New book celebrates rich M矇tis history and seeks recognition as Indigenous population in Canada
蹤獲扞⑹ Anthropology professor Dr. Michel Bouchard is one of the authors who contributed to the book Les Bois-Br羶l矇s de lOutaouais
No M矇tis community has been yet officially recognized in Qu矇bec. The book, Les Bois-Br羶l矇s de lOutaouais, attests nonetheless that there is a historical M矇tis community to the north of Ottawa.
This innovative research presents a detailed case-study of a region that was described as a frontier and qualified as Indian Country until the mid-19th century. The M矇tis community of the Gatineau Region of western Qu矇bec shares with the historical M矇tis community of Mattawa and Timiskaming cultural and kinship ties. One of the families even seems to have had an ancestor, Fran癟ois Beaulieu, who accompanied Alexander Mackenzie to the Pacific Coast of British Columbia.
This book demonstrates through a rich documentary that a regional M矇tis culture and community formed in the valleys of the Gatineau and the Li癡vre, a community fully integrated within a M矇tis Diaspora that is found from East to West across the North American continent.
Through a detailed analysis of unpublished sources, we demonstrate that the freemen of the fur trade, as well as their spouses and children, constituted a core of families that would soon form a historical M矇tis community in western Qu矇bec, explains Dr. Michel Bouchard, one of the authors who is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia.
The content of the book may surprise many. Historically, the history of the Ottawa region is known for forestry, while the M矇tis are invariably depicted as bison hunters in the western prairies.
The book Les Bois-Br羶l矇s de lOutaouais calls into question the historical stereotypes related to both the M矇tis as well as the colonization of the territory, adds author S矇bastien Malette, an Assistant Professor of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. We find Louis Riel who is reputed to have spent some time in the area as he is pursued by bounty hunters during his exile after the resistance of 1869-70 which led to the creation of the province of Manitoba. The local oral history testifies to the fact that he found refuge among these M矇tis families of western Qu矇bec.
The M矇tis of the Outaouais came into existence in the era of the fur trade, when French-Canadian and Scottish traders took as wives indigenous women while continuing to pursue trade whether as employees of the fur trade companies or in competition with these very same companies, notably the Hudsons Bay Company, attests the author Guillaume Marcotte. They forged a life in trading, often clandestinely, or in working for forestry companies or as guides and interpreters, but always as M矇tis.
Les Bois-Br羶l矇s de lOutaouais is the history of a resilient community that remained outside the preoccupations of university research, but that has been fighting for its rights and recognition since the end of the 1960s. It is seeking recognition as an indigenous population within Qu矇bec and Canada.