Forced to live on roadsides: the dark history of Métis road allowances

Originally published on April 28, 2019.

Jesse Thistle sees the history of Métis "road allowance people" as a story of resilience and resistance.

In 1872, the Dominion Land Survey divided the prairie into settlements called homesteads. In between those lots and sites, spaces were left for roads, future railway lines and other infrastructure. Ten feet on either side of these spaces were allotted for workers to do maintenance. These thin strips of land were often left unused by the Crown.  

READ: Jesse Thistle's memoir, From the Ashes

"The Métis came to stay on these road allowances after they were dispossessed of their land through scrip," said the Michif scholar.

The scrip process, where Métis people were issued a coupon to satisfy land claims, dispossessed Métis people from where their ancestors lived for generations, said Thistle.

• MORE ON SCRIP: Why Jason Madden thinks Métis scrip is Canada's 'best-kept secret'

Thistle, who is working on his PhD at York University on road allowances, said the Métis people who moved onto these sections of Crown land established tight-knit communities.

"[These were] very community-oriented types of spaces," Thistle said. "That's why I say that there were sites of resilience and cultural resistance."

Family history

Thistle's research is through his own community in Park Valley, Sask., where many of his family members once lived on the sides of the road until as recently as 2002.

Each community would consist of a few smaller shacks with what Thistle calls a typical Métis-style architecture: a log cabin made of poplar trees, roofed with tar paper to keep the moisture out.

• From street to scholar: Jesse Thistle creates new definition of Indigenous homelessness

Métis people lived on the sides of the road illegally — although Thistle would argue it wasn't illegal — and hunted using illegal traplines too. The circumstances they were forced to live in were also policed by the government, making it difficult for communities to survive. 

The Métis gradually saved up enough money to move to the cities, buy property or move onto larger plots of land to farm. Thistle doesn't think there are any Métis people who still live on a road allowance today.

Métis today

It's why few specifically Métis settlements remain today, save for a few areas in Alberta.

It's a history, Thistle said, that is hardly taught because there isn't much visible history remaining.

"It has to do with the way that we were dispossessed and our land was extinguished," he said. "There was no Department of Indigenous Affairs set up to create documents, to track history."

The history is vital in understanding contemporary Métis people, he said.

"It was and remains a vibrant history," Thistle said. "We should be very proud of our ancestors for enduring what they did and passing on a legacy of rich stories, connection to land and an identity.

"[The history's] there if we go and search for it — we just have to look."