Meet Mr. Bilan: A Multifaceted Educator Who Connects History and Culture

(Re)Introducing Myself, Mr. Bilan

A bit about me I was born in a city called Mandaluyong in The Philippines I also lived in Hong Kong for a year and a half before emigrating to Canada

A bit more about me My favourite sports to watch are baseball, hockey, and football My favourite teams are the Seattle Mariners, Montreal Canadiens, and the Seattle Seahawks I enjoy listening to punk, indie, and hip-hop, and Bruce Springsteen I studied history at the University of British Columbia, and now am in their teacher education program

When I was a teenager (circa 2007)

If you need to contact me My email is m.bilan@alumni.ubc.ca My website is http://blogs.ubc.ca/mbilan/ I will be available 30 minutes after school ends to answer any questions you may have You can also reach out to Mr. MacPhee, who can pass on any questions or concerns you might have to me Mr. MacPhee's class rules and seating plan still apply

And now a little about you! Take a piece of paper, and fold it so it can stand up Write your name on it in large letters, and draw an artifact This artifact can be anything important to you or representing something about you, like an instrument, food, sports gear etc. After everyone is finished, we will go around and everyone will get the chance to explain their artifact Please keep them on your desk for the first several classes that I teach; it will help me learn everyone s name

The Metis After 1870

A Brave New World The Metis initially welcomed the Manitoba Act of 1870 They made up the majority of Manitoba s initial population, and they believed that they had managed to secure most of their rights in the Act These included making the province s official languages both English and French, having both Catholic and Protestant educational systems, and having 1.4 million acres of land reserved for the Metis to farm on.

The Struggle(s) Continue However, John A. MacDonald ordered troops to remain in the region to act as a peacekeeping force Despite their title, these soldiers often treated the Metis poorly, with many being beaten or even killed at the hands of the soldiers Despite not being officially ordered to do so, no soldiers were punished for these actions These impulsive half-breeds have got spoilt; they must be kept down by a strong hand until they are swamped by the influx of settlers

This Land is (not) Your land One of the most contentious issues was that of the land that was supposedly set aside for the Metis In the area, the scrip system was used to determine land ownership A scrip was a certificate that could be exchanged for either land or money (160 to 240 acres or dollars, depending on an individual s age and status) Though nearly 1.4 million acres was supposedly set aside for the Metis under this system, land speculators took advantage of the Metis They would buy scrip from them far below the actual value it was worth

But the process by which scrip was distributed was also flawed The Scrip Process The government officials appointed to oversee the process were unfamiliar with the region, as they were not from Manitoba To apply for scrip in the first place, Metis had to fill out application forms in English, a process difficult for many Metis who were primarily French speaking Metis with similar names often had their scrip claims mixed up, and many claims simply were lost Finally, the land set aside for scrip holders was often far away from where the Metis were actually living at the time; this led to many of them selling the scrip to speculators at a sharply reduced price

Into the West Thus, many Metis left Manitoba after selling their scrip to try and re-create their culture and lifestyle elsewhere They mostly moved further west into the parts of the North-West Territories that are now parts of modern Saskatchewan and Alberta While these regions were technically under control of the government, it was simply to large for them to administer the entire area

Adapting to the Present In the Northwest, the Metis recreated the seigneurial-style communities and land that they originally had back in Red River They primarily supported themselves in three ways, subsistence farming, hunting buffalo, and hauling cargo for the HBC But in the early 1870s, U.S. and Canadian settlements were expanding further westward; this meant that buffalo were slaughtered on a massive scale to make room for farms and homes The Metis attempted to slow this by adopting the Laws of St. Laurent, a set of rules that governed among other things, how to hunt buffalo in order to conserve their numbers But by 1875, buffalo were essentially extinct in the Northwest

Buffalo skulls waiting to be ground into fertilizer, 1870s

Light brown represents the original range of the Buffalo Darker brown is their range as of 1870 Darkest brown is their range as of 1889

The Struggles Continue Working for the HBC was also becoming harder for the Metis Lawrence Clarke, who was the head of Fort Carlton (the main HBC post in the Northwest) hired Metis on short-term contracts that paid as little as possible instead of offering them permanent jobs By the mid-1870s he was paying Metis in goods instead of money He was eventually made magistrate by the Canadian government, and used his new powers to enrich the HBC the expense of the Metis Metis who complained about their pay or tried to organize for higher wages could face imprisonment

The Loss of Legal Rights By 1875, there were almost no buffalo in the region; pemmican could no longer be reliably made In spring of that year, a group of Metis in Saskatchewan ignored the Laws of St. Laurent and began hunting what few buffalo remained before they were supposed to Gabriel Dumont, a Metis leader, arrested and fined the hunters as per the law But the hunters appealed to Lawrence Clark, who ended up arresting and fining Dumont instead While Dumont only received a small fine, this act essentially invalidated the Laws of St. Laurent and in turn meant that the Metis were effectively no longer self-governing along with speeding up the extinction of the buffalo