Located at the halfway point between Fort William and Sault Ste. Marie—and on a natural water route to Moose Factory—Michipicoten was a fur trade nexus for Métis family networks and economic interests, including for independent traders like the forbears of the Métis Cadotte and Nolin families, and Métis professional harvesters like the Boucher family.
Métis fishermen Toussaint Boucher and his family, for example, were critical to keeping their Métis community and the Michipicoten post fed through their fisheries.
On January 24, 1840, for instance, Hudson’s Bay Company Officer Roderick McKenzie remarked upon Boucher’s successful ice spear fishery, noting:
“Boucher speared 5 trout under the ice today, certainly at some risk to life since it is not (the ice) above 2 ½ inches thick.’ He speared three more on 30 January, 5 on 9 March, 13 on the 10th, 7 on 11th, and 6 on the 12th.”
Like many Métis commercial fisheries across the Homeland, Toussaint Boucher’s activities involved other members of his Métis family. Another Michipicoten post journal from October that same year, for example, notes:
“Boucher with his wife arrived from his fishery at Cape des Echaillon and reports having been pretty successful as he has salted 25 barrels of Trout, one barrel and a half more than was caught last year at the same place.”
Métis family fisheries, like the Bouchers’ at Michipicoten, not only promoted a shared Métis way of life across the Homeland but also served to carve out prosperous Métis niches within the fur trade economy that enabled their Métis families and communities to thrive for generations.
See Our Sources
Fur Trade and Métis Settlements in the Lake Superior Region, 1820-50
An Economic History of the Robinson Treaties Area Before 1860 by Arthur Ray
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