For over two centuries, the Métis have fought for recognition as an Indigenous people and as a Nation. It’s a story worth telling, but until recently, it hasn’t been heard enough.

The True Canadians podcast is based the book of the same name, and refers to the fact that the Métis truly are people born of this land — well before Canada became a country of its own.

Host David Wylynko is a media consultant, writer, and former journalist. He grew up in the Winnipeg suburb of Fort Garry, not far from the actual Fort Garry, where the Métis first set up a provisional government in 1869, and he’s had a lifelong fascination with the Métis. 

While he and his co-author, Patricia Russell, a Métis writer and former CBC journalist, were touring the country to promote the book, they discovered that readers wanted to know more about the people, places, events, and milestones featured in the pages of The True Canadians. A podcast seemed to be the best way to share what they learned. So they invited some of the personalities they wrote about, and some new voices, to tell more of their stories.

Each episode digs deeper into the important roles the Métis have played — and are continuing to play — in the evolution of Canada. Listeners will get to know the leaders, the artists, and the executives who are defining what it means to be Métis in the twenty-first century, and hear about the ongoing campaigns to win recognition, forge a stronger sense of community, and advance genuine reconciliation with other Canadians.

Original music for the podcast was composed and performed by Metis fiddler Alex Kusturok. Each episode begins with the words of the late Métis leader Jim Sinclair, delivered at the closing of the 1987 Meech Lake negotiations in Ottawa.

The podcast is available on most podcasting platforms, including:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Amazon

Latest episode

The Poetry of Métis Identity

Preeminent Métis poet Marilyn Dumont has spent a lifetime unlearning the racist discourses that permeated her formal education. She grew up in a colonial schooling system more interested in erasing her identity – what Dumont calls a legacy of gaslighting – than providing students with an accurate portrayal of Canadian history. Even though she began writing at a very young age, Dumont tells host David Wylynko that for a while she gave up writing all together, before finding her interest rekindled during her university years. 

Since then, Dumont has been writing to correct our interpretations of Canadian history and how the Métis are perceived. Much has changed in that time. Today, Dumont teaches Indigenous literature and creative writing at the University of Alberta. She focuses strongly on Indigegogy, which brings to the classroom Indigenous knowledge, literature, and scholarship and is focused on land-based education. But Dumont is still correcting Canadian history through poetry. Her latest collection, South Side of a Kinless River, is described as poetry that wrestles with concepts of Métis identity in a nation and territory that would rather erase it. Dumont explains why she is still a long way from putting down the pen.

Resources

• A Really Good Brown Girl  (1996), Brick Books
• The Pemmican Eaters (2015) Misfit Book
• South Side of A Kinless River (2024) Brick Books
• The True Canadians website
•  Intro and outro music by Métis musician Alex Kusturok
• Opening quote from an address by Métis leader Jim Sinclair during the 1987 Canadian constitutional talks

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