New book describes forced Metis displacement from Manitoba borderlands
CBC News | Posted: November 13, 2016 7:59 PM | Last Updated: November 13, 2016
A Regina-based writer is calling the forced removal of a Metis community from a parcel of Manitoba land an "ecological tragedy," and says he hopes his new book helps foster reconciliation for historically damaging colonial decisions.
Trevor Herriot's Toward a Prairie Atonement tells the story of the forced displacement in the late 1930s of the Metis from the community of Ste. Madeleine on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border.
At that time, the Federal Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act forced Metis farmers from the area with little to no compensation to create a pasture for settler farmers, according to the Manitoba Historical Society.
The state's actions came as the area's Metis were making advanced and sophisticated steps toward community land government and land use, Herriot told CBC's Manitoba's Weekend Morning Show.
"They had that strong indigenous ethic of caring for the land," Herriot said.
The fact they were forced out to make way for a pasture was ironic, said Herriot.
"The Metis were there first and some of them had title to the land. They could have been worked into the mix," he said. "It could have been shared."
Herriot said he was researching another book when he heard about what happened at Ste. Madeleine.
He sought the help of Michif Elder Norman Fleury, who walked him through the area and shared his ancestors' stories of what happened to the displaced community of 250 people.
Fleury traces his lineage back six generations to the Ste. Madeleine lands, Herriot said in an Oct. 20 post on his blog.
Herriot will be in Winnipeg on Wednesday to speak at the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association's annual conference.