Embracing Family History

Unaware he was Métis as a child, the journey of self-discovery continues

- Dennis J. Weber, Kelowna, B.C.

I was born Joseph Denis Weber in 1951, in Prince Albert, Sask., but I’ve always been called Dennis. My mother’s family, the Pilons, were from Batoche, the Métis village that was at the centre of the North West Rebellion. If you know the story of the Métis, you know that the Resistance, as we now call it, was one of the reasons that the Métis lost touch with their culture and language. There were other factors, of course, but as a child growing up in Calgary, my heritage did not play a major role in my life. I learned years later that many Métis families hid that part of their identity in order to make a living.

And so, in the Calgary neighbourhood where we lived, I actually didn’t realize that I was living among a number of Métis families and that many of my friends were Métis. But over the years, I slowly became aware that we were “Mey-tis” —my mom’s way of saying it. I also came to realize that the language my Batoche relatives and my mom spoke wasn’t French, but a language called Michif—mainly a blend of French and Cree, with some English and Ojibwa added to the mix. But I always had an affinity for Native arts and crafts, so some Métis culture must have seeped into me at some point.