Following their Métis community’s exclusion from the Robinson-Huron Treaty and displacement from their River Lot home on the St. Mary’s River, Joseph and Marguerite Boissonneau’s family dispersed to the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, Garden River, Thunder Bay on northern Lake Superior, Sugar Island, Michigan, and other locations.
Despite these movements, Boissonneau descendants maintained their family’s Métis traditions and community connections and relied on the skills passed down through generations to sustain their livelihoods as fishermen and guides.
In the early 1900s, Joseph and Marguerite Boissonneau’s grandson, David, moved his family from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Agawa Bay on the eastern shore of Lake Superior, north of Sault Ste. Marie. He continued the family’s traditional Métis practices by building a log cabin, farming the land, raising livestock, fishing, and producing maple syrup.
At Agawa Bay, the Boissonneaus became an important part of a small, tight-knit Métis village that earned its living through fishing and guiding.
However, history repeated itself in 1959 when the boundaries of Lake Superior Provincial Park were redrawn. Much like their ancestors a century earlier, the Boissonneau family and their Métis neighbors at Agawa Bay were again displaced, losing their lands and homes.
Despite these repeated upheavals, the Boissonneau family’s proud Métis legacy endures. Today, their descendants remain prominent members of the Métis community in Sault Ste. Marie, carrying forward the resilience and traditions of their ancestors.