The Margaret Tourond-Townson Collection
The Margaret Tourond-Townson Collection
In early 2025 Margaret Tourond-Townson and her husband David graciously donated several historical items relating to the Tourond family to the Gabriel Dumont Institute. These precious family heirlooms and ephemera belonged to her father, Arthur Tourond (1883–1948) and relate to the courage and resilience of this Métis family. The Touronds were deeply involved in the 1885 Resistance and faced a great deal of hardship and loss during and after this cataclysmic event.
The centre piece of Margaret’s and David’s donation is a clock which was owned by her great-grandmother, Madame Josephte Tourond (c.1831–1928). Margaret’s father, Arthur inherited this clock, which was kept hidden from pillaging soldiers during the 1885 Resistance. This clock is a poignant reminder of the Tourond family’s courage. It carries the scars and trauma that this family faced, but it also witnessed their determination to raise their families and live their lives as best they could during difficult times.
Also included in this donation were many of Arthur Tourond’s personal effects, including cap badges and medals from his service in the Canadian Army during the First World War as well as numerous family photographs. These precious heirlooms were with the Tourond family for generations and speak to the courage, sacrifice, and resilience of this proud Métis family.
Perhaps no Métis family lost more than that of Madame Josephte Tourond (c.1831–1928). In 1882, Madame Tourond and her family, including her husband Joseph (1826–1883) and their nine children, left Saint-François Xavier, Manitoba for the Métis settlement of Batoche in present-day central Saskatchewan. They settled at nearby Coulée Poisson (Fish Creek), which became known as “Tourond’s Coulee” by all the local Métis families. Soon tragedy struck: Joseph, the family patriarch suddenly died. In 1884, as the Batoche-area Métis met to decide upon a strategy to address their grievances, Louis Riel (1844–1885) visited Madame Tourond’s home and asked if he could count on her family’s support during the negotiations and possible confrontation with the federal government. The Touronds were Riel loyalists who supported the Métis Provisional Government during the Red River Resistance in 1869–70. Madame Tourond treated Louis Riel to a fine meal and assured him of her family’s support.
On April 24, 1885, the Battle of Tourond’s Coulee broke out on her land. As a result, her family—including an elderly mother, a son (Charles, 1863–1885) sick with tuberculosis, young daughters, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren—had to flee the battle. Both Madame Tourond’s daughter, Élise (1868–1962) and Louis Riel carried her two-year-old grandson, Arthur, safely to an encampment near present-day Bellevue, Saskatchewan. However, they were all tired and hungry. Madame Tourond watched helplessly as the troops burned her home, slaughtered her livestock, and pillaged her family’s possessions, including her horses and wagon.
Madame Tourond knew that she needed the horse and wagon to transport her invalid son and elderly mother. Angered, she bravely entered the soldiers’ encampment and demanded the return of her horse and wagon. Impressed by her bravery, the soldiers immediately hitched up her horses and wagon and gave them to her. Unfortunately, tragedy soon followed as two sons, Calixte (1853–1885) and Elzéar (1859–1885), were killed in the final hours of the Battle of Batoche (May 12, 1885), while another was severely disabled. Soon afterwards, she lost five more children, several more grandchildren, and members of her extended family to disease. When she died in 1928, at the age of 97, only two of her many children were still living.
The tragic sacrifices of Madame Tourond and her family eventually led to a change in how Parks Canada commemorates the 1885 Resistance battle which took place on her land. This battle, in which 150 Métis and First Nations defeated 500-800 Canadian troops, became known in the dominant society as the “Battle of Fish Creek.” The Métis, by contrast, have always known it as the “Battle of Tourond’s Coulee.”
In 2005, Métis community members and representatives from Parks Canada, Batoche National Historic Site (BNHS), GDI, and Friends of Batoche formed a partnership to restore the Métis name to this battle, which would also honour the sacrifices of the Tourond family.
Eventually, these lobbying efforts were successful. In 2008, Parks Canada officially unveiled new commemorative plaques, in Michif, English, and French, which commemorate the battle site as the “Battle of Tourond’s Coulee/Fish Creek National Historic Site of Canada.” With this inclusive name change, a key piece of Métis corporate and family history was restored in the historical commemoration of the 1885 Resistance.
On April 24, 2008, as a postscript to this successful lobbying effort, BNHS and GDI brought together many interested people on Madame Tourond’s land to share women’s and children’s stories relating to the 1885 Resistance. Participants included several of Madame Tourond’s descendants, including her great-grandson, Henri Paulus, who shared the family history outlined above and her great-granddaughter, Margaret Tourond-Townson, who brought her great-grandmother’s clock to the event.
