Métis Culture 101

• Copote: Traditional outerwear made from a Hudson Bay blanket, secured with a woven sash.
• Infinity flag: The Métis national flag, featuring a white infinity symbol usually on a blue field.
• Metchif: Métis language spoken widely by North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain tribe. “Our verbs are Cree, our nouns are French,” says Goodon.
• Pemmican: Meat (buffalo, deer, elk) dried with berries. Made and sold by Métis to other Voyageurs and explorers, Pemmican was portable and prevented scurvy.
• Red River cart: Wooden ox or horse cart used by early Métis to haul trade goods.
• Voyageur: French for traveler, voyageurs were fur traders who traveled by canoe.

Métisfest Celebrates “Children of the Fur Traders”

[This article appeared originally in the August 2011 issue of Prairie Independent]

North Dakota has several well-known festivals observing our cultural heritage–like the United Tribes Pow Wow or the Norsk Høstfest. But there’s one annual event you may not have heard of, and it’s already drawing more than 10,000 each August to the International Peace Garden near Dunseith.

Now in its third year, the International Métisfest celebrates the region’s Métis people–descendents of Europeans and Native Americans.

“We’re the children of the fur traders,” says Dan Goodon, Métisfest organizer. The first Métis were born to French, Scottish, or English fathers and Cree, Ojibwa, or Assinboine mothers in the 18th century. Today, Canada’s National Statistics Agency reports about 400,000 Métis can be found throughout that country, while closer to home, Goodon estimates 90% of North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain tribe are descended from Métis.

Here’s a video snatched off Youtube from the 2009 gathering…

The festival highlights the fiddle and step dance of the culture on three stages throughout the weekend. A rendezvous village, voyageur games, and music contests will also take place.
Cultural workshops will explore traditional Metchif language, sash weaving, Red River carts, dance, and beading.

Goodon says the festival, though only a couple years old, has already become important to local communities. He tells stories of long-separated cousins from across the border finding one another at the event and says the weekend feels like a family reunion for many.

At the same time, he encourages people of any background to attend. “This is all about preserving and sharing our culture,” he says.

Of course, the best cultural experiences start with food. Ask Goodon whether Métis have good cuisine, and he’ll tell you: “You betcha, and you’ll get some of it if you come up here.”

Métisfest is held August 26-28, 2011 at the International Peace Garden on the U.S.-Canada border near Dunseith, ND. Tickets are $10 for the three-day weekend and include admission to events, trading post, games, rendezvous village, and workshops.

Tickets for nightly concerts featuring fiddler Ryan Keplin (Friday) and country singer Patricia Conroy (Saturday) are sold separately. Camping is available at the Peace Garden. To enter the Peace Garden, no passport is necessary; however, some form of photo identification is required to re-enter the United States.

Paul Maloney, Bean Artist

I’m not much into exotic art. But take something exotic and add a local element, and I’m there. In fact, I was the only one there yesterday –in the Great Hall at the State Capitol where Paul Maloney has just started a bean mural.

Inspired by the sand Mandala’s of Buddhist Monks,  Maloney creates temporary murals from North Dakota farm products–beans and some grains. He’s creating a field scene with a rising sun and a woman spreading seeds…well, here, here’s the sketch:

The biggest problem with creating this thing? It’s not getting permission to camp out on the floor of the State Capitol. The State Treasury Secretary and  North Dakota Right to Life sponsored the project–which means they secured permission and insurance.

“North Dakota is probably the only state where I could get away with doing something like this in the state capitol,” says Maloney who lives just across the river in Mandan, ND.

Rather, the biggest problem in creating the mural is finding blue.  Maloney says he needs blue flint corn for the sky, and you can’t find any right now in North Dakota. So, he’ll have to adjust his pallette to make it work.

He expects to be done with the mural on Wednesday and will sweep it away on April 9th.

Then he’s got the problem of disposal. Buddhist Monks put the sand from their Mandala’s into a river. It’s an important part of the ritual. When Maloney did a similar project 4 years ago, he checked with some Monks and they said it would be okay if he donated the beans to a charity to be used for soup.

Moving water–kind of the same thing they thought.

Detail