This is an ongoing research project that will support Indigenous communities and provide newly developed resources that can help provide agency and act as a set of resources for communities to access funding and resources as they navigate complex colonial housing processes. This project is part of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s Indigenous-led Design Fellowship Program.
SOLO is collaborating with Alex Wilson (OHMN), Sylvia McAdam (OHMN), Shawn Bailey (U of M), Lancelot Coar (U of M), and David T Fortin Architect as part of the AAHA (Architects Against Housing Alienation) proposal at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Water is an integral part of Métis life. It brings sustenance and connects northern communities. Roads connecting many northern Métis communities in Saskatchewan are sparse, for example, (Ile-a-la Crosse, Buffalo Narrows, La Loche, Patunauk, Pinehouse), whereas water is plentiful. In many cases, travel by water is preferred over road travel in summer months. These communities are connected via the Churchill River system.
The Métis are a distinct group of Indigenous people with unique cultural practices, language and building traditions that differ from both their maternal (Indigenous) and paternal (Scottish/French/English) lineages. One of the primary spatial conditions that has historically distinguished the Métis from other groups in the Canadian prairie provinces emerged from their overriding emphasis on egalitarian principles of social organization and consensus that evolved out of their Buffalo hunting culture during the 19th century.1 The Métis have built and continue to build spaces across the prairie provinces that respond to each local environment in ingenious, sustainable, egalitarian, and resourceful ways. This Métis vernacular architecture is the physical manifestation that developed when the lived consequences were too severe to make error. These responses have been learned through inherited experiences that were and continue to be distilled by countless generations of lived experience in harsh environmental and even harsher social conditions.
This research will explore both historical and contemporary examples of Métis architecture to better understand ‘what is Métis architecture?’ Other Indigenous cultures in Canada have recognizable vernacular typologies such as the igloo, tipi, longhouse, and wigwam. What then is Métis architecture beyond log cabin nostalgia and pasted visual lexicons? Is there a place for a contemporary Métis architecture in the prairies?
This thesis will explore a collaboration with the Métis Elder and artist, Maria Campbell, on a design proposal for a space that facilitates cultural practice through a process of Kîhokêwin. This includes storytelling, dreaming, art, music, language, craft, ceremony, and cultural activities at the historic site of Gabriel Dumont’s Crossing along the Âpihtâkîsikanohk Kisiskâciwani-Sîpiy (South Saskatchewan River). Kîhokêwin Kumik will be an exploration of not only a Métis Vernacular, but an exploration in a contemporary Métis architecture that is grounded in the teachings of our Elders, kisêwâtisiwin (kindness), kwayaskwatisiwin (honesty), nikwatisowin (sharing), and maskawisiwin (strength). It will braid together the past, present, and future through an Indigenous architectural process that creates a catalyst space to strengthen kinship in the Métis Nation at Gabriel’s Crossing, a place that has always been a hub for Métis resistance and culture.
To access the thesis PDF please email SOLO.
Smoking wild meat and fish is an integral part of both historical and contemporary Métis culture. This process cures and dries the meat, which allows the meat to be preserved for extended periods of time without refrigeration. Moose, fish, deer and elk meat are the most often smoked meats in Métis communities. Traditionally, bison was cured this way and mixed with animal fat (usually bison) and berries (usually Saskatoon) creating pemmican, a diet staple for centuries on the plains. High in protein, fat, and vitamins, this super-food helped families through long, frigid winters on the plains. Pemmican was sometimes made with fish in substitute for bison. In order to smoke meat properly and efficiently, smoking structures were constructed. These structures take on a number of forms and have regionally evolved in isolated Métis communities.
Many different variations of the meat smoking structure exist within Métis communities, some more elaborate than others. However, the overall design is similar to all structures. These structures require four main elements: a smoke source, smoking rack(s), structure to hold the smoking racks and a covering to retain the smoke inside of the structure. Each structure is triangular in elevation, which creates a natural funnel to concentrate smoke near the top. The wider base allows for a small smoking fire to be built underneath, or for coals to be shoveled in. The smoking rack is normally above the halfway point which keeps it far enough away from the heat of a fire, and in an area of high smoke levels. This increases the quality of the finished meat. An external skin must be tightly wrapped around the frame to hold the smoke in. This is made of canvas, plastic, wood, or aluminum sheets. The frame is often made from willow or spruce saplings, or dimensional lumber.
Although smoked meat is not as common as in past centuries, it remains a staple in the diets of Métis families and the construction of smoking structures is still present and an important part of the material culture of Métis people. As part of this project, a comprehensive catalog of smoking structures in Métis communities is underway.
The expropriation of Métis families in 1959 in Rooster Town, Winnipeg illustrates clearly Canada’s broader agenda to use urban colonial planning as a vehicle to disenfranchise and dislocate urban Indigenous people to nurture a society devoid of urban Indigenous people.
This paper was co-authored by David Fortin, Jason Surkan, and Dani Kastelein. It is published in the book “Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture”, published in 2018 and available for sale here.
Understanding the Métis folk house reveals aspects of Métis culture that cannot be treated as solely historical, especially given the similarities with selected contemporary Métis-built homes.
