Throughout history, Métis across the Homeland have found employment using their fluency in a diverse array of languages. Prominent language-based Métis professions have included interpreters and guides.
Many passed their language-based vocations down between generations.
Lewis Solomon, a well-known member of the Georgian Bay Métis Community, for example, followed in the footsteps of his father, William, who was an Indian interpreter for the British Government. Like many Métis born on Drummond Island, Lewis grew up in an environment dominated by French and Indigenous languages. As a young adult, however, Lewis pursued “a tolerably fair education” that afforded him a “command of English [that] is somewhat above the average”.
Using his language skills, Lewis Solomon built a thriving career as a guide and interpreter in the Upper Great Lakes, with many prominent clients such as the Earl of Northumberland, Col. W.H Robinson, Bishop Strachan, and Lord Morpeth, the Earl of Carlisle.
Like Lewis Solomon, George McPherson was another noteworthy Métis interpreter who followed in the professional footsteps of his father, Andrew, who was once described by Hudson’s Bay Company Governor George Simpson as a man of, “Knowledge of the Indians in that quarter whose Languages he speaks fluently and over whom he has a good deal of influence”.
George McPherson was born in the Northwest around 1814 and joined the Hudson’s Bay Company at the age of sixteen. Through his service to the HBC, McPherson served at several Company posts, before eventually moving to Rat Portage (present-day Kenora) in 1858.
It was there that George McPherson served as the personal interpreter for Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris in 1873 and witnessed the signing of Treaty 3 alongside fellow respected Métis interpreter and future Treaty 3 Half-Breed Adhesion signatory, Nicholas Chatelain:
“Nicholas Chatelin [sic] / a Half-Breed / Interpreter is an acquisition to the Post – Speaks the Saulteux Language well and is feared by the Natives, and is perfectly acquainted with the Geographical part of the Country, more particularly to the North [?] of Lac La Pluie, in that he is a man that ought not to be lost sight of.”
See Our Sources!
The Migration of Voyageurs from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828
Huyshe, George L. The Red River Expedition. London: Macmillan, 1871, Pages 170-72
In the Shadows of the Honorable Company: Nicolas Chatelain and the Métis of Fort Frances
1824-1825, District Report – Lac la Pluie, Post Master: J.D. Cameron
Hudson's Bay Company Biographical Sheet for George McPherson
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