Am I Métis enough? – CBC

Feb 08, 2024

I didn’t grow up rooted in my culture, so exploring it as an adult feels daunting

This First Person column is written by Josée Bergeron, who lives in Kelowna, B.C. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I held the envelope in my hands, noticing its subtle weight. It had arrived so quickly that I thought a rejection letter lurked inside saying, “No, you aren’t Métis.”

Growing up, my father would talk about the Métis people, Louis Riel and the Red River Rebellion. He would proudly take out a blurry photocopy of the land scrip application signed by my “half-breed” ancestor Augustus Harrison in 1876 and carefully trace my finger along the line of surnames of our family tree to me.

“We are Métis,” my father told me often, but that’s where the connection to our identity ended, or so I believed.

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/first-person-am-i-m%C3%A9tis-enough-1.7105849