Home | Chilliwack Métis Association
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Taanishi! The Chilliwack Métis Association is a Chartered Community of Métis Nation British Columbia. We strive to connect as a community and build culture. We host social and family gatherings, dinners, Métis Jigging, music, Michif language, monthly women’s events, board meetings and Elders luncheons. All this and more to stimulate Métis culture and learn about our shared history. We offer support to community members in their Métis citizenship applications and linking to MNBC supports and resources. We are strengthening our relationship with SD33 and hope to connect with all our Métis families as well.
You can stay up to date on all our events by following us on Facebook. You can reach out to us there or email at cmasecretary@hotmail.com.
Q: Who are the Métis?
Métis culture and nationhood is rooted in intermarriages and other social connections between European and First Nations people during the early North American fur trade period. During the 1600s to 1700s, fur traders from France, Scotland, England, and other parts of Europe married First Nations women in what historians have referred to as country marriages, or marriages entered into according to Aboriginal law.
The children of these couples were mixed Aboriginal people, but they were not yet Métis. Over time, these individuals chose to marry other mixed Aboriginal individuals, with such families creating distinct Métis kinship networks, communities, and cultural norms. Gradually, a distinct culture and Nation solidified over generations. Historic Métis communities emerged in the lands now known as B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and the Northwest Territories, as well as in Montana, North Dakota, and Idaho.
The term Métis does not encompass all individuals with mixed Aboriginal and European heritage. Rather, it refers to a distinctive people who developed their own worldview, customs, way of life, and recognizable group identity that is separate from their First Nations or European forebears.[1]
Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 explicitly recognizes and affirms the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Section 35 also indicates that the term “Aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the First Nation, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada
Maarsii, White Shawl Woman- Shannon Olynyk - Indigenous Education Advisory Committee Métis representative and Chilliwack Métis Association Director of Children and Families.