a major economic trade, more intermarriages between them and the First Nations people occurred across the land.
In some instances, these were encouraged in order to assimilate the First Nations people to European settler ways, and to strengthen alliances as the English and French increasingly fought for control over Turtle Island (Dickason, 2001).
Many Métis men acted as cultural brokers and translators, and many Métis women were encouraged to marry while also providing invaluable survival knowledge and skills (Foster, 1987; Frideres & Gadacz, 2015).
Métis women also held a connection of carrying on the knowledge of medicines and remedies from the land, learned from their First Nations mothers and grandmothers (Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research, n.d.).
Over time the Red River area in what would eventually be Manitoba, became a hub of the fur trade and Métis identity. A distinctive culture and collective identity developed more including the highly organized buffalo hunt which supplied settlers, mixed ancestry/Métis and First Nations people with food, pemmican and hides (Berger, 1981). The buffalo hunt was guided by strict laws and protocals and people were punished if breaking them.
Importantly, the Métis and First Nations people knew the importance of right relation with the land and did not overhunt. The decimation and extinction of the buffalo came with the growing demand and lack of respect from settlers and the push for economic gain and control over the land (Berger, 1981).
Around the Great Lakes, similar mixed-ancestry communities occurred around fur trade routes (Peterson, 2014). Because the Métis people of this region were not able to establish a more settled community, they were pushed to choose loyalties, and/or were further assimilated, as American settlers and European settlers flooded the area, driven by the Canadian government's push for economic and political holdings (Peterson, 2014).
The Métis Sense of Community was Strong and Welcoming
Despite the misinformation in some texts and historical accounts, most Métis honoured their mixed and blended identities, holding good relations amongst religious, cultural and kinship differences.
A fact that is demonstrated in the unique language of the Métis, Michif, which has elements of various Indigenous languages and English, Gaelic, Irish, Scottish and French.
Marriage records (going back to the 1800s) also show evidence of mixed marriages between people of various ancestry (Spry, 1985), reflecting that the colonial ideas of forcing people to choose a side were not as present or important.
The cooperation during the highly organized buffalo hunts, sharing churches, schools and celebrations all reflect how the Métis people were more accepting of each other, despite complicated ancestry and politics. They also protested together and worked together during the different rebellions and challenges to the government (Spry, 1985).
The Métis pushed back against colonization
The Métis, like First Nations people did not agree to the transfering of Rupert's Land/ Turtle Island to the Crown or what was to become the Canadian government.
As the influence and strength of the collective Métis identity and political force grew, especially in the Red River area, the Canadian government began pushing back, aiming to reduce the Métis claims to land and rights and force identification as ‘Indians” or ‘Canadians’ (Frideres & Gadacz, 2015).
The Métis, having grown up with settlers, sent to schools and skilled at walking in between worlds despite discrimination, set up provisional governments, voted on actions and pressured the Crown and government to acknowledge their rights. They worked within the colonial legal and government systems AND rebelled on the land.
The Manitoba Act forced the Red River people to take whatever land was parcelled to them, or have nothing. As the buffalo were dwindling, and the land was being held for settlers, Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and countless other including Métis and First Nations allies began rebelling more
eventually the government sent 3,000 troops, with gifts and food to bribe the First Nations and Métis people to stop rising up. It took 2 months but the government defeated the rebellion, executed Louis Riel and was able to continue its assimilation policies.
The result was a mass spread of poverty and racism, much like our First Nations kinspeople. Many Métis had to suppress their identities to survive and find a place to live (Frideres & Gadacz, 2015, Gaudry, 2023). Métis people across Turtle Island had to increasingly choose between assimilation or picking a side, effects which have rippled across generations to today, as many never knew their ancestry or have had to rediscover pieces amidst a loss of culture, family history and belonging.
Today, there are over 624,220 Métis across Canada, with and without official membership to a Métis nation (Statistics Canada, 2021). In fact in the 2021 census, only 33% of people who identify as Métis are registered under a membership (Statistics Canada, 2021). What colonial labels cannot erase are the longstanding ties across time to First Nations and European peoples. A blending of backgrounds that is connected to the land and ancestry of Turtle Island.
References
Berger, T. R (1981). Louis Riel and the new nation. In Fragile Freedoms: Human rights and dissent in Canada, pp. 26–57, 267–268. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company Ltd.
Dickason, O.P. (2001) “One nation” in the northeast to “new nation” in the northwest: a look at the emergence of the métis. In Peterson, J., Brown, J, S.H. (Eds). The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Métis in North America (pp. 19–36). The University of Manitoba Press.
Foster, J.E. (1978), The Métis: the people and the term. Prairie Forum, 3(1), 79-90.
Frideres, J. S., & Gadacz, R. R. (2015). Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (9th ed.). Pearson Education Canada. https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9780134480862
Gabriel Dumont Institute of Native Studies and Applied Research (n.d.).
Gaudry, A. (2023). “Métis”. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 31, 2024, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/Métis
“History”. (n.d.). Métis Nation of Alberta. Retrieved March 31, 2024, from https://albertaMétis.com/Métis-in-alberta/history/
Peterson, J., Brown, J, S.H. (2014). Many roads to Red River: Métis genesis in the Great Lakes region, 1680-1815. In The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Métis (pp. 37-71). University of Manitoba Press.
Spry, I, M. (1985). The métis and mixed-bloods of Rupert’s Land before 1870. In Peterson, J., & Brown, J, S.H. (Eds.). The New Peoples: Being and Becoming Métis (pp. 203–228). The University of Manitoba Press.
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