Hivernants was used during the North American fur trade to describe Métis who spent the winter months hunting and trapping on the

Canadian prairies The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...

where they built small temporary villages. The word is French for "winterer". "Hiverner" the verb means to overwinter. The hivernants were active in hunting buffalo (bison) during the cold-weather season (mid-November to mid-March) when the bison's hair was thick enough for the production of

buffalo robe A buffalo robe is a cured buffalo hide, with the hair left on. They were used as blankets, saddles or as trade items by the Native Americans who inhabited the vast grasslands of the Interior Plains. Some were painted with pictographs or Winte ...

s. This was as opposed to the summer hunt, which was primarily aimed at harvesting meat. Hivernant was also applied to a fur trade employee who wintered in the wilderness (usually at a trading post). Hivernant may also refer to a vacationer who spends the winter months at a resort or vacation center in a warmer climate. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many of the seasonal visitors to the French Riviera were referred to as hivernants. With the ability to vacation abroad (or domestically if they were French) for months on end (usually October until May), these hivernants were typically wealthy elites.

Settlements

From the 1840s to the 1870s Métis ''hivernants'' hunting villages were established at Turtle Mountain, on the

Souris River The Souris River (; french: rivière Souris) or Mouse River (as it is alternatively known in the U.S., a calque of its French name) is a river in central North America. It is about in length and drains about . It rises in the Yellow Grass Mars ...

, Riding Mountain, Wood Mountain, on the

Assiniboine The Assiniboine or Assiniboin people ( when singular, Assiniboines / Assiniboins when plural; Ojibwe: ''Asiniibwaan'', "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakod ...

, in the

Qu'Appelle valley The Qu'Appelle River is a river in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that flows east from Lake Diefenbaker in south-western Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just south of Lake of the Prairies, near t ...

, on the North and South Saskatchewan rivers, in the Cyprus Hills, on the Battle River, on the

Red Deer River The Red Deer River is a river in Alberta and a small portion of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the South Saskatchewan River and is part of the larger Saskatchewan-Nelson system that empties into Hudson Bay. Red Deer River h ...

, and in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

. The Southbranch settlements of Batoche and St. Laurent de Grandin in

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

were founded by French Métis hivernants from the

Red River settlement The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Bay C ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

, Canada.

Moose Jaw Moose Jaw is the fourth largest city in Saskatchewan, Canada. Lying on the Moose Jaw River in the south-central part of the province, it is situated on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Regina. Residents of Moose Jaw are known as Moose Javian ...

, Willow Bunch, Lebret in Saskatchewan and St. Albert, Lac La Biche, Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta also began as Métis hivernants settlements.

References

Métis culture Fur trade Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains American frontier Communities by industry French communities {{NorthAm-native-stub

Settlements

See also

References