About Us

Our Community

The Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association (LSAMCA) are a contemporary rights-bearing Métis community with deep connection to the landscape we have called home for more than two centuries. LSAMCA members reside at locations corresponding with lands and waters our Ancestors have used and occupied over many generations. As a kinship-based community, we participate in a shared culture inclusive of our distinctive customs and traditions, including the continued exercise of our Métis harvesting rights. These activities and way of life remain core to our identity as a modern-day, Section 35 (Constitution Act, 1982) rights bearing Métis people.

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Our Guiding Principles

Good Governance: 
We are committed to best practices in governing and to ensuring that we are always acting in the best interests of LSAMCA members. We are determined to maintain who we are as Lac Ste. Anne Métis, seek to put the interests of our members first, and strive for continuous improvement as an organization.

Métis aboriginal Rights:
We make as a priority the protection of our community's Section 35 (Constitution Act, 1982) Métis aboriginal rights and interests.

Relationships:
We honour our ancestors and future generations by caring for each other every day and through building strong relationships with all sectors of society.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP):
We are committed to participating in helping to transform the Canadian legal and constitutional framework through the implementation of UNDRIP and in the interests of continuing our community’s long tradition of determining our own future.

Stewardship: 
We are dedicated to ensuring a healthy, sustainable future for LSAMCA members, one that supports the continued practice of Lac Ste. Anne Métis political, social, and cultural traditions. Through collaborating or leading on land and water management initiatives, we rely upon our own traditional knowledge alongside evidence-based Western research.

Lac Ste. Anne Métis are a contemporary rights-bearing Métis community with deep connection to the landscape we have called home for the past two centuries. Our community members live at locations corresponding with lands and waters our Ancestors also used and occupied over many generations. Today, we actively participate in a shared culture inclusive of our distinctive customs and traditions, including continuing to exercise our Métis harvesting rights. These activities and way of life remain core to our identity as a modern-day, section 35 (Constitution Act, 1982) rights bearing Métis people.

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Our Guiding Principles

Good Governance
We are committed to using best practices as a governing body to ensure we are always acting in the best interests of our members. We will be strong hearted in maintaining who we are, will seek to put others before ourselves and will strive for continuous improvement as an organization.

Métis aboriginal rights
We are committed to protecting our sec. 35 aboriginal rights and interests as affirmed by the Canadian Constitution. We will honour our ancestors and future generations by caring for each other and through building strong relationships with all sectors of society.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
 We are committed to participating in helping to transform the Canadian legal and constitutional framework as an aspect of the implementation of UNDRIP and in the interests of determining our own future and deciding our own destiny.

Stewardship
We are committed to ensuring a healthy, sustainable future for our members, one that supports the continued practice of Lac Ste. Anne Métis political, social, and cultural traditions. We will rely upon both evidence-based Western research and our own traditional knowledge to make good decisions.

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Governance

The Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association (LSAMCA) membership is represented by its officers and directors, including a President, Vice-President, Secretary-Treasurer and two directors who are elected to serve three or four-year terms.

As representatives of a contemporary rights-bearing Métis community, LSAMCA is on a journey of building good governance practices aligned with our cultural values, assuming greater responsibility for our own future including through pursuing economic independence, collaborating with others towards common goals in protecting our shared lands and waters, and safeguarding our culture and identity by working to restore and maintain our distinctive language and traditions.

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Title: Cabin and tipi at Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta.
Date: 1896
Remarks: George Wilkins, left.
Credit: Glenbow Museum (Image No: PA-377-20)

History

As a distinctive Métis community, Lac Ste. Anne Métis emerged no later than the early 1800’s on the landscape known today as west-central/northwest Alberta. Our community comprises a network of self-supporting families who continue to occupy this same landscape, including at our sacred mânitow sâkahikanihk, meaning God’s Lake, and otherwise known as Lac Ste. Anne.
 
Key to the establishment of the historic Lac Ste. Anne Métis community were the relationships that developed among and between the offspring of fur trade company employees and “free traders” (former employees working independently as middle-men, provisioners, and trappers, often referred to as “freemen”), including some of whom were of haudenonsaunee (Iroquois) heritage. We are descended from the early marriages between these fur traders and free traders and nehiyawak iskwêwak (Cree women) and apihtâwikosisân iskwêwak (“half son” women). 
 
During much of the 1800’s, the Lac Ste. Anne Métis community was heavily involved in harvesting game, managing local fisheries and participating in prairie buffalo hunts, including for the purpose of provisioning fur trade brigades and posts (forts). Lac Ste. Anne Métis pursuits in the historic period extended across what we know today as west-central/northwest Alberta. Our kinship networks continue to extend across our traditional lands and LSAMCA members remain deeply attached to places and locations we have occupied and used for many generations.
 
The Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association works with various levels of government with a focus on asserting and protecting the Lac Ste. Anne Métis community’s inherent Section 35 (Constitution Act, 1982) Métis aboriginal rights and interests. Through asserting recognition of our community’s rights, we honour the independent spirit of our Ancestors and ensure the well-being of our future generations.
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Lac Ste. Anne Métis
as a Section 35 Rights-Bearing Powley Community

Métis Credible Assertion
Métis Rights

Lac Ste. Anne Métis Research Protocol

(Content coming soon)

Contact Us

Contact Us
Full

Mailing Address:
Lac Ste. Anne Métis Community Association
P.O. Box 2091
Stony Plain, AB T7Z 1X6

Phone: (780) 591-5050