While some members of the Nolin family moved further west to Red River in the last years of the 1810s, others remained in Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Great Lakes where they continued to play important roles in their Métis community for generations to come.
Adolphus and Marie Madeline Nolin, for example, remained in Sault Ste. Marie and married into the Sayer and Corbiere families—both prominent Métis families in the area. They eventually settled onto the same River Lots that Jean Baptiste and Marie Angelique Nolin had once lived on, maintaining the family’s enduring ties to their Upper Great Lakes home.
Louis Nolin, too, maintained strong connections to his home in Sault Ste. Marie. Throughout his life, he moved between the Upper Great Lakes and Red River, keeping connections to his family’s home community at Sault Ste. Marie—particularly on the American side of the recently imposed border, where Louis was enumerated in the 1830 Chippewa County census alongside other Métis families such as Cadottes, Roussains, Dusomes, and Corbieres.
By the late 1830s, Louis Nolin and his associate, Louis Garneau, were suspected by the Hudson’s Bay Company of organizing a rebellion among the Métis in Sault Ste. Marie after they allegedly held a ball on the American side of the St. Mary’s River to rally support for their cause—perhaps inspired by the Métis Victory of Frog Plain against the HBC that Louis Nolin had witnessed nearly a decade and a half earlier.
Louis’ nephew, Charles Nolin, would further continue his family’s legacy of Métis resistance a generation later—standing alongside Louis Riel in both the Red River and North-West Resistances.
The Nolins’ multi-generational involvement in Métis resistance movements from the Upper Great Lakes westward is a lasting reflection of their deep connections throughout the Métis Homeland and enduring commitment to defending Métis rights and sovereignty for all Métis communities.