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Alberta Online Encyclopedia
The Métis in Western Canada: O-Tee-Paym-Soo-Wuk

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The BeginningsThe People and Their CommunitiesCulture and Lifeways
Other Sites around Buffalo Lake

Though Boss Hill, or the Penisula, was once a large community in the area, there is no trace of it in the Census of 1901. This is presumably because the community had already moved due to the change in the shoreline and rise in the lake.

Another community, Lamerton, was near present-day Mirror. Matthew Cook took scrip and settled right on the lake just a little south and east of Mirror. He was married to Mathilda Mackenzie and they had four children: Bill, Owen, George, and Kate. Bill and Owen stayed in the area, and their children married the children of early settlers.

Others who stayed in the area include the Don Whitford and Francis Whitford families and the Todd family, descendants of whom are involved in the care of the historic site on the Peninsula. Francis Whitford and his wife Jenna were the parents of Archie, Frank and Andrew Whitford, as well as Elizabeth who married John Anderson (descendant of the Métis Andersons from Manitoba), and Mary who married Sam Todd (uncle to Dan Todd and great uncle to the present day Dan Todd).

There were also Métis families in the Bashaw area before settlement. The townsite was first registered under the name of Jean Baptiste Letendre dit Batoche, and later purchased or acquired by Eugene Bashaw.

Buffalo Lake and the Battle River Valley came to prominence as a Métis gathering place after the great small-pox (la picotte) epidemic of 1870. The Métis started fleeing locations such as St. Albert and Edmonton to escape the disease. It is estimated that two-thirds of the Aboriginal people on the plains were infected and about one-third died. There were four other nearby Métis hivernant sites: Salois’ Crossing near Duhamel, Tail Creek near Boss Hill, Todd’s Crossing near Ponoka, and Dried Meat Hill. The Buffalo Lake site is located between Lynn and Buffalo Lakes southeast of Edmonton.

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Liens Rapides

The People of Tail Creek

Victoria Callihoo (1861-1966)

Historic Sites

Other Sites around Buffalo Lake

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