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N-2001-016: CN-31A · Item · March 17, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the third part of a four-part interview of Marie Anne McDonald (born October 21, 1915) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 17, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 46 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-30A, CN-30B, and CN-31B. Marie tells portions of the story of her life and background interspersed with more general responses to the interviewer's questions of what life used to be like. Topics covered include food preparation, clothing for men, women and children, footwear, medicinal plants, diseases and epidemics, death and burial customs, mourning and remembrance of the dead, religious beliefs, and medicine men.

The recording includes the third and fourth parts of this interview.

N-2001-016: CN-31B · Item · March 17, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the fourth part of a four-part interview of Marie Anne McDonald (born October 21, 1915) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 17, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 46 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-30A, CN-30B, and CN-31A. Marie tells portions of the story of her life and background interspersed with more general responses to the interviewer's questions of what life used to be like. Topics covered include religious beliefs, medicine men, special feasts and celebrations, dances, musical instruments, visiting, leaders, law and punishment, domestic violence, alcohol, languages, and residential school.

The recording includes the third and fourth parts of this interview.

N-2001-016: CN-33A · Item · March 18, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the third part of a four-part interview of Frank Laviolette (age 66) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 18, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 46 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-32, CN-32B, and CN-33B. Topics covered include gardening, clothing and footwear, sewing including tools, materials and decorative elements, bush medicines and treatments, diseases and epidemics, death and burial customs, the history of the Beaulieus, remembrance of deceased family members, and religious beliefs and experiences. The recording ends abruptly.

This recording includes the third and fourth parts of the interview.

N-2001-016: CN-34A · Item · March 23, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is an interview of Mary Louise Wabesca at Fort Smith, recorded on March 23, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in French with a few English statements and words. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. Topics covered include family history, marriage, hunting, dogs, fishing, food gathering and preservation, water, use of plants, sickness and death, medicine men, dances, visiting, education, languages, interactions with soldiers from World War II, and children. Parts of the recording are of poor quality with audio blips and background noise. One of Mary Louise’s sons and an unidentified female voice also provide additional information, primarily in English.

N-2001-016: CN-35B · Item · March 29, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a two-part interview of Violet Chalifoux at Fort Smith, recorded on March 29, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-35A. Violet provides personal details from her life, including more memories of her grandfather Louis Calliou. Violet taught Cree in the elementary school at Fort Smith for about 10 years (from 1978 onward) and was later hired by the high school to teach Cree and northern sewing on the request of her former students. Topics covered in the interview include feasts and celebrations, music, games, chores for children, dances, sports, sledding, behavioural expectations, personal qualities, alcohol and drugs, keeping the peace and RCMP, elders, interacting with young people, languages, and education. The interviewer also asks about Violet’s future plans and a message for her grandchildren. Parts of the recording are of poor quality with audio blips.

N-2001-016: CN-36B · Item · March 31, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a three-part interview of Dora Tourangeau at Fort Smith, recorded on March 31, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-36A and CN-37. Dora provides biographical information about herself, while answering interview questions. Topics covered include gardening, use of wild plants for food and medicine, transportation, the mission, diseases and epidemics, death, cemeteries, religious gatherings, community leaders, traders and stores, RCMP and punishment, health care in Aklavik, shopping, education, languages, and residential school. Dora left Fort Fitzgerald and stayed Halfway for two years. In 1930, she came to Fort Smith to work at the restaurant in hotel. From June to April 1936, she worked as a housekeeper for a doctor in Aklavik, because she wanted to see the country, and had the opportunity to visit Herschel Island and Tuktoyaktuk. More recently she was employed as a cook in Plummer’s camps on Great Bear Lake for four summers. Dora describes her instruction in catechism by one of the priests and learning to read from the Eaton’s Catalogue. Parts of the recording are of poor quality with audio blips. The recording ends abruptly.

N-2001-016: CN-39A · Item · March 25, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is an interview of Beatrice Daniels at Yellowknife, recorded on March 25, 1992 at 2:30 pm, by Jeanette Mandeville, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. Beatrice shares many biographical details of her life as well as answering the interviewer’s questions. She was born in 1912 in Fort Resolution. Her father worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company and they lived among Chipewyan-speaking people. Her first language was French, but she also learned Chipewyan and English. The family split their time between Fort Resolution and Rocher River. Beatrice and her sister, Florence, were educated at the mission school in Fort Resolution and were also taught from books by their mother, who had gone to school at Fort Providence. Beatrice recalls learning to sew, shooting muskrats, moving to their new house in 1926, and the death of her of father in the 1928 flu epidemic. After her marriage, she and her husband lived at Bobby Porritt’s sawmill with three other married couples. Topics covered include relationships between groups of people, languages, education, religion, respect for others, sewing and materials, women hunting, trapping, and fishing, dances and fiddlers (including George Norn, Pat Burke, Johnny Beaulieu, and her sister Florence), Rocher River, traditional medicine, the 1928 flu epidemic, and marriage.

N-2001-016: CN-32A · Item · March 18, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a four-part interview of Frank Laviolette (age 66) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 18, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-32B, CN-33A, and CN-33B. Frank provides details of his family history and origins. Frank’s mother was from Salt River and his father from Fort Chipewyan. His father’s family had come from Winnipeg. Frank was born close to Fort Smith and has lived there his whole life. He has 13 children, including two adopted and two deceased. Both of his parents died of tuberculosis before World War II while Frank was quite young. He was taken in by Chief Squirrel’s wife, then Bill Lyall, where he stayed until he was an adult. Frank was educated up to about grade 2. Frank became a catskinner and travelled up the Mackenzie to work in Tuktoyaktuk for a couple of seasons. More recently, he ran Bison Big Game Outfitting. Additional topics covered include housing, fishing, cemeteries, role of husbands, wives and children, trapping, relationships between groups and families, marriage customs, naming customs, adoption and orphans, and celebrations. The recording ends abruptly.

N-2001-016: CN-36A · Item · March 31, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a three-part interview of Dora Tourangeau at Fort Smith, recorded on March 31, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-36B and CN-37. Dora provides biographical information about herself, while answering interview questions. Topics covered include mail, duties of wives, marriage, adoption and orphans, tuberculosis, expectations and activities of children, clothing, shopping, retirement, trapping, fishing, transportation, hunting, caribou, dog teams, provision for widows, sewing, relationship of the Hudson’s Bay trader with the community, employment, cattle and horses, and preservation of food. Dora shares that her mother, ___ Paulette, was born in Fort Fitzgerald, and her ancestors were from St. Boniface, Manitoba. Dora was born in Fort Fitzgerald around 1904 and remained there until 1927, when she moved to a camp at Halfway for a few years. Dora’s father had died of tuberculosis when she was 8 years old and her mother died of chicken pox when Dora was 16. In 1917, she attended the convent school at Fort Chipewyan for about a year and a half, however, she was sick for much of the time. Her mother also instructed her in sewing and knitting. After her mother’s death, Dora lived with an uncle for awhile, then began working as a cook and housekeeper to support herself. She never married. Parts of the recording are of poor quality with audio blips. The recording ends abruptly.

N-2001-016: CN-38A · Item · March 19, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a two-part interview of Sam Norn (age 82) at Fort Resolution, recorded on March 19, 1992, by Jeanette Mandeville, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 100 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-38B. The interview is relatively unstructured, consisting mainly of personal and ancestral stories told by Sam Norn. The interviewer also appears to have strong family connections to Fort Resolution and often asks about her family connections and things she wants more information about. She also shares information she has gathered from reading about the Metis people of the area, including the Beaulieus. Sam tells the story of his poor eyesight and how he went blind and shares some family information about his mother’s death of appendicitis when he was about 14, the Beaulieu’s log house on Jean River, his uncles Johnny and Alexi, spring camp, family members who were involved in a court case, and the arrival and marriage of William Norn, his grandfather. He then tells a lengthy story about a set of twins who go in separate directions, which is perhaps the Dene story of Yamoria and Yamozha. Sam’s story follows one of the twins, who encounters several other people had has adventures. After 400 years the twins meet again and fought and they had when they were kids. Sam then tells a few stories about his Uncle asking for a cigarette, using gunpowder to blow something up, and having a dog sled tip on him. He then starts a story about ghosts, which is continued on the other side of the tape. Sam is frequently hard to understand, which makes it difficult to follow many of his stories. There are also occasional interruptions of the interview and the recording ends abruptly.

Mar 19/92 Sam Norn Ft. Res.
N-2001-016: CN-38B · Item · March 19, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a two-part interview of Sam Norn at Fort Resolution, recorded on March 19, 1992, by Jeanette Mandeville, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 100 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-38A. The interview is relatively unstructured, consisting mainly of personal stories told by Sam Norn. Sam starts by continuing a story about ghosts and premonitions that something is going to happen. He then speaks about medicine men, his personal experience, people that know something, and plants for healing. He briefly mentions Jewish people in the country, including the Pinskis. The interviewer leads him into a discussion about catching muskrats and asks about trading stores and trappers, which leads Sam to talk about Bud Ali. The interviewer asks about sicknesses and epidemics and Sam responds with a couple of stories, then main one of which seems to centre on the 1928 epidemic. The interviewer then asks Sam if he knew her dad’s uncle Alphonse Mandeville, which leads Sam into stories about Alphonse and the actions of Father Duchene (spelling?) after his death. A side story about Bishop Fallaize is also shared. Sam then shares stories about Augustin Beaulieu, who had served in the army, and a related story about his shooting by Lambert (spelling?). The interviewer asks if he ever went to the Mission school, which leads Sam into the story of this short-lived school career and how his grandfather took him out of school and taught him to trap muskrats. The interview concludes with the interviewer speaking of her desire to visit her family’s old camp and Sam providing information about its location. Sam is frequently hard to understand, which makes it difficult to follow many of his stories.

N-2001-016: CN-32B · Item · March 18, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a four-part interview of Frank Laviolette (age 66) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 18, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-32A, CN-33A, and CN-33B. Frank provides personal details from his life, describing how he became a catskinner, memories of his mother and father, his selection of a wife, what happened to his siblings when his parents died, and the impact of tuberculosis on his family. Additional topics covered include pensions, behavioural expectations for men, hunting customs, leadership, tools and rules, animals hunted at various kinds of year, trapping, traps and fur, winter clothing, dog teams and sleds, buffalo, goods exchanged for furs, traders, the relationship between the community and traders, fishing, employment, food gathering and preserving, and the use of plants for medicine. The recording ends abruptly.

N-2001-016: CN-33B · Item · March 18, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the fourth part of a four-part interview of Frank Laviolette (age 66) at Fort Smith, recorded on March 18, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of an audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-32A, CN-32B, and CN-33A. Topics covered include religious beliefs and experiences, medicine men and women, feasts and celebrations, musical instruments, toys, the relationship of people with the RCMP, education, languages, and residential school. The recording ends abruptly.

This recording includes the third and fourth parts of the interview.

N-2001-016: CN-35A · Item · March 29, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a two-part interview of Violet Chalifoux at Fort Smith, recorded on March 29, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-35B. Violet provides personal details from her life, especially her life growing up in Grande Prairie and Bezanson on a farm and her memories of her grandfather Louis Calliou. After her marriage, she lived with her husband in the Keg River area, where he trapped and she encountered well-known Keg River doctor Mary Percy Jackson. Violet moved with her husband and family to Fort Smith in the 1960s. After his death, she returned to school and at the time of the interview was teaching Cree. Topics covered include family relations, religious beliefs, duties of husbands and wives, marriage, naming of children, adoption, tuberculosis, education, childbirth, behavioural expectations for women, retirement and pensions, farming, hunting and trapping, dogs, sewing tools, the relationship between trader and the community, employment, food preservation, plants used for food and medicine, diseases and epidemics, death and burial, and missionaries. Parts of the recording are of poor quality with audio blips. An unidentified male voice (perhaps a son) also provides additional information.

N-2001-016: CN-37A · Item · March 31, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the third part of a three-part interview of Dora Tourangeau at Fort Smith, recorded on March 31, 1992 by Sister Agnes Sutherland as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 60 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-36A and CN-36B. Dora provides biographical information about herself, while answering interview questions. Topics covered include residential school, education, quilting, crocheting, and childcare.

[Len Heron] #2
N-2001-016: CN-42B · Item · February 5, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a three-part interview of Leonard Heron at Fort Smith, recorded on February 5, 1992, by Joe Mercredi, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 60 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-42A and CN-43A. Leonard relates the history of Fort Chipewyan and the various moves the fort made. Other topics covered include: dog teams and travelling by dog team, forerunners (in particular, Louis Mercredi), the culture of sharing what you have, food and food preservation, trapping and traplines, trapping cabin conversations, home remedies, medicine men, influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Missions on communities, residential schools and education, role of chiefs in the community, Metis and Indigenous culture, role of women, provision for widows, employment, recreational activities, dances, alcohol, orphans and custom adoption, and courtship.

[Mabel Heron]
N-2001-016: CN-44B · Item · February 7, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the second part of a two-part interview of Mabel Heron at Fort Smith, recorded on February 7, 1992, by Joe Mercredi, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side B of a 60 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes CN-44A. Mabel provides many details about her life growing up on her parents’ farm at Johnson’s Landing, as well as answering general questions. Mabel was born in Fort Chipewyan in 1924. Her mother was Katie (Catherine) Alice Cooper from Fort McKay and her father was John Wilfred Johnson, who had emigrated from Sweden. While she was still a baby, the family moved to what became known as Johnson’s Landing, where her parents cleared the land and established a farm. They kept cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and dogs, as well as growing vegetables, and running a trading store. Many people stopped there. Mabel’s father also trapped. The children were educated using correspondence courses taught by their mother, who had spent a number of years in the Convent at Fort McKay after her father died. The family did not leave the farm and the children were not permitted to socialize with the people who stopped there. Mabel describes enjoying the visits of her Cree grandmother, who told them old stories. A priest also came to instruct the children in their catechism and they took first communion and confirmation as a group on the farm. After her mother got sick, Mabel describes her father as getting mean, blaming the children for everything, and beating them frequently. Her mother died of cancer at the age of 32. At the age of 22, Mabel ran away from the farm with her brother, reaching Hay Camp the first night and Fort Fitzgerald the next day. She stayed with her aunt for awhile. Her younger sisters also ran away from the farm. In 1948, Mabel moved to Fort Smith, where she worked in the kitchen at the HBC hotel. She married Charlie Heron about 7 months later. Mabel did not visit her father again until her son Brien was four years old. Other topics discussed include: food preparation, religion, and disciplining children.

Len Heron, Feb 5/92. 1
N-2001-016: CN-42A · Item · February 5, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a three-part interview of Leonard Heron at Fort Smith, recorded on February 5, 1992, by Joe Mercredi, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 60 audio cassette. The interview also includes items CN-42B and CN-43A. Leonard provides information about his parents and grandparents, including his grandfather, Julian Francis Heron, who was a Hudson’s Bay Factor/Manager in Fort Edmonton, Nelson, Fort Nelson, Fort Simpson, Fort Rae, and Fort Chipewyan, his father, Francis Julian Heron (Frank), and his mother, Mary McDonald, from Fond du Lac, Saskatchewan. Leonard relates how his father worked for a trading outfit, as a Special Constable for the RCMP, with the Department of Indian Affairs, and as a trapper. Leonard also tells the story of his father enlisting to fight in World War I and serving in Russia driving sled dogs to haul mail and drive officers. Leonard attended school at Fort Chipewyan, achieving a Grade 5 education, which he supplemented with correspondence courses and extensive reading.

Prospectors Hugh Arden I
N-2001-016: CN-47A · Item · [ca. 1995]
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a two-part interview of Hughie Arden at Yellowknife, likely in 1995, recorded by Gordon (Lennie?). The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 90 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-47B. This part of the interview focuses on the predicted environmental and socio-economic impacts of diamond mines in the NWT, in particular, the proposed BHP Diamonds Inc. operation. The interviewer goes through a series of questions on various topics including effects on the terrain, watershed, permafrost, wildlife (especially caribou, bears, wolves, and fish), and local hunters, trappers, and fishermen resulting from mine operations, including construction and use of roads and airstrips, draining of lakes, stream diversion, dams, mine site construction, open pit operations, processing operations, disposal of tailings, use of diesel generators for power, waste management, and use of wildlife by mine employees. Mine reclamation and employing Indigenous people are also discussed. Another set of questions discuss the socio-economic impacts of the mine including effects on people, families, and their lifestyle caused by shift work and tensions between southerners and Indigenous northerners. The interviewer introduces the concerns already raised by others and solicits Hughie’s opinions as to effects he feels the mine will have, whether he shares the concerns of others, and any other concerns he has. Hughie often draws on his experience with other mines to make comparisons. The interviewer spends a lot of time talking through the questions and concerns, with the result that he frequently puts words in mouth of the interviewee. The recording ends abruptly.

Mable [Mabel] Heron
N-2001-016: CN-44A · Item · February 7, 1992
Part of Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories fonds

This item is the first part of a two-part interview of Mabel Heron at Fort Smith, recorded on February 7, 1992, by Joe Mercredi, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 60 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-44B. Mabel provides many details about her life growing up on her parents’ farm at Johnson’s Landing, as well as answering general questions. Mabel was born in Fort Chipewyan in 1924. Her mother was Katie (Catherine) Alice Cooper from Fort McKay and her father was John Wilfred Johnson, who had emigrated from Sweden. While she was still a baby, the family moved to what became known as Johnson’s Landing, where her parents cleared the land and established a farm. They kept cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and dogs, as well as growing vegetables, and running a trading store. Many people stopped there. Mabel’s father also trapped. The children were educated using correspondence courses taught by their mother, who had spent a number of years in the Convent at Fort McKay after her father died. The family did not leave the farm and the children were not permitted to socialize with the people who stopped there. Mabel describes enjoying the visits of her Cree grandmother, who told them old stories. A priest also came to instruct the children in their catechism and they took first communion and confirmation as a group on the farm. After her mother got sick, Mabel describes her father as getting mean, blaming the children for everything, and beating them frequently. Her mother died of cancer at the age of 32. At the age of 22, Mabel ran away from the farm with her brother, reaching Hay Camp the first night and Fort Fitzgerald the next day. She stayed with her aunt for awhile. Her younger sisters also ran away from the farm. In 1948, Mabel moved to Fort Smith, where she worked in the kitchen at the HBC hotel. She married Charlie Heron about 7 months later. Mabel did not visit her father again until her son Brien was four years old. Other topics discussed include: entertainment, clothing, education, hunting and fishing, food preservation, dogs, trading, sickness and death, and traditional medicine and medicine men.