Within the rich lineage of Alberta Métis Cultural History and indigenous history overall, Leo Ferguson offers up his own experiences.
Ferguson initially lived in Keg River before eventually coming over to Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement. Some favorite early memories of the settlement for Ferguson came in the form of dances, parties, and bingos.
Regarding the earliest settlers of PPMS circa 1939/1939, Ferguson said, “Yeah, and a lot of it was kind of funny like. Yeah, like McGilvary told them. They come from Wabasca. they come the wagon here and I don’t know if they were in a colony. You know, if they were accepted yet, but they drove down here in the wagon team. Some guys they just moved into Paddle were kind of squatters. I would say that time I always think about it there. How in here now you know you have to be a member before you go join, you can be accepted to be…”
Alberta Métis Cultural History
In terms of Metis cultural practices that he recalls fondly, Ferguson stated, “Yeah, little trapping and hunting That’s our basic…It’s still on with us. You know, will stay here forever, your kids, your grandkids. This is where we carry it right through here to the end, I don’t know they’ll be well that’s it. You won’t be around, but it’ll keep going your grandkids and stuff will continue.”
When asked “how important is it to you that an entire animal in a way that nothing goes to waste?”, Ferguson uttered, “Well, like even instance for road kill. I’m a trapper. I pick it up. Don’t shoot an animal just to make bait for wolf and stuff. I go pick it up [on the other phones and he’s a water truck driver] so I go pick it up and nothing wasted. They went back to the trap liner to use it. See, it’s already, you couldn’t survive in the… and moose and stuff like that. So we don’t waste anything. You know there’s nothing wasted. You always got your friends at first, you know. Our Indian way. Everybody eats on the 1st moose, right, yeah?”
The importance of using all parts of an animal and not overly hunting is so key for a seasoned hunter/ gatherer.
Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement
Discussing his experience gathering food and traditional medicine from Paddle Prairie Metis settlement territory, Ferguson quipped, “Yeah yeah, like fungus. Everybody picks out fungus. Balsam, spruces for medicine. Years ago, there was no doctor. My mother was a doctor… And she was a healer, right? Yeah, she picked all them stuff there. They’re burnt up, you know, nobody really talks about—that’s what I said—Nobody talked about the fire about anything, just timber lost, you know, kind of thing. Anyway, what about our medicine, you know. I still pick it, eh. I have to go different places now look you know yeah ’cause that area is gone.”
Finally, when talking about traditional parenting and how he would educate his children, Ferguson said, “Well, I think we’re rolling out when he was home for school as a trapper. But now the young generation and they got so many other things: Hockey came up and stuff they got no time for this kind of thing. You know, that took him to the side, but that kept him off to other trouble. Anything out of trouble you know, like? That something like that. They never had no games here years ago. Rodeos was what they had. It was pretty expensive.”
Ferguson has a real sense of the younger generation losing out on the work ethic and general traditions that underpinned his own upbringing.
Liberty Multimedia Inc. and Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement would like to thank Alberta Culture for its support of these interviews and dedication to preserving Alberta’s history.