Page 10 - Fortier Family History

I was the youngest one, Jimmy. The long pause on the other end indicated that he was thinking and letting it sink in. Of course most of you are now familiar with the 30-Year Fortier family Reunion that followed in August of 1994 in Nipigon. Prior to that grandpa put me in touch with my youngest aunt Sandra and a series of letters were soon exchanged. In one of those letters I read the word “Ojibway” for the first time. I remember looking it up at the library (this was before the internet) and the card catalogue kept saying “See Chippewa”. Chippewa? I recognized that word, it’s the tribe up in northern Wisconsin that we would see “signs” of when we went up there for summer and winter vacationing. Turns out, it’s the same basic “tribe.” Just different dialects and different spellings, separated by Lake Superior. And so began my exploration into all things Ojibway. The Ojibway people have lived in the Great Lakes area for thousands of years. Prior to that they once lived on the northeastern seaboard along the St Lawrence in what today is Quebec and the Maritime Island Provinces and parts of Maine. Like many other North American Indigenous peoples, the Ojibway have a strong sense of “place” that defines who they are. When encountering other Native people, often the first thing asked is “where are you from?” or “where is your family from?” The Ojibways believe that all the Anishinabe people separated from their original homelands feel that connection, that bond across the miles and years of separation which “calls” them back “home”. By 1996 I managed to get involved with my first Native American film production and by 1999 I completed my first documentary focusing on Native American issues and stories. In 2012 I completed the documentary Gifts From the Elders, with the elders and youth on our reserve at Pic River. To this day I credit my dad and mom for planting the seeds and nourishing my sense of curiosity in the past, in our family history and for my fascination with the stories that are hidden behind those old black and white photographs. Little did I know as a child just how deep our Canadian roots actually are. We can trace our indigenous Canadian roots back thousands of years, albeit the written records stop just a few generations prior to our grandmother Doris. Our Scottish Canadian roots start in 1815, the year my g-g-g-g-grandfather Nicol Finlayson (along with his brother Duncan) traveled from the Scottish highlands parish of Fodderty in Ross Shire to enter the service of The Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company. Through the direct “Fortier” line we can trace our Canadian roots back to 1663 with the arrival from Dieppe, Normandy, France of our ancestor Antoine Forestier and his widowed father Noel Pierre Forestier. They are considered one of the original 500 families to settle “New France.” Noel was a “hole borer” for ship making and Antoine started one of the first commercial fishing companies in Quebec. Dieppe was known as a commercial fishing port and the region of Normandy in the north of France was known as the forest region. The name Forestier and Fortier derive their meaning from these occupations of clearing the forests to build and later to guard the “fort.” Your surname is where you were from and/or your occupation. Sounds similar to Ojibway cosmology. Both have a strong connection between place and identity. Finally, on our mom’s side, the Bigaouette line can be traced back to Quebec as early as about 1690. Prior to approximately 1690, the surname Bigaouette did not exist, anywhere. We can thank our English ancestor Claude Thomas for that, but you’ll have to read the details inside.