Note from Andrea: Ok, blog post change of plans! But we are really excited to be able to bring you this special review of the new book, Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901-1961! Special thanks to Jo McCutcheon for her wonderful review, and to Ariel Gordon at the University of Manitoba Press for providing us with a review copy! You can purchase the book directly from the University of Manitoba Press here.
Evelyn Peters, Matthew Stock, and Adrian Werner with Lawrie Barkwell, Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901 – 1961 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2018, 237 pages).
Jo McCutcheon is the Executive Director of the Association of Canadian Archivists and teaches part-time at the University of Ottawa, focusing on digital history, material culture, children, youth and the residential school system and settler-colonialism in records created by the federal government. She has worked as a professional researcher on her own and with a diversity of research firms for more than twenty-years. She is an active member of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA), several CHA committees and on social media sites. She also serves on several volunteer boards including Minwaashin Lodge in Ottawa. You can find her on Twitter at @jomac_613.
When I saw the message asking if there was an interest in undertaking a review of Rooster Town, I was quick to indicate my keen interest. I had heard about this urban Métis community, from David G. Burley’s work published in Urban History Review[1]and again was reminded a few years ago after having read an article from the Winnipeg Free Press.[2]
For those who are not familiar with Rooster town, this was one of the several names applied to a largely Métis urban community that existed just outside Winnipeg from 1901 to the late 1950s, not far from Fort Rouge, St. Vital and St. Norbert. At its peak in 1946, it was home to fifty households. However, beginning in 1951, the City of Winnipeg began targeting this area for suburban development and a new high school. Pressure from the city resulted in a steady population decline, data from 1951 and 1956 showing specifically that the number of families decreased to thirty-seven in total.[3]By 1961, only one family remained listed as community members.[4]
I grew up in Winnipeg and even though I often made the trek from Transcona to Charleswood each Sunday for family dinners, I never heard of Rooster Town. Indeed, when talking to family about this new book, I was met with comments and stories that felt like echoes from the sensational news stories from both the Winnipeg Free Pressand the Winnipeg Tribunethat were so harmful and humiliating to long-time Rooster Town residents, published during the 1950s in particular.[5]