The Metis are people descended from the original inter mixing of European fur traders and first nation women during the eighteenth century and nineteenth centuries. European fur traders, specifically English and French sought to acquire beaver pelts for the hat fashions of the day in Europe. Around the settlement of Fort Gary [present day Winnipeg], fur traders without adequate survival skills and with economic desires to secure trading rights with the first nations, moved into and lived with the native women. These women had the skills to teach their live- in men how to survive the harsher prairie and northern climate. The children of these relationship developed a Buffalo hunting culture in Manitoba under the leadership of such gifted visionaries as Louis David Riel who led two resistances against the overbearing government of the day. The original artworks of the metis is the beautiful floral beadwork. The first nations people called the Metis ,the flower beadwork people.
Many people thought that the Metis were just a footnote in Canadian history until this last and new generation has taken a proud stance and are learning their proper genealogy and heritage. Louis Riel prophesied that artists would reawaken the Metis spirit and culture one hundred years later. His original vision of the intermixing of the best of European and aboriginal (first nation) culture and spirituality is becoming and is starting to produce fruit.