Jean-Louis Légaré was a French-Canadian trader and one of the founding members of Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan. He was born in Saint-Jacques, Montcalm County,

Canada East Canada East () was the northeastern portion of the Province of Canada. Lord Durham's Report investigating the causes of the Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions recommended merging those two colonies. The new colony, known as the Province of ...

on October 25, 1841, to François-Xavier Légaré and Julie Melençon. He left in 1866 to find work first in the United States and then in

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. After working as a clerk and freighter around Pembina,

Dakota Territory The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of ...

for Métis traders. In 1870, he went to

Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan Wood Mountain (Canada 2016 Census, 2016 population: ) is a village in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan within the Rural Municipality of Old Post No. 43 and Division No. 3, Saskatchewan, Census Divisio ...

, then a

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

hivernant settlement and worked for a Métis merchant, Antonine Ouellette. He later became an independent trader with his own trading post in 1871 and continued working alongside the Métis. He married Marie Ouellette on April 22, 1873, at St. Florent in Lebret, Saskatchewan. Marie Ouellette was the daughter of Francois Ouellette, a Métis trader. On October 5, 1875, Marie gave birth to their only child, Albert Joseph Légaré, at

. A year later, in 1876, Marie died after falling off a horse while travelling to visit her father in Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan. He never remarried. Last Conference between Legare and Sitting Bull

Last Conference between Legare and Sitting Bull

Between 1876 and 1881 nearly 5,000

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

and their chief

Sitting Bull Sitting Bull ( ; December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota people, Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against Federal government of the United States, United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian ...

took refuge in the Wood Mountain region after the

Battle of the Little Big Horn The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern C ...

and traded at his post. By 1879 the Sioux were destitute because the buffalo had disappeared from the area. Légaré spent a great deal of effort and supplies to feed the starving Sioux. Since the U.S. government offered amnesty and supplies Légaré at the request of L.N.F. Crozier (

North-West Mounted Police The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian paramilitary police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert's Land and North-Western Territory to ...

) persuaded them to return to the United States. He accompanied Sitting Bull to

Fort Buford Fort Buford was a United States Army Post at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in Dakota Territory, present day North Dakota, and the site of Sitting Bull's surrender in 1881.Ewers, John C. (1988): "When Sitting Bull Surrende ...

in 1881. During the

North-West Rebellion The North-West Rebellion (), was an armed rebellion of Métis under Louis Riel and an associated uprising of Cree and Assiniboine mostly in the District of Saskatchewan, against the Government of Canada, Canadian government. Important events i ...

in 1885 he negotiated with the federal government for the employment of 40 Métis from the area. They patrolled the

Canada–United States border The international border between Canada and the United States is the longest in the world by total length. The boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: Canada' ...

as scouts during the Métis resistance. In the 1880s he was a cattle and horse rancher in the Willow Bunch area. Légaré became one of the first postmasters of Willow Bunch in 1898 and again in 1902 and held the position until his death on February 1, 1918.

Legacy

In 1960 the Jean-Louis Légaré Regional Park was established 2 km west of Willow Bunch. In 1969 Jean-Louis Légaré was designated by the

Canadian government The Government of Canada (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes ministers of the Crown ( ...

as being nationally significant in the history of the country. A plaque in Willow Bunch reads: Jean-Louis Légaré was recognized in Saskatchewan with The Jean-Louis Légaré Act in 1993.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Legare, Jean-Louis 1841 births 1918 deaths Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada) People from Dakota Territory Province of Canada people Businesspeople from the Northwest Territories