My maternal family is part of the historic Red River Métis community, with roots in St. Boniface in the 1830s and St. Norbert in the generations that followed. My ancestor Jacques Tourond (b. 1836) was born into this community, and his brother, Jean-Baptiste Tourond (1838–1891), was involved with the provisional government during the Red River Resistance (see photo). These histories are part of the Red River Métis, a distinct Indigenous people with deep roots across the prairies and in what is now Manitoba.
My great-great-grandmother, Marie Rose Tourond, was born in St. Norbert in 1874, in the generation that carried this history forward in the post-Resistance era. Her daughter, Mary Rose Tourond, my great-grandmother, was born in 1895 into a generation shaped by the aftermath of dispossession, when many Métis families were pushed to disperse, relocate, and adapt in order to survive. These pressures often led to distance from Red River communities and a quieting of visible cultural expression—sometimes resulting in loss, and at other times in a shift in how identity was lived. Mary Rose passed in 1984, when I was eleven years old—a proximity that underscores that this history is not abstract, but part of a continuous line of lived experience that informs who I am.
This lineage continues through my grandfather, Francis, who built a homestead in northern Alberta. Like other Red River Métis families, he moved north to establish a life on land that was available at the time. There, he raised six children with my grandmother, Alma, the daughter of Italian immigrants. Together, they built a family grounded in close relationships, shared work, and connection to place. My mother, Anne Dolen-Stewart, and her siblings were pulled to school by horse and cart, and the family lived from what they raised—chickens, cows, and a large garden. From the age of seven to thirteen, I was raised on that same homestead, in the house my grandfather built. Today, my mother and her brothers, along with an extended network of cousins and their children, continue to live within minutes of my grandparents’ homestead. This continuity reflects a land-based, kinship-oriented way of life long associated with Red River Métis families across the prairies.
My father’s parents were neighbours to my maternal grandparents, and my father, Daniel Fitzpatrick (Irish and Scottish), grew up alongside my aunts and uncles. I was raised within my mother’s family, and my upbringing and sense of identity have been shaped through this ongoing connection to place and kinship. This pattern of close kinship and deep ties to land reflects a continuity that remains central to many Métis families.
My Métis ancestry includes the following families: Courchêne, Ladéroute, Beauchamp, and Lecompte. This history is supported through family records and archival documentation and includes multiple engagements with the Métis scrip system in the Red River region, a government program that played a central role in the dispossession of Métis land. Our family’s scrip was issued in St. François Xavier, with a second family claim documented in St. Boniface. I welcome connections with Métis folks who wish to share stories, histories, or relations—please reach out if you feel inspired.
While my Red River family primarily resides in the prairie provinces, I maintain these connections while also being an active member of the Métis community in British Columbia. I am a citizen of the Métis Nation of British Columbia and a member of the Sea to Sky Métis Association. Through MNBC, I have built meaningful relationships with Métis community members across the province. These relationships continue to inform my cultural learning, strengthen my sense of identity, and shape the responsibilities I carry within my practice as an artist, researcher, and teacher. Honouring ties to the homeland, I also hold citizenship with the Manitoba Métis Federation and my local is the St. Norbert Parish-La Barriér Métis Council.
The following resources offer further context on Métis history and cultural knowledge:
Gabriel Dumont Institute Virtual Museum: www.metismuseum.ca
Métis Speaker Series Podcast: https://www.mnbc.ca/news-events/metis-speaker-series
Rupertsland Institute: https://www.rupertsland.org/teaching-learning/land-based-learning-askihk-kiskinohamatowin/
Louis Riel Institute: /https://www.louisrielinstitute.ca/
Some of my own work connected to culture:
Métis in Monotypes: https://nevadalynn.com/new-work/monotypes/
Métis Now: Elders, Artists, and Activists: https://nevadalynn.com/metis-now-elders-artists-and-activists/
