Marguerite Guilmond, the Métis matriarch of the well-known Métis Boissonneau family, was a Métis woman originally from the English River region in present-day Manitoba.
As a young adult, Marguerite fell in love with Joseph Boissonneau. Joseph was born in Lower Canada in 1787 but eventually made his way westward—first to St. Joseph Island in the Upper Great Lakes before continuing farther west, where he met Marguerite. Marguerite and Joseph soon started a family together.
By the end of the War of 1812, Marguerite, Joseph, and their young family were living on Drummond Island in the Upper Great Lakes, the site of a British army garrison that had recently relocated from its previous station on St. Joseph Island. It was on Drummond Island that Marguerite and Joseph Boissonneau were officially married.
As the family grew, Marguerite and Joseph once again packed their belongings and departed for nearby Sault Ste. Marie, where they set down roots on a River Lot in the tight-knit Métis community.
For years, Joseph and Marguerite lived and worked on the St. Mary’s River, where they and many other Métis families built their homes on Métis River Lots. Each family had a long, narrow lot of land that ended at the river’s edge—similar to Métis communities on the prairies, including Red River, Batoche, and St. Albert.
The Boissonneau family’s River Lot was marked on the 1846 map created by land surveyor Alexander Vidal. The Boissonneaus’ neighbours included other prominent Métis families like the Labattes, Lesages, Cadottes, and Sayers.
Together, in Sault Ste. Marie, these Métis families continued their traditional way of life, sustaining themselves through fishing, hunting, and gathering wild rice, farming oats, potatoes, corn, and making maple sugar.
Many of the traditions that Marguerite and Joseph Boissonneau started on their Sault Ste. Marie River Lot continue within their Métis family today.