Finding Home (Métis Music and Art Festival, 2023)

Spring Creek, just outside the Choteau Pavilion, where the Métis Music and Art Festival takes place every year.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about home—not as a place but as a feeling. What makes a place, or a person, or an event, or even a song or tune feel like home?

This year was the fourth time that I’ve travelled to Choteau, Montana, for the Métis Music and Art Festival, having attended in 2018, 2019, and 2022. (The event was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, and ongoing border restrictions kept me from attending in 2021.) It was only my fourth time in Choteau (you can read about my previous trips below), yet something about the place and the event felt like home.

Choteau is located at the western edge of the Great Plains/Canadian Prairies, at the base of the Rocky Mountains. To get there from Lethbridge, I drive through the wide-open prairie—framed on a clear day by the intense blue of the expansive sky—through valleys and hills, and across the Marias River, a tributary of the Missouri River. (I also drive across a colonial border that divides the Métis people and that makes Choteau seem more distant than just 250 kilometres.) Some people call the Canadian Prairies/Great Plains dull, stretching on for what seems like forever in every direction—the landscape fodder for jokes about watching your dog run away for days. But to me the sky is like the ocean, impressive, awe-some, humbling. I feel no larger, and no more important, than the rabbit the runs through the fields when I’m under that great sky.

The prairie feels like home.

Where the prairie meets the mountains, northwest of Choteau.

I wonder how much of that feeling of prairie-as-home is passed on in the blood, a genetic memory of place; and how many generations it takes for a place to feel like home. Maybe some day I can trace the pathways of my ancestors, and find that feeling of home in other places. But for now, as a third-generation immigrant to the Canadian prairies who feels the choking sensation of claustrophobia in the mountains, the grassy expanses and huge skies of the prairie make me feel a little bit of home.

But it takes more than earth and sky to make home.

Nicholas Vrooman leads a group of young, Montana musicians at the Métis Music and Art Festival in 2018.

This year, the Métis Music and Art Festival included what I believe was its first fiddling competition.

There aren’t too many fiddlers in the area anymore, though people remember relatives who played—an uncle, a grandfather. And as lifelong Choteau resident and respected Elder Al Wiseman shared during an Elders’ panel at this year’s Métis Music and Art Festival, the Métis survived tough times through their faith in God and through the fiddle. The fiddle was the “glue” (this was Wiseman’s word) that kept them together.

Al Wiseman, in cowboy hat, after competing in a jigging competition at the 2019 Métis Music and Art festival. Organizers Julie and Kathy Moran in the background, and Wiseman’s wife, Elaine Wiseman, to the far right.

I grew up with the fiddle, playing at old-time fiddling contests and listening to (and even playing with) some of the greatest fiddlers in Canada.

And, I’ll admit it. I sometimes get tired of it. (Perhaps as we sometimes need space from family.) After listening to fiddling from morning to night at a festival or camp, and after hearing ten or more versions of “Faded Love” (a tune that was very popular at Métis gatherings when I was doing my PhD research from 2009 - 2013), for a moment I think that I’ve had enough. But when it’s gone, something doesn’t feel right.

I spent the first five years in Lethbridge without the fiddle. It’s the first prairie town that I’ve lived in that doesn’t have a fiddle culture. Then, last fall, I started a jam session, a small, tentative step towards building a fiddle culture here. It’s not much yet—there’s no sense of fiddling as a culture and way of being rather than a set of tunes—but it’s something. It’s a start towards making this place feel, and sound, a bit more like home.

Because there are no longer many fiddlers in Choteau or the surrounding area, the fiddling contest at this year’s Métis Music and Art Festival was small, with just three contestants. All were from outside of Montana (though connected to Métis in Montana as kin), all were nudged strongly into competing—enticed with a nice prize and perhaps a sense of duty—and all were using my fiddle because they hadn’t brought their own. (A fiddle, I might add, that was made in the prairies.) To say that the competition didn’t have the polish of the contests I grew up with in Manitoba would be an understatement.

But by the end of the very short competition—a competition that included laughter, gentle and good-natured ‘ribbing’ alongside encouragement from the audience, and sincere respect for the contestants who got up to play—I got that home feeling.

Prairie. Sky. Fiddle. Laughter. Home.

Back to Choteau, Montana, 2022

The road to Choteau, Montana. After the 1885 Resistance, Métis in Montana faced increased prejudice and moved deeper into the Rocky Mountain Front. Métis had permanent settlements in Montana by 1855, but had a much longer history in Montana as hunters and traders.

In June, I was finally able to return to Choteau, Montana, for the annual Métis Music and Art Festival, after a three-year hiatus. Organizers were forced to cancel the Festival in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2021 the US/Canada border was still closed to Canadians (such as myself) wishing to attend the event.

A combination of the ongoing impact of COVID and the organizational challenges of running an event like this meant that the gathering was smaller than usual, with only about fifty attendees and a couple of vendors. But the impact of the Festival remained significant, and the connections and friendships that were built through the gathering will, I have no doubt, carry on for years to come.

Like many Métis cultural festivals, the Métis Music and Art Festival is an opportunity for attendees to find cousins, and to (re)connect with their histories and culture.

Some of the stories offered to attendees were difficult to hear, and undoubtedly difficult to speak about.

During an Elders’ Circle, Al Wiseman shared some of his experiences as a Métis person growing up in Montana. He told attendees that he was considered “a dirty little breed kid” and said, “That stung, and it’s still here with me today. It’ll never leave me.”

Elders circle at the 2022 Métis Music and Art Festival. From left to right: Elaine Wiseman (Choteau, MT), Al Wiseman (Choteau, MT), Daniel Pocha (Helena, MT), Ike Ameline (Choteau, MT), Rod McLeod (Lethbridge, AB).

Other attendees noted that they simply didn’t know about their history and culture. It wasn’t talked about. In these stories, there is always a sense of loss about what could have been—what should have been.

As ethnobotanist Roslyn LePier noted during her presentation on plants, Métis culture has been “dormant” in many families and communities for a long time.

Dr. Roslyn LePier, presenting on traditional plant use as food and medicine.

But other stories sit on a foundation of hope and joy. In fact, LePier pointed out that Métis culture has been alive and well in some Montana families for 150 years, and it is clear that many people attend as they work towards once again centering Métis ways of being in their own lives and those of their families.

Fred “Jiggs” Charette shared two moving stories with me and gave me permission to share them here. The first story was about someone who came to the event wishing to find her family. As an adoptee, she didn’t know much, but knew that she was related to the Charettes. When she arrived at the Art and Culture Festival, she walked into the Choteau Pavilion (an old roller derby hall, where the event is held) and the first person she met with Jiggs—who she didn’t know, and didn’t know would be in attendance. As Charette introduced himself, tears ran down her face. She was where she needed to be.

The second story took place after someone came up to Jiggs at the festival and said that he wanted help finding family. He had a big binder with information that he had found so far, and opened it to a picture in the middle. Jiggs looked at the picture, and said, “that’s my great-grandfather.” Someone nearby saw the picture and said, “Oh, that’s Jean-Baptiste Charette, my great-grandfather.” They had never met before.

So, what does this have to do with music?

On the last day of the event, as I sat eating my breakfast at a nearby hotel, an attendee began sharing the story of his mother’s family who had lived in Choteau one hundred years earlier, but had moved away long ago. His mother’s father and uncles played the fiddle and piano in the very same hall where the Music and Art festival was taking place. It was clear to me that he found the experience of the festival—the connection it created with his ancestors—to be a powerful reconnection, and in a sense a coming home. Music has always brought people together in community and as celebration. Just as it brought the Métis of Choteau, Montana, together a hundred years ago, it continues bringing people together today.

The Choteau Pavilion, where the Métis Art and Culture Festival has taken place since 2017. It was built in 1921, and was used as a roller skate rink as well as for music gatherings as described above.

Be sure to watch for details about the 2023 Métis Music and Art Festival!

Métis Music and Art Festival 2019, Choteau, Montana

Vendor display by Carrie Moran McCleary (Little Shell Chippewa-Cree). McCleary noted that Choteau is shared/overlapping territory, but she wanted to emphasize Métis at this event. Visit her website at www.plainssoul.com.

The Métis Music and Art Festival is held every June in beautiful Choteau, Montana, a small town nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. When I wrote about Choteau last year (see blog post below from June 18, 2018), I noted that Métis people began moving into the area in the 1860s. I’ve since learned that the ancestors of today’s Métis were living in western Montana at least two decades earlier, and that Métis were hunting and living in eastern Montana—in particular, the Milk River area—by the early 1820s.

Banner advertising the festival, just outside of the community centre where the event is held.

View to the west of the community centre.

Remembering and sharing the history of Métis in Montana is a significant part of the Métis Music and Art Festival. This year, historian/folklorist Nicholas Vrooman provided attendees with a fascinating overview of the Little Shell Tribe. (In Canada, the Little Shell would likely be understood as Métis; but regardless of how they are named, they have close kinship ties to Métis north of the forty-ninth.)

The most memorable moment of the weekend for me was my conversation with Métis musician Kathy Moran. With her permission, I’m including two Mitchif songs (i.e., sung in a language of the Métis) that she shared with me. Kathy referred to the first as a ‘ditty’ about the buffalo hunt.

The second song Kathy shared was one that her great, great grandmother used to sing. She described it as follows:

“The song is about how the Métis lived many years ago, and probably are still living. They have a lot of trials to go through, just like today. But it tells about how poor they were, and sometimes they didn’t…even have food to eat. And…it compares them to poor little birds. But then the creator, or Jesus, takes care of them just like he’ll take care of the Métis people…My mom sang that song, but I got it from my great, great grandmother. Her name was Marie Swain, and she married…Josue Bercier, and they were up in the Turtle Mountain area, but when they were married they probably just now [were] recognizing the 49th parallel…so they’d go back. They had family on either side of the border.”

Kathy noted that she’s never heard this song anywhere except for in her family: “It’s something that was passed down in my family, and who knows how old it is.” (Given that her great, great grandmother passed away in her nineties in 1967, it must be at least 100 years old, and probably much older.)

Here’s a very short excerpt of this beautiful, Mitchif song.

While Kathy Moran has generously agreed to share this song, any replication, sampling, or commercial use is strictly prohibited and constitutes theft of Métis cultural belongings, in particular, the theft of a Moran/Swain/Bercier family song.

Mark your calendars for next year’s event, to be held June 11 - 15, 2020.

Further reading

Vrooman, Nicholas. 2012. “The Whole Country was…‘One Robe’”: The Little Shell Tribe’s America. Helena, MT.: Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana and Drumlummon Institute.  

John Arcand Fiddle Fest 2018, near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

The John Arcand Fiddle Fest (JAFF) is a music, dance, and cultural festival held at Windy Acres, a rural property owned by John and Vicki Arcand located a short drive southwest of Saskatoon. It takes place annually in early-mid August. (In 2018, it was held from August 9 - 12.)

The Arcand farm where JAFF takes place

Started in 1998 by Métis fiddler John Arcand who “wanted to see the music preserved and the traditions carried on,” it quickly grew into one of the most important fiddle festivals in Canada. The first two days are packed with music, dance, and cultural workshops. Fiddle and guitar workshops led by teachers who specialize in Métis, old-time, and east-coast styles are interspersed with square dancing and Red River Jigging workshops. Beading, embroidery, finger weaving, and art workshops are also part of the event, as are storytelling sessions.  

The evenings feature concerts by the fiddle workshop instructors and other special guests, followed by old-time dances that run late into the night.

On the evening of the second day, the fiddle competitions begin, becoming the main focus of the event’s third and fourth days. Competitors take part in eight age- and ability-based categories, as well as in four age-based “John Arcand” categories, which require competitors to play two compositions by Arcand. (This is a somewhat new addition to the competition, replacing the similarly-structured Andy Dejarlis categories.) In addition to trophies, competitors take home a combined total of $8245.

Although the music and dance featured at JAFF is not exclusively Métis, it is Métis-focused: it would be hard for any attendee to go home without having learned at least a little bit about traditional Métis music, dance, and cultural practices.

One of the ways that this is accomplished is through a traditional Métis showcase, which in 2018 featured Daniel Gervais on fiddle (and feet—or clogging) and Trent Bruner on piano. Gervais began by demonstrating ‘crooked’ tune structure. To do this, he played “Joys of Quebec” and “St. Anne’s Reel,” tunes that are widely known across Canada and beyond and that can be broken down into 16-, 8-, and 4-beat sections. He then played Richard Callihoo’s Duck Dance (so named because it was Métis fiddler Richard Callihoo’s version of the traditional Métis Duck Dance). Callihoo’s Duck Dance, like other Duck Dances, cannot be broken down into 4-beat sections, making it an example of what is often termed a ‘crooked’ tune. For the first time listener, it has an unpredictable structure. (In this recording, Gervais asks the audience to try counting 1 2 3 4 to see how far they get into the tune before the 4-best pattern dissolves.) 

Gervais followed up his performance of Callihoo’s tune with “Cutknife Hill” by John Arcand. This was an important juxtaposition because “Cutknife Hill” is a ‘straight’ tune: there’s no mistaking its very predictable, 4-beat based structure. While crookedness is often a celebrated feature of Métis fiddling in revivalist circles, this juxtaposition pointed to both types of structures within the Métis repertoire.  

Gervais also discussed cross-tuning. Referencing the traditional Métis-style fiddle category that used to be part of JAFF, he noted: “You had to play a Métis tune, a traditional Métis tune in standard tuning. So that was like the ‘Richard Callihoo Duck Dance’ that I did at the beginning. And then you had to play the ‘Red River Jig’ with your G string tuned up to an A. And then you had to do a tune in, you tune your G up to an A, your D up to an E, keep your A, and tune your E down to a C sharp. So it makes an open A tuning.” To demonstrate, Gervais played the “Devil’s Waltz” and Gilbert Anderson’s version of the “Duck Dance.”

The traditional Métis showcase ended with Yvonne Chartrand and Raymond Shumi joining Gervais and Bruner on the stage to demonstrate three ‘changes’ of the Red River Jig. (One ‘change’ means one time through the tune. The dancers start with the basic step for the first half of the tune followed by a fancy step for the second half. Therefore, three changes means the fiddler played the tune three times, while the dancers alternate the basic step with three different fancy steps.)

The crowd loved it, cheering loudly as the dancers showed off their fancy footwork.   

Crowd under the ‘roof’ (the mainstage)

Métis-focused workshops provide a more hands-on approach to learning about Métis cultural practices. This year, the heat was stifling—reaching the high 30s—wreaking havoc on the fiddles, with pegs getting stuck and attempts to cross-tune our fiddles sounding more dissonant than intended. (Yes, all events are held outdoors.) Yet the heat did not deter the workshop attendees. Like others who took part in the workshops, I came home with new Métis tunes under my finger, as well as recordings of these tunes played both at tempo and slowed down to aid practice. I’m not sure that my jigging improved at all; the combination of my seven-month pregnant belly with the smoke from wild fires and soaring temperature made it difficult to move.

Smoke from wildfires blanketing the RV park (to the left) and the festival site (in the distance)

But, as Yvonne Chartrand shared, she learned to dance the Red River Jig as an adult. This gives me hope that I too might someday be able to successfully complete a few changes—maybe not the thirty plus changes that traditional dancers can do, but a few nonetheless.

For more information on this event visit the JAFF website.

NB: This post was drafted at the end of the summer in 2018, but due to a maternity leave, I’m a little late posting it!

Back to Batoche 2018, Batoche, Saskatchewan

Back to Batoche is the oldest, continuously running Métis gathering of its kind. Started in 1970 by the Association of Métis and Non-Status Indians of Saskatchewan (now Métis Nation – Saskatchewan), this year’s event (held July 19-22) marked Back to Batoche’s 48th anniversary. It was proceeded by an annual event dedicated to St. Joseph that ran from the late 1800s until the 1930s in Batoche.

Like other large Métis festivals in the Prairies, Back to Batoche features a line-up of entertainers (mostly fiddlers and country singers, as well as square dance troupes), a fiddling and jigging contest, a talent show, horse racing, outdoor ‘voyageur’ games, and some children’s activities (hosted by students in the SUNTEP program and the Batoche National Historic Site Staff). On Sunday morning, a Catholic mass is held in the main stage, followed by a procession from the Back to Batoche Festival grounds to Batoche—the site of final battle of the Northwest Resistance.

This procession marks one of the distinguishing elements of the Back to Batoche Festival: it takes place in an area with deep significance for Métis people, providing attendees with an unparalleled opportunity to connect with the land for which their ancestors fought. As ethnomusicologist Sarah Quick writes: “For some [festival attendees], the highlight of their journey to Batoche is to witness the places where their ancestors fought and to imagine the hardships they faced in standing up for the nineteenth century Métis cause” (2009: 123).

Here are some of the sites around the Back to Batoche Festival grounds, as well as some photos from the event.

Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. The first battle of the Northwest Resistance took place near Duck Lake. The town--now quite tired and run down--features a series of murals depicting the history of the region.

Louis Riel Room, the pub in Duck Lake

Mural depicting the Carlton Trail, which ran from Red River to Fort Edmonton, crossing the South Saskatchewan River near Batoche/Duck Lake.

John A. MacDonald, Gabriel Dumont, and Louis Riel

Plaque at the Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine cemetery, north of Batoche

Grave markers for the men killed at Duck Lake

Ferry crossing the South Saskatchewan river, a few kilometers north of Batoche

Plaque providing some information on the Battle of Fish Creek, south of Batoche

View of the Fish Creek Coulee

Fish Creek Church, derelict and surrounded by "no trespassing" signs

RVs parked in the Back to Batoche Festival grounds

Singing the Canadian National Anthem and the Métis Anthem at the opening ceremonies

The Wapanacak Stompers

Fiddling contest

Evening concert/dance with Ray St. Germain

Procession to the Batoche Historic Site, led by flag bearers (the colour party) and dignitaries

For more information on this event, visit the Back to Batoche Facebook page.

Further Reading:

Quick, Sarah. 2009. Performing Heritage: Métis Music, Dance, and Identity in a Multicultural State. PhD Dissertation, Indiana University.