Road Allowance People of Saskatchewan Project Interviews, 2013–2014

Road Allowance People of Saskatchewan Project Interviews, 2013–2014

The Road Allowance period (roughly 1900-1960) is a key but little-known element of Métis history and identity. It was integral in forming Métis identity and helped ensure that the Métis would be largely a landless, marginalized people.  As immigrant farmers took up land in the Prairie provinces after the 1885 Resistance, many Métis dispersed to parkland and forested regions, while others squatted on Crown land used — or intended — for the creation of roads in rural areas or on other marginal pieces of land. These patches of land intended for the construction of roads in the rural areas of the Prairie Provinces are commonly known as “Road Allowances.”

Because many Métis families settled along these Road Allowances, Settlers began to derisively call them the “Road Allowance People.”  The Road Allowance Métis settled in hundreds of makeshift communities throughout the three Prairie Provinces, including Saskatchewan’s Little Chicago and Crescent Lake, Manitoba’s Madeleine and Rooster Town (Winnipeg), and Alberta’s Saratoga Park (Medicine Hat), among countess other communities.

In late 2013 and early 2014, the Gabriel Dumont Institute conducted interviews with Métis community people who lived in Road Allowance communities or knew people who did. The information obtained from these interviews will appear in a forthcoming Gabriel Dumont Institute Press book about Saskatchewan Road Allowance communities. Most of the interviews were conducted by Scott Duffee. However, Darren Préfontaine and Kori Taylor conducted six additional interviews.