BCMF research traces northern Métis scrip into a 1903 Buntzen Lake land transaction—revealing how value derived from Métis title and rights helped finance the acquisition of Crown land for industrial development and infrastructure that shaped the growth of British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.
An article in a developing body of research by the BC Métis Federation reconsidering the place of Métis scrip in British Columbia history
Christine Mercredi’s life was rooted in the North. Born at Fort Simpson in 1869, she later lived at Fort Providence and Fort Smith, and married Joseph Mercredi at Fort Chipewyan. Her world was connected by rivers, trading posts, family relationships and Métis kinship networks. In July 1900, Christine appeared before federal commissioner J. A. Macrae at Fort Smith and made a Métis scrip claim. Canada eventually granted her $240 in money scrip, issued as two notes: one for $160 and another for $80. Her $160 note was numbered A12933.
At some point after it was issued, that note passed out of Christine’s hands and into the active scrip market that followed the Treaty 8 commission. Buyers and speculators acquired certificates from Métis claimants, often at a steep discount, and moved them into wider land and financial markets.
By November 1903, A12933 had turned up at the Dominion Lands Office in New Westminster, British Columbia. It was used in a land transaction around Buntzen Lake in what is now Metro Vancouver. Christine’s northern Métis entitlement had become part of a much larger B.C. land story.
Surviving federal records show dozens of Métis scrip certificates like Christine’s converging at the New Westminster Dominion Lands Office on November 5, 1903. Their endorsements point to the same connected land package in the Buntzen–Indian Arm area.
On the backs of the certificates are handwritten legal land descriptions—essentially, the land’s address. So far, BCMF research has identified 48 separate Métis money-scrip instruments with evidence connecting them to the larger Buntzen transaction. Thirty-five are directly confirmed through original certificate records, while another 13 have strong supporting archival evidence that is still being verified. The names and scrip numbers change, but the land descriptions keep repeating.
Behind those instruments were people: Christine Mercredi, Elizabeth Mandeville, Rose Marie Mercredi, John James Loutit, and members of the Hamelin, Campbell, Villebrun and other Métis families. Many came from the northern Métis communities and kinship networks of the Athabasca, Slave River and Great Slave Lake country, where Canada was carrying out the Métis scrip process alongside the Treaty 8 commissions.
The handwritten notes on the scrips identify eight pieces of land across the Buntzen–Indian Arm area. When those legal descriptions are checked against B.C.’s GATOR land-record system, the parcels can still be located and mapped today.
That creates a visible chain: a Métis claimant, a specific scrip number, a New Westminster endorsement, and the B.C. land where that scrip value was applied.
That creates a visible chain: a Métis claimant, a specific scrip number, a New Westminster endorsement, and the B.C. land where that scrip value was applied.
By the fall of 1903, Vancouver Power Company was assembling land and rights around Coquitlam and Trout Lake—later Buntzen Lake—for a major hydroelectric development. The company needed land for tunnels, a dam, a powerhouse and related works. How it paid for that land mattered.
On October 20, Vancouver Power manager T. R. Glover wrote to company secretary J. Buntzen. One sentence stands out: “The only scrip for sale here is at the Canadian Bank of Commerce.” The bank had $400 in face value and was prepared to sell it for $360. Glover asked the bank manager to hold it for Vancouver Power and was told more could be obtained from Winnipeg.
The Canadian Bank of Commerce had scrip on hand, quoted a price, agreed to hold it for Vancouver Power and offered to source more. That was the commercial machinery that allowed scrip to move far beyond the Métis claimant who first received it. The pattern was not unique to Vancouver Power. Earlier research found scrip dealers such as private bankers Alloway & Champion openly promoting scrip to Dominion land purchasers as a discounted alternative to cash.
Supply mattered. Price mattered. Timing mattered.
This is where the records come together.
Dozens of Métis scrip instruments tied to the Buntzen land schedule carry the New Westminster Dominion Lands Office stamp dated November 5, 1903.
Two years later, Vancouver Power’s general manager recounted that the amount owing for the land the company required had been paid to the Dominion Land Agent at New Westminster on that same date.
Taken together, the evidence strongly indicates that Métis scrip was applied toward land Vancouver Power required for its Buntzen development. The exact note-by-note chain of custody is still being traced, but the central connection is strong.
Same address. Same office. Same date. Métis scrip. Vancouver Power’s payment.
What this research is beginning to show is that Métis scrip was far more transferable and far more economically important than we might imagine. It was not used only to open agricultural land for settlement. Once separated from the Métis claimant, scrip could circulate as a form of land credit and be applied to federal Crown land and pooled for industrial purposes as well. Métis scrip helped Vancouver Power Company acquire land around Buntzen Lake that became part of a rapidly expanding hydroelectric enterprise. In 1904, the Buntzen hydroelectric project was put in service by the Vancouver Power Company to provide the first hydroelectric power to Vancouver. Buntzen places the Dominion scrip mechanism within the history of major British Columbia infrastructure development. Vancouver Power Company was closely tied to BC Electric, and the Buntzen hydroelectric system later became part of the infrastructure inherited by BC Hydro.
Once separated from the Métis claimant, scrip could circulate as a form of land credit and be applied to federal Crown land and pooled for industrial purposes as well.
This opens up a new way of understanding the so-called “extinguishment” of Métis title and rights. A process that opened up territory for settlement and development in one region could also be used to acquire land for industrial development elsewhere—including British Columbia, where Métis title and rights were historically denied. Governments facilitated this system, while speculators and other intermediaries could profit from the buying and selling of Métis scrip. Wealth was made from the inheritance (and loss) of Métis peoples.
Behind those instruments were families. The Mercredis, Mandevilles, Loutits, Hamelins, Campbells, Villebruns and other Métis families were there at the beginning. Their names may have disappeared from later land and development records, but their place in the history of British Columbia should not.
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Joe Desjarlais, M.A., is Director of Research at the BC Métis Federation. He can be reached at J.Desjarlais@BCMetis.com.