A brief Introduction

Powley. That’s what started it all.

One name. Two guys in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Other than their name, I really don’t know much about them or the details about their case that’s been kicked up and down the Canadian Courts. To be honest and I’m ashamed now, I really didn’t have much interest about it back in 1993 when the events started. I was just living my life, impervious to what many now call as “the first major Aboriginal rights case concerning Métis peoples”

My dad though. He followed the story from the beginning. I can’t say why it interested him, but I suppose that it was because he was also a hunter, and also hunted on lands harvested by our ancestors for centuries. With all the permits, permissions, tags, and whatever else goverments had implemented over the years. Did he ever questioned it? I don’t know.

Originally, he might have been interested in actions taken by “kin” – cousins we knew from our genealogy and family narratives, had traveled West throughout the years. Some settled in Ontario, others pushed farther West across our vast country and parts now known as the United States. They intermarried with other Nations to create the vast patchwork of Métis of today.