Am I a Métis Woman—Or a Woman with Métis Ancestry?
The Paradox of Proof
In 1794, a Catholic priest at the mission of Oka recorded the marriage of a man named Paul Ménard. Next to his name, in careful script, the priest added a single word: Métis.
That one word—quiet, factual, unadorned—was a recognition of identity. Of culture. Of belonging. Two centuries later, I carry his bloodline. I carry the same lineage. And yet, in 2025, I am being asked to prove that I exist.
This is the paradox of proof: that those of us whose ancestors were named as Métis in their own time are now told to meet criteria invented long after they died. We are told that community is a question of geography, that identity requires uninterrupted documentation, and that survival—when it meant hiding, blending, adapting—somehow disqualifies us.
But our story doesn’t begin in the bureaucracies of the present. It begins in the river systems of the Great Lakes. It begins with an Algonquin matriarch and a French voyageur. With birchbark and fur trade routes. With marriages solemnized at mission churches. It begins, in other words, with the lived history of the Métis Nation.
My name is Andrea Beauvais, and I descend from the Ménard family: voyageurs, interpreters, fur traders, and Métis community builders who lived in Fort Michilimackinac and Montreal and Oka for centuries (17th to 19th century). Their identities were recorded not just in parish registers, but in the contours of a culture that was born between worlds. And while their names remain etched in history, their descendants are being written out.
Why Recognition Matters—And Why Rejection Hurts
The pain isn’t just historical. It’s systemic. It’s now.
Every culture has its silence. Ours was taught—pressed into the backs of our throats by colonial policy and whispered shame. For generations, my family did not speak of our Métis identity, not because it wasn’t there, but because survival demanded secrecy.
The tragedy is that this silence—imposed by outside forces—has now become disqualifying. Families like mine are being told that because our ancestors went underground, our claim to identity lacks continuity. That their silence means we were never really part of the conversation.
This is the emotional math of exclusion:
• Colonial erasure + generational trauma = modern bureaucratic denial.
• The survival strategy of yesterday becomes the reason we are erased today.
To be clear: this isn’t about paperwork. It’s about dignity. It’s about the child who asked why their grandmother and great-grandparents “looked mixed, maybe native” but never said so. It’s about ancestors who were called Métis in their time—by priests, by governors, by neighbors—and whose descendants are now told to start from zero.
That erasure lives on—not as malice, but as policy. Not as cruelty, but as oversight. And it hurts just the same.
Let the Circle Be Unbroken: A Call for Recognition
Because the Nation should not be a locked door guarded by its own history.
This isn’t just a plea. It’s an act of remembering. The kind of remembering that reaches past the noise of the present and listens to the quiet truths of the past.
Our family didn’t become Métis by accident. We were born into it—through bloodlines, yes, but also through geography, language, and trade. Through marriage and kinship. Through being the bridge between two worlds and the builders of a third. We were there—at Fort Michilimackinac, in the canoes of voyageurs, in the mission records, in the Oka parish that wrote “Métis” beside Paul Ménard’s name.
We do not ask for special consideration. We ask for historical context.
We ask that survival not be mistaken for absence.
We ask that Métis identity not be reduced to a postal code or a single map dot in the Red River valley.
We ask for the circle to widen—not to erase boundaries, but to reflect the full truth of where the Nation began.
And we ask to return. Because we never truly left.
The Powley Test: When the Law Catches Up to the Bloodline
There’s a moment in every culture when its stories are put on trial.
For the Métis, that moment came in 2003, when the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its ruling in R. v. Powley. The court didn’t invent Métis identity. It simply asked: how do we know who belongs?
The answer—what became known as the Powley test—was threefold:
1. Proof of Indigenous ancestry.
2. An ancestral connection to a historic Métis community.
3. A demonstrated link to Métis culture and lifeways.
This wasn’t a new standard. It was a legal reflection of an old truth.
And for my family—the Ménards—this test is not a hurdle. It’s a homecoming.
Who Is Métis? The Question That Keeps Moving the Goalposts
It’s a strange moment in Métis history when the question of “Who belongs?” is louder than the voices of those trying to come home.
For decades, the answer was guided by connection, community, and kinship. But now—under pressure from inter-organizational tensions, legal anxieties, and the shadow of legitimacy politics—the question of Métis identity has become a border checkpoint.
The Manitoba Métis Federation (MMF) has made its position known: Métis identity should be anchored in Red River. Everyone else—especially those in Ontario—is suspect. The Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO), caught in a storm of internal and external scrutiny, has responded by tightening definitions and retrenching protocols. In the process, a new category has quietly emerged:
The historically Métis, but presently challenged.
The Irony of Recognition
The irony is profound. We are living through a moment when documents matter more than lives once lived.
Our family’s Métis history predates the MMF itself. It predates the MNO. It predates Canada. And yet, today, our legitimacy is being questioned by institutions that are younger than the fur trade routes our ancestors paddled.
It’s as if the institutions created to preserve Métis culture are now unintentionally becoming the tools of its erasure—by narrowing definitions, relocating origins, and punishing those whose identity was interrupted by colonial trauma.
This isn’t a fight between East and West. It’s a crisis of memory.
Because if the Nation cannot recognize the diversity of its own roots—if it cannot make room for the Michilimackinac Métis, or the Trois-Rivières matriarchs, or the Oka “Métif” entries—then it risks becoming a smaller version of itself. One that confuses boundaries for belonging. One that replicates the exclusions we were meant to escape.
Belonging Is Bigger Than Borders
The MMF may claim authority. The MNO may tighten criteria. But the real authority lies in the lived experience of Métis families—the stories, records, languages, scars, and re-emergences that define us.
And those don’t begin or end at Red River.
The Métis Nation was never one dot on a map. It was a network. A kinship web. A river system of identity that flowed through Sault Ste. Marie, through the Straits of Mackinac, through Oka, and yes—through Red River too.
To insist that one branch holds all the truth is to forget that trees don’t grow from the top down.
According to R. v. Powley, 2003, a person who claims Métis rights or citizenship must show: (1) proof of Indigenous ancestry, (2) an ancestral connection to a historic Métis community in the Métis Nation homeland, and (3) a history of acceptance in or participation in the distinct Métis culture and way of life. The evidence below, drawn from primary historical records, establishes each of these criteria for the Ménard family line.
Our Indigenous Bloodline: Born of Two Worlds
The Ménard family’s Métis identity is rooted in a clear line of Indigenous ancestry. Maurice Ménard (b. 1664) married Marie-Madeleine Couc dite Lafleur (b. 1669) around 1692.
Marie-Madeleine was herself of dual Indigenous and French parentage – a first-generation Métis woman. She was the daughter of French voyageur Pierre Couc dit Lafleur and an Algonquin woman, Marie Mite8ameg8k8e (also recorded as Marie Miteouamigoukoue).
Marie Mite8ameg8k8e was born around 1631 in the Weskarini band of the Algonquin nation (the Ouionontateronon), in the area between the Ottawa and St-Maurice rivers in New France. She married Pierre Couc on 16 April 1657 in Trois-Rivières, Québec, one of the earliest documented unions between a French colonist and an Indigenous woman in Canada. This marriage is recorded in contemporary parish registers, establishing the Indigenous bloodline that enters the Ménard family line (Primary Source: Trois-Rivières Parish Register, 1657).
Marie-Madeleine Couc, born of that French-Algonquin union, represents the Indigenous ancestry in the Ménard lineage. By the time she wed Maurice Ménard in the early 1690s, she was regarded as a “Métis” woman – the child of two worlds. Madeleine Couc was the first-generation of Métis in my family line.
Through Marie-Madeleine, all of Maurice Ménard’s children carried Indigenous (Algonquin) ancestry, making the subsequent generations part-Indigenous by blood.
It is worth noting that the Métis ancestry in this line was acknowledged in historical documents. For example, church and mission records in later generations explicitly identified members of the Ménard family as “Métis.” In 1794, Maurice’s great-grandson Paul Ménard (dit Montour) was married in Oka (Kanehsatà:ke), and the Catholic parish register listed Paul as a Métis man. The original Oka mission register (1786–1800) held at Library and Archives Canada confirms Paul’s ethnic status: “Paul Ménard, Métis”. This is a primary source attestation that the family’s Indigenous heritage was recognized in community records.
Connection to a Historic Métis Community in the Métis Homeland
The Ménard family is ancestrally connected to – and in fact helped form – a historic Métis community in the Great Lakes region, which is part of the recognized Métis Nation Homeland. From the eastern Great Lakes region to the Rocky Mountains, the fur trade relied on Métis people, the mixed-blood descendants of European traders and native women—my ancestors.
After their marriage, Maurice Ménard and Marie-Madeleine Couc made their home at Fort Michilimackinac, a strategic fur trade post at the straits of Mackinac (between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan). This fort was, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, a meeting ground of French traders and Indigenous peoples, and it became one of the cradles of Métis culture in the region.
Fort Michilimackinac is part of the Northern Great Lakes system and the Métis Historic Homeland. The community at Michilimackinac in particular consisted of numerous French-Indigenous families (including the Couc-Lafleur and Ménard clan among others) living and working together, which by the early 18th century had developed a distinct Métis identity and culture.
Multiple primary records tie the Ménards to the Michilimackinac community. Maurice Ménard is explicitly identified as an “interprète à Michillimackinac” (interpreter at Michilimackinac) in official documents of New France.
For example, a 5 June 1722 travel permit issued by the Governor granted “permission for one canoe…to Maurice Ménard, interpreter at Michilimackinac, to depart on the 5th of June”. This permit, recorded in the Colonial Passports of New France (compiled by E.Z. Massicotte), confirms that Maurice was living and working at the fort in his capacity as an interpreter. In fact, he had been at Michilimackinac much earlier as well – a letter by Commander Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac around 1704 mentions that Maurice Ménard was serving as the fort’s interpreter at that time. Cadillac recounts an incident in which “[Maurice] Ménard, [Cadillac’s] interpreter at Michilimackinac,” escorted his sister-in-law (Marie-Madeleine’s sister) to the fort. Such correspondence (part of the Cadillac Papers of 1690s–1700s) is a primary source situating the Ménard family at Michilimackinac during the formative years of that community.
Maurice and Marie-Madeleine raised their family in the Michilimackinac area. According to parish and notarial records, at least five of their children were born at Fort Michilimackinac , demonstrating a prolonged family presence there. For instance, their son Louis Ménard was born in 1697 at Ste. Anne’s Parish, Michilimackinac – Ste. Anne being the mission church serving the fort. Louis’s baptism (recorded later in colonial registers) would list Michilimackinac as his place of birth, confirming the family’s residence in the community. The Michilimackinac parish registers (which survive from 1725 onward) also show Ménard family events occurring locally. Notably, one of Maurice and Marie-Madeleine’s daughters was married at Fort Michilimackinac in 1725. This marriage, recorded in the Ste. Anne register (Primary Source: Ste. Anne de Michilimackinac register, 1725), is significant: it places a second-generation Ménard in a marital union at the fort, indicating that the family was deeply integrated into the community’s social fabric. The historic “Mackinac Register” confirms several Ménard-related entries in the 1720s and 1730s, despite some gaps in early records.
Furthermore, the fur trade engagement contracts of the era connect the Ménards to Michilimackinac and surrounding Great Lakes posts. Surviving notarial contracts from Montreal show that Maurice Ménard obtained engagements (work contracts) to go to Michilimackinac and the land of the Ottawa on multiple occasions: in 1718, 1725, 1731, and 1735. These contracts (Primary Sources: Montreal notarial archives, 1718–1735) detail Maurice and later his sons signing on as voyageurs to transport goods to Michilimackinac and other western posts. For example, a 1718 engagement records Maurice hiring men for a canoe to the pays d’en haut (upper country). In 1725, another contract involves “Lafontaine” (the nickname of Louis Ménard) being taken to the Miami and Ouïatanon country – reflecting the Ménards’ continued presence in the greater Great Lakes fur trade network. These contracts firmly link the family to the historic Métis fur trade community of Michilimackinac and its environs, satisfying the second criterion of ancestral connection to a Métis homeland community.
Fort Michilimackinac and the broader Great Lakes region are recognized by historians as part of the Métis homeland during the 18th century. The Métis Nation of Ontario, for instance, acknowledges that Métis communities emerged in the Great Lakes well before the Red River settlement.
The Great Lakes Métis were sometimes called “bois-brûlés” or simply “les Métifs” in French records, and they formed distinct settlements such as at Sault Ste. Marie, Detroit, and Michilimackinac. A heritage analysis observes that frontier families at Michilimackinac frequently “interacted with and married Native Americans from the Sauteux, Nipissing, Ottawa and other tribes”, producing a local Métis population. The Ménard family exemplifies this pattern: Maurice’s marriage to a woman of Algonquin descent and the marriages of their children in the region connected the family to Indigenous kin and the emergent Métis community.
By the mid-18th century, the Ménard family was not only connected to this community – they were leading participants in it. They engaged in the Catholic parish life of Ste. Anne’s (with baptisms, marriages, and burials recorded there) and were active in the fur trade economy that sustained Michilimackinac. In short, the family enjoyed full membership in a historic Métis community within the Métis homeland.
Historical Ménard Family Participation in Métis Life (Fur Trade, Culture, and Community)
The Ménard family’s lifestyle and occupations over several generations illustrate classic Métis cultural, economic, and social patterns. From the late 1600s through the 1700s, the Ménards were involved in the fur trade as licensed traders, voyageurs, interpreters, and intermediaries between Indigenous nations and colonial society. They also participated in the bi-cultural community life – speaking Indigenous languages, marrying into other fur trade families, and maintaining ties both to the French-Canadian settlements and the western territories.
Maurice Ménard (1664–1741) – the patriarch – was a professional voyageur and interpreter, roles typically associated with Métis culture (the “go-between” facilitators of the fur trade). As noted, he served as an official interprète at Fort Michilimackinac , which implies he was fluent in Indigenous languages (likely Ojibwe or Ottawa) as well as French. His skill set – language, diplomacy, wilderness travel – was precisely that of a cultural broker, characteristic of early Métis leaders.
Maurice also engaged in legal fur trading ventures. The Canadian Passports 1681–1752 (a compilation of colonial travel licenses) contains multiple entries for Maurice. For example, in 1726 Governor Beauharnois issued a permit authorizing supplies to be sent “to the named Maurice Ménard, interpreter,” who was in the interior. This indicates that Ménard was on extended assignment in the Great Lakes and needed re-provisioning – a common scenario for licensed fur traders living with Indigenous communities. The fact that special mention is made of his role and needs underscores his importance in the trade. Maurice continued fur trading into his older years; as late as 1735 he is mentioned in voyageur engagement rosters.
Maurice’s marriage to Marie-Madeleine Couc also linked him to a network of other Métis families. Marie-Madeleine’s relatives, such as her sister Elizabeth “Mme Montour” Couc, were renowned interpreters and diplomats in their own right, and Maurice interacted with them. (Indeed, Maurice helped ransom Elizabeth from captivity and brought her to Michilimackinac in the 1690s, an episode that highlights the family’s engagement in Indigenous–French relations beyond mere commerce.)
Louis Ménard dit Lafontaine (b. 1697), Maurice’s son, carried on this way of life. Louis is documented as a “second-generation Métis” and a “documented Métis voyageur”. He was born and raised at Michilimackinac among the mixed French-Ottawa community, giving him a Métis cultural upbringing (his mother was Métis and likely bilingual, and his father an interpreter).
In 1725, Louis married Marie Françoise Robidoux at Longueuil (near Montreal), and thereafter he appears to have used Montreal as a home base. However, marriage did not end his fur trade journeys. Contemporary accounts indicate that “while Louis continued travelling for the fur trade through the Great Lakes, Françoise had their children in Montreal”. Montreal was the hub of the fur trade in Canada at that time, and many voyageurs’ families stayed there while the men went west seasonally.
Louis’s pattern fits this: he was a voyageur brigade leader frequently outbound to the upper country, but also a family man in the colony. For example, in August 1725, a permit was granted to a Sieur Forestier to lead a canoe with five men “to take Lafontaine to the Ouiatanon [Outaouais]” in the Miami country. “Lafontaine” here refers to Louis Ménard (using his dit name) – this record suggests Louis was being transported or assigned to a distant post, possibly as an agent or trader, shortly after his marriage. This demonstrates that Louis was actively engaged in the fur trade expeditions, bridging the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence settlements.
Louis Ménard’s own children were born in Montreal in the 1720s–1740s, but they too maintained the fur trade tradition. Notably, Louis’s son Jean-Baptiste Ménard (born 1728) became one of the most successful members of the family in fur trade business.
Jean-Baptiste is referred to in family history as the third generation of the family’s Métis lineage. He inherited his father’s and grandfather’s connections and likely their linguistic abilities. By the mid-18th century, Jean-Baptiste Ménard dit Montour had grown the family enterprise significantly. He “came to own and manage a large fur-trading enterprise, which included voyaging, interpreting, and diplomacy”, operating across Upper and Lower Canada. Jean-Baptiste was not merely a hired voyageur but a merchant trader or partner, coordinating trade journeys and possibly negotiating with indigenous allies – much like other notable Métis traders of that era.
The nickname “Montour” attached to Jean-Baptiste is telling: Montour was the surname of his great-uncle Louis Couc Montour, a famed interpreter of Iroquoian languages in the early 1700s. By adopting “Montour,” Jean-Baptiste signaled his pride in his mixed heritage and role as an interpreter/diplomat, essentially aligning himself with a Métis lineage known for bridging cultures. Jean-Baptiste was recognized as a Métis leader (even if that specific term was not always used, the role was clear).
In 1750, Jean-Baptiste Ménard married Marie-Josephte Roy at Pointe-Claire (Montreal), and together they had a large family. He continued trading through the 1750s–1780s, adapting to the changing political landscape (the fall of New France and rise of British trade companies). Jean-Baptiste died in September 1798 at nearly 70 years old. His death symbolically coincided with the end of an era: “the French Montreal fur trade of his family and forefathers was coming to an end,” replaced by the new order of the British Hudson’s Bay Company.
For roughly a century, c.1690–1790, the Ménards had been part of a distinct French-Métis fur trade network – a “small partnership-style” trade run by interrelated Métis families. After 1800, the nature of the fur trade changed, but by then the Ménard family had firmly established its Métis identity.
Beyond the economic activities, the Ménards participated in the cultural life of Métis communities. They were practicing Catholics (as evidenced by their presence in parish registers in Michilimackinac, Montreal, Oka, etc.), but they also lived according to the rhythms of the fur trade and wilderness life.
Archaeological and historical studies of Michilimackinac show that Métis families at the fort engaged in both European and Indigenous practices: e.g. making birch-bark canoes, crafting tools, fishing and hunting with techniques learned from Native relatives, and trading goods such as beads and cloth. The Ménards were among those “mixed-blood families” who “acted as a bridge between Indian and non-Indian cultures”, speaking both French and native languages.
Maurice’s role as interpreter and his children’s facility in the fur trade imply that Indigenous languages (Ojibwe and Cree) were part of the family heritage – knowledge passed down from Marie-Madeleine and possibly taught to the children. The family’s movement between Montreal and Michilimackinac also shows their bi-cultural adaptability: they could function in the settled society of New France (e.g. arranging church weddings, legal contracts) and in the informal, kinship-based society of the interior (e.g. wintering among native communities, forging alliances through marriage and trade).
By the late 18th century, as mentioned, Paul Ménard dit Montour (b. 1770) – Jean-Baptiste’s son – was explicitly identified as Métis. When Paul married Félicité Couvrette in 1794 at Oka (a mission village that included Mohawk, Algonquin, and some Métis residents), the priest recorded him as “Métif” (French for Métis) in the register. This small but powerful detail in a primary source shows that the Ménard family self-identified and were recognized as Métis by their community. It reflects community acceptance: Paul was known in Oka as a man of mixed lineage who belonged to the distinct Métis group rather than to the French or any First Nation alone.
Over four generations, the Ménard family consistently took on the occupations (fur trader, voyageur, interpreter), lifestyles (mobility between fur post and colony, multi-lingual ability), and community roles (intermarriage with other fur trade families, participation in mission communities like Michilimackinac and Oka) that define the historic Métis people. The documentary evidence – travel permits, contracts, letters, church records – demonstrates this continued participation in Métis economic and cultural life.
The Question I Can’t Stop Asking
Every morning, I wake up with a question that’s impossible to answer without splitting myself in two.
Am I a Métis woman? Or am I just a woman with Métis ancestry?
One version means belonging. The other means distance.
One gives me a name. The other makes me a cautionary tale.
Because today, in the age of gatekeeping and genealogical bloodsport, this question doesn’t just hang in the air—it follows me into rooms, into forms, into conversations that suddenly feel like trials. It whispers: Do you deserve this? Do you pass? Are you allowed to say it out loud?
We live in the aftermath of colonial erasure—but we also live in the backlash of identity theft. Pretendians have poisoned the well. Now everyone who reclaims a buried truth must stand up and declare: I’m not lying.
Even when we have the records.
Even when our grandparents were ashamed to tell us the truth.
Even when the Nation that our ancestors built has no room for us anymore.
And still, the question sits there like a loaded weapon:
Am I Métis? Or am I mistaken?
Because if I say yes, someone will ask for receipts.
And if I say no, I’ve betrayed my own blood.
You can call me a woman with Métis ancestry.
You can say I’m not “from the core.”
But I know what I am.
I am a Métis woman.
And I will not apologize for coming home.
Primary Sources
Marriage Record of Pierre Couc dit Lafleur and Marie Mite8ameg8k8e (1657)
Documented marriage at Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
Oka Parish Register Entry for Paul Ménard (1794)
Parish register identifying Paul Ménard as Métis.
Travel Permit for Maurice Ménard (1722)
Permit issued to Maurice Ménard, interpreter at Michilimackinac.
Cadillac’s Correspondence Mentioning Maurice Ménard (1704)
Letter referencing Maurice Ménard’s role at Michilimackinac.
Ste. Anne de Michilimackinac Register Entries (1725)
Marriage records from the parish register.
Notarial Voyageur Contracts Involving Maurice and Louis Ménard (1718, 1725)
Contracts detailing fur trade engagements.
Register of Baptisms in the Parish of Michilimackinac
Baptismal records from the parish register.
Register of Marriages in the Parish of Michilimackinac
Marriage records from the parish register.
Secondary Sources
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Entry on Elizabeth Couc
Biographical information on Elizabeth Couc and her family.
Access Genealogy Overview of Mackinac Marriages
Compilation of marriage records in the Mackinac region.
Montana Historical Society Fur Trade History
Historical overview of the fur trade and Métis involvement.
Girl Museum – Métis at Mackinac
Exhibition exploring the lives of Métis girls at Fort Michilimackinac.
Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada – Fur Trade
Article detailing the fur trade and Métis contributions.
WikiTree Profiles for Ménard Family Members
Genealogical information on Louis Ménard and Madeleine Couc.
Métis Unions and Status Claims in Quebec
Study on Métis unions and status claims in Quebec.
Genealogy of Paul Ménard
Genealogical record of Paul Ménard
Additional Sources
Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada
Comprehensive resource on Indigenous peoples in Canada, including the Métis.
Beaver, Bison, and Black Robes: Montana’s Fur Trade, 1800-1860
Educational resource on the fur trade and Métis involvement.
Great Lakes Indigenous People and the French
Article discussing the relationships between Indigenous peoples and the French in the Great Lakes region.
Mackinac County, Michigan Genealogy – FamilySearch
Genealogical resources for Mackinac County, including vital records.
Mackinac Marriage Records 1780-1789 – Access Genealogy
Compilation of marriage records from the Mackinac region during the specified period.
Mackinac Marriage Records 1790-1799 – Access Genealogy
Compilation of marriage records from the Mackinac region during the specified period.
Register of Baptisms in the Parish of Michilimackinac – Access Genealogy
Baptismal records from the parish register.
Register of Marriages in the Parish of Michilimackinac – Access Genealogy
Marriage records from the parish register.
What is the Métis Homeland?
The Métis Nation has a generational Homeland that includes much of present-day Western Canada and northern sections of the United States. The specific areas include what is today: parts of southern Northwest Territories; parts of Ontario; Manitoba; Saskatchewan; Alberta; parts of British Columbia; parts of northern Montana; parts of North Dakota; and parts of Minnesota, USA. Métis ancestry, history, culture, and languages are rooted in these lands.
Métis Nation Homeland in Canada. Photo courtesy of the Métis Nation of Alberta, 2021.