Bois-Brûlés

We think of Métis as having exclusively Prairie roots. Quebec doesn’t recognize a historical Métis community, and the Métis National Council contests the existence of any Métis east of Ontario. Quebec residents who seek recognition as Métis under the Canadian Constitution therefore face an uphill legal and political battle. Who is right?

Bois-Brûlés examines archival and ethnographic evidence to piece together a riveting history of Métis in the Outaouais region. Scottish and French-Canadian fur traders and Indigenous women established themselves with their Bois-Brûlé children in the unsurveyed lands of western Quebec in the early nineteenth century. As the fur trade declined, these communities remained.

This controversial work, previously available only in French, challenges head-on two powerful nationalisms – Métis and Québécois – that see Quebec Métis as “race-shifting” individuals. The authors provide a nuanced analysis of the historical basis for a distinctly Métis identity that can be traced all the way to today.

Michel Bouchard is a professor of anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia and secretary of the World Council of Anthropological Associations. He co-authored Songs upon the Rivers: The Buried History of the French-Speaking Canadiens and Métis from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi across to the Pacific (with Robert Foxcurran and Sébastien Malette) and Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais: Une étude ethnoculturelle des Métis de la Gatineau (with Malette and Guillaume Marcotte).

Sébastien Malette is an associate professor of law and legal studies at Carleton University and a member of the university’s Indigenous Education Council. He co-authored Songs upon the Rivers: The Buried History of the French-Speaking Canadiens and Métis from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi across to the Pacific (with Michel Bouchard and Robert Foxcurran) and Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais: Une étude ethnoculturelle des Métis de la Gatineau (with Bouchard and Guillaume Marcotte).

Guillaume Marcotte is an independent scholar and historian. He is the author of Les francophones et la traite des fourrures du Grand Témiscamingue: Un dictionnaire biographique, 1760–1870 and co-author of Les Bois-Brûlés de l’Outaouais: Une étude ethnoculturelle des Métis de la Gatineau (with Michel Bouchard and Sébastien Malette). He has also published in a variety of scholarly journals and has been studying the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives for over a decade.