In Metis Pioneers, Doris Jeanne MacKinnon compares the survival strategies of two Metis women born during the fur trade—one from the French-speaking free trade tradition and one from the English-speaking Hudson’s Bay Company tradition—who settled in southern Alberta as the Canadian West transitioned to a sedentary agricultural and industrial economy. MacKinnon provides rare insight into their lives, demonstrating the contributions Metis women made to the building of the Prairie West. This is a compelling tale of two women’s acts of quiet resistance in the final days of the British Empire.

Born of encounters between Indigenous women and Euro-American men in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Plains Metis people occupied contentious geographic and cultural spaces. Living in a disputed area of the northern Plains inhabited by various Indigenous nations and claimed by both the United States and Great Britain, the Metis emerged as a people with distinctive styles of speech, dress, and religious practice, and occupational identities forged in the intense rivalries of the fur and provisions trade. Michel Hogue explores how, as fur trade societies waned and as state officials looked to establish clear lines separating the United States from Canada and Indians from non-Indians, these communities of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry were profoundly affected by the efforts of nation-states to divide and absorb the North American West. Grounded in extensive research in U.S. and Canadian archives, Hogue's account recenters historical discussions that have typically been confined within national boundaries and illuminates how Plains Indigenous peoples like the Metis were at the center of both the unexpected accommodations and the hidden history of violence that made the "world's longest undefended border."

This study of the eight Metis settlements in northern Alberta examines their history, legal status, government and politics, external and internal organizations, the issue of self-government and the opinions and attitudes of residents on a number of topics, and presents an unconventional approach to native self government.

Where there’s a Gill, there’s a way. Gordon Gill is a gentle, hard-working Métis man whose journey began on his Iroquois-Cree grandfather’s trapline and evolved into a successful business career. His story is one of change and the passing of not just one, but several eras in the development of Canada’s North and the evolution of the Indigenous struggle. A Métis Man's Dream: From Traplines to Tugboats in Canada's North details the history he met, and made, along the way. Vision, chance, and generosity played integral roles in Gill’s evolution from cook’s helper on the tugboat MV Malta to founding two groundbreaking companies, Northern Arc Shipbuilders and Northern Crane Services. Gill emerged and flourished despite challenging personal injuries, poverty, reading difficulties, and residential schooling. He weathered the ups and downs of northern conditions, the crush of Canada’s National Energy Policy, and changes in culture, economics, and opportunity with a resiliency and way of looking at things that is both visionary and resolutely Métis. Gill is a man of many eras, having experienced many historic firsts and lasts, including experiencing the final days of the Indian Day School of Hay River, and directing the design and fabrication of the first short-throw tugboat in the NWT, the MT Gordon Gill. Neil Gower brings together all of this and more in his thoughtful, sensitive compilation of Gill’s remembrances of the changes he has seen in his lifetime.

Focusing upon the Mission Métis of Lac la Biche, the author examines the use of French, Cree, and English as a means of garnering insight into the mechanisms of western Canadian Métis cultural and linguistic variation. He concludes that the relationship of the people to their environment is inextricably bound to an understanding of their language and culture and that the delineation of cultural boundaries is, therefore, a highly complex matter.

Since their arrival in Red River in 1845, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate have played an integral role in the history of Canada's North West. The Oblates followed the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes into western Canada. They believed ardently in the importance of bringing the word of Christ to natives of what - to the Oblates - was a new land. Competition with Protestant missionaries added pressure to the missionary work of the Oblates. In recent years, the Oblates have acknowledged that their converts - radically torn from traditional native worship and spirituality - made a sometimes troubled embrace of Christianity. Guided by their vision of Christian society and norms, the Oblates went on to work with the Government of Canada to provide health care and education to treaty Indians on the prairies. Their strong identity as both French and Catholic helped shape both native and non-native communities throughout Canada's North West.

This book takes the reader through the many challenges that Metis people have with their governing bodies. Not all Metis people are treated equally. It is time for Metis Warriors to step forward and say enough is enough.The Rumble of Thunder is the sound of Metis Warriors who have had enough. The Manitoba Metis Federation is notorious for pushing it's citizens under the bannock bus. They are only interested in photo opportunities and not for advancing the rights of the every day Metis citizen. The tyranny has to end. So many are afraid to step forward and speak up. Time for change is now. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, the future can be bright for our people if our rights are not stomped on. I can tell you that the bannock indeed does not crumble evenly and that is what the MMF is counting on.

The Metis are the descendants of Cree and Assiniboine women who joined with French and Scottish men to raise children and shape a hybrid culture in the heart of Canada. In “Metis, Mixed Blood Stories,” four generations of adolescents come of age during their sixteenth year. Together their voices tell the story of one family and of a people. Matriarch Angeline describes her ride on the last great buffalo hunt of the 1860s and her relationship with charismatic Metis leader Louie Riel. Her grandson, Gilles, relates his escape from a Chicago orphanage and his fight to stay out of reservation school. Gilles’s daughter, Elisabeth, fights to protect the rights of native youth in the violent 1968 U.S. Democratic Convention. The novel closes with the vibrant voice with which it begins, that of great-granddaughter Annie, whose creativity as a young author and filmmaker will ensure that the legacy of their culture lives on. LYNN PONTON is the author of two previous books of nonfiction, “The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers Do the Things They Do” and “The Sex Lives of Teenagers: Revealing the Secret World of Adolescent Boys and Girls.” She has been a columnist for Salon.com and has published widely in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals. A practicing psychoanalyst, she is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. This is her first work of fiction.