Métis culture celebrated at community feast

Since Fort Frances is made up of a blend of rich cultures and diversity, residents joined together here Friday evening to celebrate the culture of the Métis with a dinner, story-telling, and music.
The second in a series of evenings to celebrate Fort Frances’ cultural communities, Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Ken Boshcoff hosted the well-attended event, known as the “Proud to be Canadian” community feast.
“We continually embrace the best of the newcomer’s culture and share with them the ability to find their way in this great country,” Boshcoff noted as the evening began.
“Understanding the stories of our cultural segments is to understand the story of Canada. . . . Tonight is a tribute to Métis culture—a culture with deep roots in the history and development of Canada,” he added.
According the Statistics Canada, said Boshcoff, there are 920 people in Rainy River District who consider themselves to be of Métis descent, with over 450 registered as Métis Nation of Ontario citizens with Sunset Country Métis.
Before the meal began, local singer/songwriter Sandra Allan, a proud member of the Métis Nation, sang the national anthem. Gord Calder, a senator with Sunset Country Métis, said grace.
Following the delicious meal, Boshcoff offered up some history of the Métis nation.
“To understand how, and why, the Métis people evolved in Canada, and the Fort Frances area, it helps to understand what was happening at that time in our history as Canada was developing into the country we all know and love.
“The simple explanation is the fur trade,” Boshcoff explained.
“The word Métis has origins in the Latin, Spanish, and French cultures,” he continued. “Métis has evolved to mean people with a mixed heritage. It’s not an explanation of an unpure blood, but a celebration of a new people.”
Boshcoff said most of the early European voyageurs arrived in Canada as single sailors. They eagerly took First Nations women as their “country wives,” and shortly afterwards, Métis children were born.
“These early Métis people enjoyed some real advantages,” he noted. “They had the knowledge of the land and how to survive from their mothers. They had the knowledge of the fur trade, and often the ability to read and write from their fathers.”
Boshcoff explained the Métis also were continuously noted for their merry-making.
“Dancing was a favourite form of recreation,” he remarked. “They combined the intricate footwork of the First Nations’ people with the Scottish and French jigs, reels, and square dances.
“The music was mainly Celtic, with some Acadian blended in, and with the fiddle as their main instrument.”
A few people from the local Métis community were invited to demonstrate the Red River Jig, then Darryl Allan, a talented historian, told the story of the Métis origins in Rainy River District and some of the Allan family history.
“The first explorer to reach this area was Jacques de Noyon in 1688,” he said. “It is interesting to note that the native people that he found here at the time were primarily Cree and Assiniboine—not Ojibway.”
Allan noted the Ojibway people came to dominance in the district between 1688 and 1731.
“It was in the 1730s, 275 years ago, that the presence of Europeans in this area became a more regular occurrence,” Allan said.
“The early explorers were followed by the great fur trade companies. The main fur companies—Northwest Company and Hudson Bay Company—were to contest for supremacy in the vital Rainy River area, with the Hudson Bay Company finally coming out on top.”
Allan told the story of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother (George Constantine Allan and Mary Jane Calder) who married in 1877. Calder was a Métis woman.
“The children and grandchildren of George and Mary Jane Allan have many ties to the Métis community through marriage to other families, including the Jourdains and Tuckers and Crowes,” Allan stated.
He also added some historical background about the famous leader Louis Riel, noting there is a little known connection to Riel in the area.
“His Métis father, Jean Louis Riel, worked for the Hudson Bay Company here in the Lac la Pluie District as it was known,” Allan indicated. “He joined the Hudson Bay Company in 1838 and left our area in 1842—two years before his famous son was born.”
At one time, noted Allan, the Ontario government took the position that “there are no Métis in Ontario,” “either you are Indian or white.”
“Many Métis proceeded to choose one half of their ancestral identity and reject the other. They did not really fit in to either culture,” he stressed.
Clint Calder, president of the Sunset Country Métis, also shared his story which particularly dealt with how he didn’t feel he fit in.
“All I knew was that I didn’t feel that I fit in anywhere,” he said, adding he didn’t even realize he was Métis until he was in his 40s.
“I wasn’t white and I wasn’t First Nation. What I didn’t know was that I had a rich culture and history of my own.”
Calder explained it is his understanding that the original Calder ancestor came from northern mainland Scotland, where it was common for men to sail to Orkney for work.
“Although records are sketchy, and family research is a work in progress, we know that we Calders all trace our roots to the union of my great-great-great-grandparents, John Calder (from Orkney) and an unnamed Cree Indian princess.
“Although the date of their marriage in unknown, it is thought to be in the early 1800s,” he said.
Calder noted after 1870, there was social humiliation of the Métis and they fled the Red River settlement and either headed west or, in the case of his ancestors, came to Rainy River District.
“They were searching to recreate what they once had in the Red River settlement.”
Calder said his ancestors shared their considerable talents in the community, with his great-grandmother, Nancy, one of just two nurses and midwives in the district.
“Eight generations of the Calder clan have lived in the Fort Frances area [which includes Couchiching],” he noted. “Some surnames of these descendants include Tucker, Crowe, Gill, Connor, Hill, Hickerson, McKelvie, Kropelin, Woods, LaFrenier, Gosselin, McLeod, Lipinski, and Armit.”
After Calder spoke, Sandra Allan shared a Métis song that she wrote especially for the celebration, entitled “Proud to be Métis.”
Local Métis Gary Lipinski also gave a presentation of the ongoing story of the Métis people.
“Some of the challenges we face are not unique to the Métis community,” he remarked. “We’re worried about out-migration. The young people leave the area to become educated and then it’s hard to get them back.”
But he added some are coming back to the district with success stories, which he is happy to see.
“Our future is very bright,” he stressed.
“The Métis people of our area have integrated fully into the mainstream of society and have helped to form the backbone of our community in all roles,” Fort Frances Mayor Roy Avis said while making a presentation to the Métis community members.
“In Fort Frances, the Métis have been hard working, tax-paying citizens who have pitched in to help throughout the years, and yet don’t ask for appreciation in return.
“Tonight we would like to recognize your contribution with gratitude,” he said.
Boshcoff also made presentations to members of the local Métis community.
“We would like to recognize that there have been unfortunate social and political injustices directed toward the Métis people,” he indicated.
“In spite of the difficulties you have endured, you have filled many key roles with quiet confidence, wisdom, and tenacity and have helped to build our Rainy River District.”
The evening then was rounded out with Métis music, jigging, and merry-making with help from John Faith, Jim Avis, Bill McEvoy, Wes Debungie, Justin Boshey, Wes Morriseau, Tony Marinaro, and Elmer Whitefish.
“The event was excellent and sold out for the second-straight year,” added Boshcoff. “The Métis history in Canada is something the Métis people can be very proud of, and community members gained a great deal of respect for.
“Some of the challenges the Métis people have faced through the years were unknown to many,” he concluded. “It was interesting to watch the jigging and square dancing, and see the sheer joy on the faces of the people involved.
“I can see why the Métis are known for their merry-making. It’s a fun culture.”
Last year’s “Proud to be Canadian” community feast highlighted the local Ukrainian culture.