Fishing has been a prominent profession within Métis communities across the Métis Homeland for generations, forming an important part of their distinct Métis economy and way of life.
Accounts of Métis commercial fishing on the eastern shores of Georgian Bay, for example, were recorded as early as the 1830s and 1840s—shortly after the Métis community’s relocation from Drummond Island.
Over successive generations, Métis in Georgian Bay fought to maintain this important occupation. This included pushing back on colonial restrictions through petition-writing and other collective resistances, such as their occupation of Gin Rock in opposition to Ontario’s Fisheries Act.
Fishing was so important for Métis in Georgian Bay that a Member of Parliament wrote of its decline in 1888 saying, “[The Métis] are very poor, now that the white people are devouring the fish and rendering useless to them the fisheries on which they used to depend.”
The Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community similarly maintained a strong legacy of commercial fishing over generations. As early as 1824, the HBC post manager at Sault Ste. Marie recognized a distinct Métis fishing economy, recording that, “The halfbreeds begin to come now of their own accord with fish.”
This important Métis commercial fishery was integrated within the historic Sault Ste. Marie Métis Community’s broader place-based economy and existed alongside that of the neighbouring Anishinaabe. As was noted in the 1859 Report of the Fishery Overseer for the Division of Lakes Huron and Superior:
“The half-breeds depend upon fish, from September till sugar-making… the half-breeds and Indians with nets and spears take large quantities for the American boats… Spearing [with torchlight] and trolling are carried out carried on to the great extent by the Indians and half-breeds on all parts of these lakes.”
Commercial fishing was also important to many generations of Metis in the Rainy Lake region. Of seventeen names associated with fishing in Hudson’s Bay Company post journals between the 1820s and 1840s, for example, six are identified as Métis. This includes members of the Chatelain and McKay families.
Future Treaty 3 Half-Breed Adhesion signatory, Nicholas Chatelain, for instance, was noted in Hudson’s Bay Company records as a particularly active and “good fisherman”.
The Métis commercial fishing tradition continued westward from Rainy Lake, forming a connective cultural tissue throughout much of the Métis Homeland. These similarities were highlighted, among others, by historian Arthur Ray—who was an expert witness on Métis economic history in the Powley, Belhumeur, and Goodon cases:
“There were some important parallels between the economic life of Saint-Laurent, which was located on the southeastern shore of Lake Manitoba, and that of Sault Ste. Marie. Both communities depended heavily on fisheries, small-scale farming, and a range of other complementary activities. At Saint-Laurent in the 1850s, four extended families—the Chartrands, Pangmans, Lavallees and Sayers (whose family had roots in Sault Ste. Marie)—resided in the community most of the year combining winter commercial and subsistence fishing with trading.”
See Our Sources!
Letter by Bishop Gaulin about the Manitoulin Half Breeds, 1838
Letter from P. R. deLamorandiere to Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 10 November 1894
Letter from William Baxter to the Department of Marine and Fisheries,
Report of the Fishery Overseer for the Division of Lakes Huron and Superior for 1859
An Economic History of the Robinson Treaties Area Before 1860 by Arthur Ray
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