road-allowance home
The Road Allowance period (roughly 1900-1960) is a key but little known element of Métis history and identity. As immigrant farmers took up land in the Prairie provinces after the 1885 Northwest Resistance, many Métis dispersed to parkland and forested regions, while others squatted on Crown land used — or intended — for the creation of roads in rural areas or on other marginal pieces of land. As a result, the Métis began to be called the “road allowance people,” and they settled in dozens of makeshift communities throughout the three Prairie provinces, such as Saskatchewan’s Spring Valley along the fringes of Prince Albert National Park, Chicago Line or “Little Chicago” in the Qu’Appelle Valley, and Manitoba’s Ste. Madeleine and Rooster Town (Winnipeg). Road allowance houses reflected the Métis’ extreme poverty — houses were usually uninsulated, roofed with tarpaper and built from discarded lumber or logs and various “recycled” materials. These small one- or two-room dwellings housed entire families.
