Establishment of the Métis at Batoche

Commissioned by: ACFC (Franco-Canadian Cultural Association) of Bellevue

What served as inspiration for this mural, my first outdoor experience, was the adventurous spirit of the pioneering Métis culture in Western Canada. The pioneer, generally male, sees the land on which he will clear the trees to sow the seeds, the land that will make way for a community, the land on which he will raise his children. This land comes to represent hope for him and his descendants. It is the anticipation of all of this that I wanted to represent in the mural. I also recognized the importance of representing the actual families who lived in the region of Batoche at the time. What cannot be seen in the image but can be seen when standing before the mural, is the many names of families, written into the artwork. The names are 'buried' in the crevice of a rock, in a wave on the river, etc. which is meant to symbolize how infused the families are in the region, and how the families in a sense, make up the framework of the land. The Métis woman in the clouds signifies the very maternal culture of the Métis. She is Évangéline Dumas, the wife of Louis Letendre, and is depicted because I find it important to immortalise the actual people of the land, people who were perhaps didn't have celebrity but were no less important. All in all, these are the consequences of the actions of the young Métis pioneer.

As a descendant of this Métis family, it was an honour to be asked by the ACFC of Bellevue to paint this mural and I thank them.