Metis Matriarchs: Agents of TransitionEdited by Cheryl Troupe and Doris Jeanne MacKinnonPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Michelle Shaw$34.95 ISBN 9781779400116 As I read Métis Matriarchs, I couldn’t help thinking of the old adage that history is written by the victors. Or, as the editors Troupe and MacKinnon put it: ”Until recently, historical scholarship of the Canadian Prairies has privileged the masculine…” This book offers another, long overdue, perspective. Métis Matriarchs is a meticulously researched, family-centred biographical collection of essays exploring the lives of several prominent Métis women during a period of immense change, from the late nineteenth to the mid- twentieth century in what is now Western Canada. It shows how they held families and communities together, providing cultural continuity and stability while in many cases also providing economically for their families. Respected for their wisdom and experience, they acted as healers and midwives, raised families and passed on cultural values, stories, practises and traditions. This is such an important book and hopefully part of a growing body of work chronicling the lives and importance of Métis women in Canadian history. As the editors note: “Scholarship on this period has not until recently begun to examine the significance…

The Identities of Marie Rose Delorme Smith: Portrait of a Métis Woman, 1861-1960 by Doris Jeanne MacKinnon Published by University of Regina Press Review by Keith Foster $34.95 ISBN 978-0-88977-236-6 Doris Jeanne MacKinnon’s The Identities of Métis Rose Delorme Smith: Portrait of a Métis Woman is an incredible story of a seemingly ordinary woman who lived a remarkable life spanning nearly a century, from 1861 to 1960. In an era when ordinary women often remained unknown, what sets her apart? She lived at a time and place when significant western Canadian history was being made and personally knew many of the historical personalities of the time. She was also well-educated and literate, rare for a Métis woman of that period, and recorded her experiences in a diary. It’s incredible that she overcame all the hardships she did – surviving whooping cough as a youth, being “traded” in 1877, at age sixteen, to a white man more than twice her age for $50, giving birth to seventeen children, and losing two sons in the First World War. According to Marie Rose, her arranged marriage was the result of a misunderstanding. When Charlie Smith, a wealthy whisky trader, grabbed hold of her…