Dedicating my Life to Métis Women // Laura Forsythe

Laura Forsythe
University of Winnipeg
Faculty of Education

Taanshi kiyawaaw. Hello how are you all Laura Forsythe d-ishinikaashon. My name is Laura Forsythe Ma famii kawyesh Roostertown d-oshciwak my family along time ago was from Rooster town. Anoch ma famii Winnipeg Wikiwak. Today my family lives in Winnipeg. Ma Parenti or my ancestors Huppe, ward, Berard, Morin and Cyr. I am Michif/Métis from the Red River Settlement and grew up in the heart of the Métis Homeland, like the generations of women before me. My maternal great-grandmother Nora Berard was born in Rooster Town on land known as lot 31 owned by my ancestor Jean Baptiste Berard. My lineage includes Joseph Huppe, who fought in the Victory of Frog Plain married to Margurite a decedent of an Assiniboine women renamed angelique.

My family has been in the Winnipeg Region since the inception of the Métis Nation, with our women serving as equal contributors to the pursuit of nation-building and the strength of our communities. In keeping with the exemplars of strong metis women before me, I have taken on numerous roles within my government. Not only am I a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation I am also an elected official at the local level having co founded a local at the University of Manitoba to assert educational sovereignty for the students, staff, and faculty by providing a voice for Metis people in university governance. I have sat on the Louis Riel Institute board and the Metis Employment and training Local Advisory Committee to ensure the voices of students are present in the decisions made in MMF governance I honor the women in my family with my commitment to my nation. As Maria Campbell has stated we were and are “nurturers and protectors of the nation” and our families.

Métis women were instrumental in the buffalo hunts, the top economic driver of the Métis Maria Campbell (2012) recalls her childhood and the impression Métis women in her community made about the importance of working hard: “I do not remember any of them ever sitting around, and if they did sit, they were beading…” (p. xxiii). Diane Payment (2012) refers to Métis women as “une femme en vaut deux (strong like two women)” (p. 265), as women were the backbone of the society, proposing “work, work, and more work” (p. 265) as the motto for Métis women, due to their tenacity. Parity or a disregard for gendered colonial norms is seen through much of the literature, which shows women’s equality within the Métis community. Within the kinship networks and the Métis Nation as a whole, women made decisions, as their mothers had before them. Women are foundational to early and contemporary Métis society and thus to our identity.

Through storytelling, Métis women have intergenerationally taught Métis history to their communities, including traditional knowledge, community history, ancestor biographies, and our ways of life Therefore it is no surprise that women take up roles of educational sovereignty is through knowledge production and their ability to control or direct the narrative. Due to the ongoing presence of empowered women throughout the Métis Nation who defy colonial gendered approaches to all aspects of Métis identity, it is not surprising that these colonial norms do not overwhelm Métis Studies or Metis women’s ability to dominate in their disciplines and be active within their government.

However, a comment is needed regarding the distinction between 1) the academy and colonial government built on misogyny, patriarchy, and sexism and 2) Metis governance and the subfield of Métis Studies built on inclusion and gender parity. Métis Studies nor our government structures actively denied, obscured, or delegitimized the work of either Métis or non-Métis women.

While the scope of this commentary precludes in-depth discussion of the motives of this inclusion it is possibly due to the Métis perception of women built on equality and inclusiveness and the academic suppression and avoidance of the Métis, genuine contributions by women to both our undertsandings and government are unthinkable.

President Chartrand “we are a maternal nation. It was our mothers who kept us” and elder verna deomtigny assertion “women are the ones who keep community together” this historic understanding of our women’s contributions can be laid upon our academic knowledge production and presence within the nation.

Currently Brenda Gunn and I are in partnership with the Manitoba Metis Federation’s affiliate the Inifinity Womens Secretariate seeking to uncover and explore the role of Métis women played in supporting and their contribution to the Métis historic and modern nation- building. Despite current projects underway and the need for Metis womens work to be lifted up and to be seen our women continue to say where are we written into our histories? At a conference Elder Maria Campbell reaffirmed the need for researchers to speak with Elders and record their stories/knowledge before they are gone, including, and especially women Elders. An essential part of this research project involved speaking with Métis women, throughout 7 regions of MMF. Dr Cathy Mattes within my kinship ties spoke in her interview for Metis Awareness Mondays to her grandmother being consulted by Louis Riel prior to the resistance as Riel had visited numerous matriarchs. Scholar Lorraine Mayer writes “We Metis carry the stories that our grandmothers told. We carry them and we survive.” Our women have the key to understanding the nature of governance with the Metis nation.

The role of this research to look at MMF specifically and the carried traditions of women in places of power building the nation in the past but also presently. For instance, of those with leadership roles and titles within MMF government at 75% self-identifying females and over the general workforce for the nation is 70% self-identifying females according to the MMF Annual General Report for 2020 by one of my mentors Minister Anita Campbell. The Louis Riel Institute, and Louis Riel Capital Corps was founded by women over 30 years ago. In terms of governance portfolios and departments are run by Metis women at the MMF Currently women are the head of citizenship, the constitution, finances, Human resources, education, child and family services. Natural resources and information technology. Metis women in places of power within governance are Not only within our nation but can be seen in academic institutions we intend to explore and uncover the stories of our ancestors impact in building the nation. Metis women have long held prominent roles in building our nation; too often, this work has gone undocumented I plan to dedicate my life to telling these stories.