I haven't noticed among you, any long-lasting symptoms of frost-bite from my last talk, July 11th. Luckily for us, by the 17th century, the minus 6°C, average mean temperature, had warmed up considerably, and with nearly 8,000 years of virgin forest growth behind us, those howling gales had calmed considerably. Welcome to a warmer environment.

Good evening, and thank you for being with us this evening. I'm Gilbert R. Bossé, from Leggatts' Point, who came to say a few words on Early Metis History between 1675 to 1854.

Take note that Chantel and her mother, has prepared desert with coffee for all those who had only a light dinner this evening before coming.

But before I start, I'd like to mention that we are honoured with the presence of Chief Ginette Racette of the Bedeque native community, with us this evening. She's was instrumental in the research and advancement, of the prehistoric archaeological site at Price, which I'll tell you about in my next talk. She practically single-handedly, reactivated the native community after several years dormant, and now has over 200 members. After my talk, and question period, she'd probably be happy to answer any questions concerning our aboriginal presence, activities, projects, etc., in the adjacent room.

Now, getting into our early Metis history, dating back to May 6th, 1675, when the Comte de Frontenac, granted the Seigneurie Depeiras or Mitis to Jean-Baptiste Depeiras, a retiring member of the Sovereign Council, who had been faithful and loyal to Frontenac during his entire career. I spent many pleasant hours going through "Les Insinuations du Conseil Souverain ou Supérieur", the papers of the Sovereign Council, on microfilm. Being among the earliest works on Quebec history at Les Archives Nationales on microfilm, page numbering seems to have been still a few years off. Studying it was like a very thick book with unnumbered pages. Deciphering its historical french calligraphy was a fascinating and challenging endeavour. Being of a general lay out, I won't tire you with its contents, apart from one most interesting point, that continues to intrigue me, even today. That Act of Fealty & Homage, (Acte de foi et homage) of 1675, identifies the location, as the Seigniory of Depeiras or Mitis, spelled as M I T I S. In the Malécite language, Mitis means "little poplars", while in Mi'kmaq, it is described as "little birch". (Quoted from « Lexique des noms indiens du Canada », par Bernard Assiniwi, published in 1996) In nearly every early statutory and legal document, including maps and charts, the place continued to be spelled as M I T I S. However, in the mid-19th century, it slowly changed, from identifying a location, by replacing the first I, with an accentuated E, becoming M É T I S, an adjective meaning mixed race or half-breed. Did someone not like the aboriginal name place, and tried to make it sound more French, perhaps without understanding the meaning of Métis? Another altogether intriguing question.

Jean-Baptiste Depeiras, who had been granted, the Seigneury Depeiras or Mitis, in 1675 by Comte de Frontenac, passed away in 1701 at Québec, and his daughter, Elizabeth, inherited the Mitis Seigniory. Her son-in-law, Louis Lambert, in name and acting as her Power of Attorney, became Seignior by "Act of Fealty & Homage", June 27th, 1724, followed by an Act of Avowal and Enumeration (Acte d'aveu et dénombrement) the following day. While his intentions of developing Metis were most likely lofty and honourable, he neither visited Metis nor produced any lasting improvement.

With the arrival of the nineteenth century, the Seigniory of Metis or Depeiras, slipped from French control to British. Antoine Joubin-dit-Boisvert, and his wife Madelaine Pinguet, sold their control and interests on the seigniory to Matthew Macnider for £200 sterling. Prior to concluding the sale, a notice appeared a few times in the Quebec Gazette, only in the french language, requesting anyone with interest in the Metis Seigniory to contact M. Macnider before August 1st, 1802. As no objections seems to have appeared against the sale, Matthew Macnider signed the Act of Fealty and Homage just five weeks after acquiring title to the Seigniory of Depeiras or Mitis, thereby becoming Seignior. No evidence has been found, suggesting he visited Metis; neither is there any indication, he intended to organize, and develop the seigniory.

Sieur Paul Lambert, grandson-in-law of Elizabeth Depeiras, the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Depeiras, and original Seigneur of Metis, accepted the acquittance from the sale of the Seigniory, from Sieur & Dame Joubin-dit-Boisvert, which occurred May 29, 1802, of £800 sterling. Marie-Anne Lambert, sister to Jacques, Jean-Baptiste and Paul Lambert, co-owners of the Seigniory Depeiras or Mitis, with her husband Sieur Pierre Lorangé, accepted the acquittance July 5, 1802, for an additional £800. If you add up the totals, Matthew Macnider paid £1800 sterling for control of the seigniory, approximately 36 square miles of land, including a very considerable water front.

Between unsound business dealings gone sour, and unanticipated attacks by con-artists, Matthew Macnider found all his lands seized by a sheriffs' writ of execution, in mid-May, 1805. Surprisingly, this practice was quite prevalent during the Seigniorial era, not only in large urban areas. From my copy of the Macnider collection, we learn in Volume III, Matthew Macnider, at that time, owned not only the Mitis Seigniory, but several hundred pieces of land, seigniories, mills and other estates, that were all seized.

In the opening case of Joseph Drapeau, representing Matthew Macnider, opposing James Shepherd, Sheriff of the District of Quebec, who had seized the Seigniory of Metis, by Writ of Execution, on behalf of Caleb Blanchard, we are left with many unanswered questions:

Without getting into the gritty legal details, Calib Blanchard's case, was dismissed with cost, and the Mitis Seigniory, continued under British ownership.

The actual sheriff sale, of the Metis Seigniory, to John Macnider in 1806, plus the Act of Avowal and Enumeration, generally signed following the Act of Fealty and Homage, hasn't been found. In 1807, John Macnider, signed another Act of Fealty and Homage, confirming title of the Seigniory of Mitis, plus three islands or ilots composing St. Barnabé, including his rights to hunting and fishing, and trading with the savages, plus numerous responsibilities related to the land.

In 1811, John Macnider sent the evaluator, Benjamin Écuyier, to survey the property, its potential for agriculture, fishing, forests and future possibilities, documented in a one page report. Imagine treking through the seigniory from the mouth of the Mitis River, across virgin forest of some 8,000 year-old growth, to the southeast corner, what we now call the sixth range of Macnider road. I like doing long hikes, in the order or 35km, but even with my GPS, cell phone, multi-day back-pack with all kinds of gadgets, I'd still have more than a few doubts about starting a hike through such a forest with fallen trees, wind falls, marsh land, swamps, savannahs and such.

Apparently, most of you, who were here at my last talk, survived through the dry and cold climate of 8,000 years ago, with gale and storm force winds and numerous brush fires. Stepping ahead into the 19th century, Mount Tambora, or Tomboro if you like, erupted in the Indonesian archipelago in April, 1815, creating the worst global climate anomaly, since Lake Taupo erupted in the year 181AD. The following year, 1816, became known as the Year Without a Summer. Mid-June saw a foot and a half of snow accumulating along the fences, just south of Quebec City, with snow drifts like January and February. Many lakes, remained covered with ice, all that summer, and most of our northern hemisphere experienced near-famine conditions. As you are all aware, John Macnider shipped his little flock of emigrants to Metis in early autumn of 1818. Try to visualize how they managed to live through that winter. With nowhere to live on arrival, nothing but dense virgin forests before their eyes, very little tools, no basic knowledge of winter survival, no idea what Canadian winter had in store for them following the Year without a Summer... But, I have to stop here, or we'll be stuck frozen in late autumn of 1818 for the next several hours.

The last will and testament of John Macnider, who passed away in 1829, is rather long and windy; in the usual Notary Public format. However, one paragraph near the end of the eighth article, caught my eye, and I quote. "And if, at the decease of the said Testator, there shall be no church, built or erected, in the said Fief and Seigniory of Depeiras or Mitis, then, and in that case, the said Testator, doth hereby give, and bequeath, unto his said nephew, and the survivor of them, the sum of Five Hundred Pounds, current money aforesaid, to be, by them or him, employed in the erection and building, in the said Seigniory, of a church for Public Worship, according to the Established Church of Scotland, which said sum, he doth hereby direct, shall be employed accordingly, and that the site of the said Church, shall be selected and fixed upon, in conformity to the voice, of the majority of the Inhabitants, of the said fief and Seigniory, professing the religion of the church of Scotland." Pray tell me, what happened to that 500 pounds, when John Macnider passed away in August, 1829? Nothing of that stature was ever erected until after July 1st, 1847, when Peter Francis Leggatt donated, a piece of land, half an acre square, for a church, located where Killicrankie, now stands. It certainly didn't cost 500 pounds. History sometimes creates more searching questions than any researcher can answer.

The inventory sale of the Seigniory and estate plus the arbitration proceedings of 1830 merits a thorough coverage. However, we'd still be here tomorrow evening if we browse through the details, assuming nobody asked any questions. Instead, we'll jump to 1846, where we first notice the sale of The Seigniory of Metis. Strangely, it's dimension are mentioned as six miles in length by ten miles in depth. In all earlier descriptions, the depth was two leagues, or six miles. Beats me, how you can stretch six miles into ten. In any case, little interest was shown in the sale, so the stretched four miles were forgotten.

However, before we go too far, let's look at Metis education. August 20, 1830, we read "dépot d'un Acte d'élection pour les écoles de Mitis", or, "an act to appoint trustees for the Mitis schools," written at the Manor House, signed by Hugh Macnider and others. On the 30th of January, 1831, Hugh Macnider, Henry Page, Peter Leggatt, John Smith and James McEwing, were appointed as trustees, in accordance to the Act, entitled "Act to encourage elementary education in rural areas." Since the appointed trustees, did nothing during their mandate, Francis Brough, William Page, William Turriff, Collin McEwing and Alexander McMillen were sworn in, August 2nd, 1831, as new trustees. For the next few years, the trustees played musical-chairs, with little results. William Macnider, on the 5th day of February, 1845, donated to the trustees, now called commissioners, including William Turriff, Hugh Macnider, Peter Francis Leggatt, Dougald Smith and Donald Macgougan, a plot of land, 68ft in front by 40ft, in the first range, on the east side of John and William Macniders' concession. According to my map, that makes it somewhere close, to the Bohm, or de la Ronde's properties. In the general store ledger, for 1848 or 49, it seems to me, I saw a list of materials, bought for the construction of the school; nails, boards and such, but haven't had time to go through it line by line. Now, a little anecdote on more recent education. One afternoon, in the spring of 1994, or was it 95, Cathy called me, asking if I could prepare, a short talk on our school history, as the Honourable Jean Garon, Minister of Education, was to arrive the next morning with a shiny, new, $250,000 cheque for the construction of the new school extension. With barely 16 hours, plus working the midnight shift at the Coast-Guard radio station, it was a very tall order. However, after I gave my little speech, I had to chuckle, when he asked me, "Est vous profeseur, ici?"

Getting back to early Metis history, in 1851, the Grand Metis section of the Seigniory, from my west line at Leggatt's Point, to the Grand Metis River, was sold to Archibald and David Ferguson for the sum of 750 pounds, current money of Canada. In 1855, the remaining section of the Seigniory, from my west line to the Macnider road; it used to be called "La Grande Ligne", and before that, it was the trail used by the Mi'kmaq on their way to Lake Matapedia, was sold to the same persons for 850 pounds. Both these Notary Public deeds are in excess of ten pages each, so we won't go into the details. Imagine in today's prices, what 36 square miles of land, would be worth, bought for the trifling sum or 1600 pounds.

So now, we've covered, bits and pieces, of the Seigneurial Tenure. Just the Seigneurial papers alone, covers more than 450 pages so far, that will be included in my CD-ROM, I'll publish in the next few years. Shipwrecks around Metis, between 1800 and 1870 or 1880, will take up several hundred pages. Depending on how much time, I'll have available on Notary Deeds, I would like to create a data-base, similar to what I did in the yellow book, but that part is a bit futuristic at the moment. Roads, census, personalities, education and a dozen other subjects, including an exhaustive bibliography, should go a long way in starting to build a history of Metis, hopefully expanded in the coming years, by you, me and anyone who loves Metis.

As I mentioned at my last talk, you should take a peak at the arts and handicraft collection, just across in the other room, were numerous paintings, and even more than interesting, pieces of art, are on display. On behalf of us all, I want to thank Chantel and her mother, plus Steeve, for their kind gesture, to stuffing us with desert and coffee, and leaving us use their dining room. I've left a bottle on the table, to your right, on your way out, where you might leave a small contribution to help off-set the trouble and expense of cleaning up after we have left. By the way, if you tired of eating half-cold toast and over-cooked eggs for breakfast, you might try Chantel's breakfast and lunch, whose menu changes every day.

My next talk, will be Wednesday, August 8th at 7:30PM here at "Au Coin de la Baie", covering the prehistoric archaeological site at Price, excavated in May and June, 2005. I'll bring along a dozen or so photos and several unpublished documents which you may consult.

While I'm deeply interested, in our prehistory, and not so-distant, 19th century history, I'm certainly not a historian, just an ordinary researcher that doesn't mind getting his finger-nails dirty in the dusty and grimy archives, attics and back-rooms.

For those, wishing to consult the documents I brought, please take particular care. They were prepared as research tools and are quite frail. Please leave them on the table. The larger of the two maps, is a draft version on mylar, so the fewer finger prints it has to remember, the better for the mylar and for the map, too.

Finally, I've put together a preliminary annotated chronology and bibliography of Metis, including correspondence, e-publications, collections, maps & charts, surveys, reports, photos, diagrams, notes, ethnohistory, etc. The purpose is to create a catalogue or inventory so persons wanting to do research on Metis history don't have to spend several days checking out what exists. Anyone wanting a copy can send me an email. I brought a copy with me tonight.

Megwich, (thank you in Mi'kmaq) and now I'll take your questions.