Let us Introduce Ourselves!
Dr.* Suzanne M. Steele
Dr. Suzanne M. Steele (Gaudry/Fayant families) has a BMus (UBC/voice), an MLIS (UWO), and a PhD (Exon). Currently, Dr. Steele is a postdoctoral researcher (ULeth) and is the librettist and lead Indigenous director of Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North project. Li Keur, a new opera on Louis Riel, set to music by Neil Weisensel and Alex Kustoruk, is premiering in 2023. In 2017 Dr. Steele travelled 10,000 km throughout the homeland to research the ‘missing years’ of Louis Riel. This new opera shifts focus away from a masculinist narrative to re-centring women at the heart of the continent at the time of Riel’s life and does not focus on his death.
From 2008-2010, Dr. Steele served as a Canadian War Artist with Task-Force 3-09 (Afghanistan), the first poet to do so in the 100+ year Canadian War Artist tradition. Her work, Afghanistan: Requiem for a Generation, written with composer Jeff Ryan, premiered in 2012 and has been performed and broadcast multiple times nationally, and heard, internationally.
Dr. Steele’s main areas of research include: narratology, the ethics of story (particularly how the artist tells war), war studies, and Métis studies with an interest in cross-cultural collaboration. From 2012-15 she was a member of the prestigious 1914FACES2014, a three-year, EU-funded research project. She has published and presented widely and internationally.
*Why I call myself ‘Dr.’: In 2017, after years of working for it, I received my PhD (on full scholarship) from the University of Exeter (UK). I am the first in my family to have a PhD, the second to have a university degree. I have noticed that it is sometimes considered ‘elitist’ to call oneself by one’s honorific. I believe it is important that we honour our hard work, especially as women, and as Indigenous peoples, to do so. In 2019 I had the great pleasure of recommending honorary doctorates be awarded to some knowledge keepers of the Michif languages and cultures. I always address these people with their honourifics. They are, indeed, peoples whose achievements are worthy of this respect.
Dr. Michelle Porter
Dr. Michelle Porter is a writer and scholar from Alberta and living in Newfoundland and Labrador. She is the descendent of a long line of Métis storytellers. Many of her ancestors (the Goulet family) told stories using music and today she tells stories using the written word. She is the author of Approaching Fire, Scratching River and the forthcoming novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story (Penguin 2023). Her first book of poetry, Inquiries, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry, Canada 2019 and was a finalist for the E.J. Pratt Poetry Award 2021. She teaches creative writing at Memorial University in Newfoundland.
Dr. Porter’s recent writing and research has focused on the activities of a family musical band called The Red River Echoes that played and performed between the 1930s and 1950s in Manitoba. Her interest in traditional Métis music is the result of this work and she continues to look for the stories that are told behind, alongside and within the music.
Dr. Porter uses an arts-based research process to explores contemporary stories about the relationships Métis/Michif have created, still create, and can create with bison, with a focus on bison return to land efforts. The bison originally taught the Métis how to live life through process of “mutual exchange between all beings, individuals and groups” (Leclair 2003). Today, bison can teach us about survival, returning to our land-based relationships, and building a future where bison are a physical presence on the prairies and living in kinship with us.
Dr. Monique Giroux holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Music, Culture, and Politics and is an Assistant Professor in the Music Department at the University of Lethbridge. She has a BMus (Brandon University), an MA in Musicology (York University), and a PhD in ethnomusicology (York University)
Dr. Giroux has been researching Métis music since 2009. She has undertaken ethnographic research in the Canadian Prairies, Ontario, North Dakota, and Montana, as well as extensive archival research.
In addition to book chapters and encyclopedia articles, Dr. Giroux has published numerous journal articles on topics such as Métis songwriter Pierre Falcon, old-time fiddling competitions, and Métis cultural festivals. She grew up fiddling in Manitoba’s old-time fiddle scene, playing for dances and competing at old-time competitions.
Dr. Monique Giroux
Lily Overacker
Lily Overacker is an undergraduate student at the University of Lethbridge; they are in their third year in a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and History with a minor in Indigenous Studies. She grew up in a small town in central Alberta and then moved down south to Lethbridge to begin her post-secondary career. Her family is made up of an amalgamation of both Métis and Settler backgrounds, but her dad’s side of the family is where her Métis heritage is from. Lily is primarily a descendent of the Whitford and Anderson Red River families, as well as the Gaudry/Beaudry and Fraser/Lennie families. Growing up her family never used the term “Métis” it was just “the way Gram was and did things,” and the family traditions were woven into many stories and practices that were “just the way things are.” She continues to learn more about her family and the ways of the Métis through research and stories from her family, as well as beadwork which was a skill and art her great grandmother practiced, and Lily feels a strong connection with.
Previously Lily has done research on the topic of community-engaged research (CER), and what it looks like in different contexts, with different people, and across different settings. She looks forward to integrating this previous experience with the methodologies and goals of this project to share Métis knowledge and culture, and hopefully many stories along the way.
Dillon Apsassin
Dillon Apsassin is a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts program through the Kinesiology faculty at the University of Lethbridge. Apsassin has completed an independent study to produce an Indigenous Long-Term Athletic Development program to improve lifelong participation in sport. Furthermore, Apsassin finished his last post-secondary year with a spot on the Dean's Honour Roll along with the conferral of his degree in October/2022. Moreover, Apsassin has received numerous academic awards and scholarships including the Indigenous Careers award for 2020--2022, the University of Lethbridge Bursary 2021, The Meehan Memorial 2021--2022, The TD Bank Bursary 2021--2022. Currently, Apsassin is utilizing his academic skills to aid Dr. Monique Giroux, Dr. Suzanne Steele, Dr. Michelle Porter on their research project: La danse di la rivyairre rooj, Oayache Mannin: A Cultural Inquiry into Dance, Music, and Song, as Practiced by the Red River Métis Family Networks as a research assistant to develop an Indigenous methodology for the project. In addition, Dillon is from Blueberry River First Nation and has learned about Métis music, dance, and family structures; consequently, he will be developing theory for the project that utilizes lived experience and family connections to the project. Apsassin has secured his graduated studies committee and will begin his Master's program in 2023.
Graduate Research Assistant (University of Lethbridge)
Undergraduate Research Assistant (University of Lethbridge)
Librettist, Postdoctoral Researcher (University of Lethbridge)
Poet/Researcher, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Writer (Memorial University)
Fiddler/Researcher, Canada Research Chair (University of Lethbridge)