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In the 1860s, Michel and his brother Jean-Baptiste and their families lived at Lac Ste Anne and managed the HBC’s fishery. The fishery became much more important as the provisioning with pemmican began to fail. People in the fur trade experienced serious hunger, beginning in 1860. The buffalo hunts were not bringing in enough provisions. People in Lac la Biche starved. In Fort Edmonton, they killed some of the oxen for food.⁶ By the 1880s, even the fishery began to fail.

The settlement [St. Albert] suffered from epidemics in the 1870s and near starvation in the 1880s. In the winter of 1888, federal police authorities had to provide relief for more than 140 people. Contributing to the difficulties experienced by the Métis were governmental restrictions on hunting and trapping. The people of Lac Ste Anne were obliged to purchase fishing licenses from the 1890s on, which they considered a hardship. In June 1893, they had a meeting at which they decided to petition the government to revoke the license law as they hadn’t the means to pay and had no other support but fish.⁷

Elliot Coues who edited the Alexander Henry journals, added a footnote about the lakes in north eastern Alberta. Speaking of Beaver River, he said that it starts eastward N. of the parallel of 54°. Before quitting Alberta it receives the discharge of a chain of lakes from the S. These are the Fish or Fishing lakes, of which Henry sometimes speaks; two of them are now called Good Fish and Whitefish; at these there is an Indian reserve, and at the last names a Wesleyan mission; another of theis chain id Floating Stone 1.⁸

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Life at Red River

Western Settlements

Buffalo Hunting

Agriculture

Fishing

Métis Traders