In Canada, Indigenous peoples are classified into 3 groups based on "distinct" culture: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. I put "distinct" in quotes because this categorization clumps very distinct nations and cultures together, but that is a story for another time.
The extent of what I learned about Métis people in elementary school is more or less as follows: they are the offspring of a French father and a First Nations mother, and they were lead by Louis Riel until he was executed. And that's really about it.
Author Chelsea Vowel, who is Métis, dedicates a whole chapter in her book, Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada, on this very topic.
Vowel is frustrated with constantly being asked which of her parents is Native and which one is not. Vowel's mother is Métis, and she was raised with Métis culture, thus she identifies as Métis. Not "half Métis", just Métis.
Put it this way: having a parent or two who identifies as Métis makes you Métis, but if today you were to be born to a French parent and a Cree (First Nations) parent, you would not be Métis. You would be French and Cree.
Reducing Métis-ness to merely a racial identity identifiable by blood quantum (I will be talking about blood quantum a lot throughout this blog) completely misses the point. Métis identity is about connections though family, community, shared culture, language (the Métis language is called Michif), and homelands that trace back to the Red River basin.
We are so accustomed to interpreting racial and cultural identity as a mathematical concept. Why is it that having two parents from two different cultures or races makes you half this, half that? I believe that this all ties back to genetic concepts being (perhaps falsely) applied to cultural and social constructions. More on this to come in later blog entries.
Read more about Métis people here: