I forgot to mention earlier that between Solstice and the New Year we met a friend of R’s from O. for lunch (yum, yum … brunch at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver). His friend W. is Metis from Manitoba and worked for a time as an archivist on Metis history in Manitoba. I mentioned that my father’s family were from Manitoba - my paternal grandmother grew up in High Bluff, Man. (she was born in 1898 and from my recollections she was aware of her grandmother being present during her youth - apparently she had mauve coloured eyes and may have smoked a pipe!)
My paternal grandfather was raised in Swan River, Manitoba … I know that my great-grandfather arrived in Swan River (or Tent Town as it was called prior to the Canadian Pacific Railway depot being established) from Duntroon, a lovely tiny spot near Collingwood in 1897. However, I do not have much information about my maternal grand-mother’s history and how they ended up in High Bluff, Manitoba and when.
Given the information I do have I would expect that my maternal grand-mother’s family was already in the area when the Red River Rebellion took place. Without knowing this lineage W. said that I looked "smoked scotch" … that I had Indian/aboriginal blood. Love the term! Needless to say I spent the next day exploring the internet in terms of the history of High Bluff as well as Winnipeg area.
Sad to say I probably learned more on the internet in 5 hours about this era in Canadian history that I ever learned in school. I still have to email W. with the family names and parishes (High Bluff and the nearby Poplar Point in pre-1900 were called parishes) so that he can do a search vis a vis my possible Metis roots. Given his background as an expert on that area I will gladly delegate this task!
I will say that the Metis in Manitoba have done a lot of work in this area and their websites regarding history and geneology are excellent. Most Canadians either don’t know or forget that Winnipeg was the third largest city in Canada at the turn of the last century and the city was in the midst of a major boom (kind of like Vancouver and Calgary at the moment!)
I spent quite a bit of time looking at the archival photos that, if memory serves, are on the University of Manitoba website. Winnipeg was a major centre of arts and culture although all at the expense of the Metis population that far, far outnumbered the "settler" class (from various areas of the world) in the 1870s. I also read once that Gaelic was the third mother-tongue of Canada at the turn of the century but no doubt the speakers of some First Nations languages outnumbered Gaelic speakers (I probably read a settler document). All to say, you can meet a person for a two hour lunch and then spend a day involved in research. Almost a month later, it is still on my to do list to email W. to ask him to use his archivist sources to determine if I am "smoked scotch" or not!
The irony of this scenario is that R. looks a lot more stereotypically Metis than moi! Two of his cousins (on his mother’s side) also have a Metis appearance but R. doesn’t know this history either. His mother and her family was raised in the area north of Calabogie and west of Renfrew. Unfortunately his pal W. is not such an expert in terms of archival research regarding Ontario Metis so I am fortunate!
No doubt there are many, many Canadians that have Metis roots given the history of the country. Not many people can claim "pure laine" as they say in French regarding the ‘pure wool’ Francophone population in Quebec.
