Menu and decor at Manitou Bistro ‘reprehensible’ some Kitigan Zibi members say

A restaurant near Ottawa is stirring up concerns over its menu and decor, which some say is a “mishmash” that is “making a mockery” of First Nations cultures from across North America.

Suzette Foucault is the chef and owner of Manitou Bistro in Renfrew, Ont., about 90 kilometers west of Ottawa. The restaurant, which opened on National Indigenous Peoples Day in June and was highlighted by local media, offers what she calls “Indigenous fusion cuisine.”

The 30-person restaurant displays a totem pole and what appear to be teepees in the logo. The menu features dishes like White Buffalo poutine – “This poutine is as sacred as the white buffalo,” according to the website – along with Sasquatch wild rice nachos and Geronimo’s cinnamon sugar bannock.

In June, the Renfrew Mercury reported Foucault identified as Indigenous and French. In July, the Eganville Leader said she was Métis.

The Eganville Leader’s article said she was born and raised in Kitigan Zibi, an Algonquin Anishinabe community in Quebec, though the reporter who wrote the article said that was a misquote and that the paper would be printing a correction.

“After my grandparents died, we didn’t go there anymore,” Foucault told CBC Indigenous.

She said she didn’t know if anyone alive in the community today knows who she is and speculated she may have just one aunt living in Kitigan Zibi today.

Jay Odjick, who is Algonquin from Kitigan Zibi,  came across the article in the Eganville Leader and said none of his relatives in his territory knows Foucault.

“There’s a lot of people who are frankly offended,” said Odjick.

He said there’s something “morally reprehensible” about “making up terms and selling it as, in her own words, medicine … and marketing those things.”

He said a menu item called the Before Sun Dance plate monetizes Sun Dance, a sacred ceremony in some First Nations communities.

“You’re taking people’s beliefs and not only profiting from them but making a mockery of them.”

‘I am Métis’

In Foucault’s media interviews and on her social media, her Indigenous identification varies.

On her Instagram, Foucault’s profile says she is “Indigenous/French Canadian.”

In a post from Sept. 16, 2021, she wrote, “Proud halfbreed, Algonquin, Iroquois, and Native Canadian.”

On Sept. 17, 2022, in another Instagram post, she identified as “Algonquin from Maniwaki, QC, Algonquin Ojibwe, and Native American.”

Foucault was born and raised in Sudbury, Ont., according to the correction printed in the Eganville Leader.

In July in an interview at her restaurant in Renfrew, Foucault showed CBC Indigenous her Métis identification that was distributed through the now-defunct Canadian Métis Council.

“My family is from KZ. I don’t know what else to say,” Foucault said.

“I am part of that community. It’s where I spent my childhood and it’s where I will be hopefully in the next few months, registered through there.”

Kitigan Zibi Chief Dylan Whiteduck said Foucault is not a registered band member. Her mother is a member of Kitigan Zibi, whose membership was reinstated in 2002 and is under category 6(2).

Foucault’s maternal grandfather enfranchised, under a pre-1985 clause in the Indian Act, relinquishing his Indian status and that of his children.

“Foucault’s grandfather tried to remove himself from being Indian because back in those days you didn’t want to be Indian, right?” said Whiteduck, adding that status Indians were not allowed to leave the reserve without consent, get a job, earn a pension, or hire lawyers as dictated by the Indian Act until it was amended in 1951.

The Bill C-31 amendment to the Indian Act in 1985 abolished enfranchisement and created the 6(2) category for people who had only one parent who was eligible for Indian status. Under the Indian Act, individuals who have one parent with 6(2) status and the other parent non-status are not eligible for status. Foucault would not be eligible for status.

Foucault’s mother declined to comment on this story.

Foucault said her maternal grandmother was from Golden Lake but that her grandmother was “not registered.”

CBC Indigenous spoke with the membership department of Pikwakanagan First Nation, formerly known as Golden Lake First Nation, but they would not comment on Foucault’s grandmother’s potential membership status for this story.

“Ojibway is the language that I speak,” Foucault said.

“I don’t identify myself as Ojibway …. I am Métis. Our bloodline is Algonquin Iroquois and I don’t know what else to say.”

It’s generally recognized that being Métis is more than having mixed First Nations and European heritage. Métis are distinct Indigenous people with a shared culture, traditions, and language.

The Canadian Métis Council’s website is not operative and it last posted on Facebook in 2021, apologizing for a delay in processing applications due to COVID-19.

The federal government recognizes the Métis Nation of Ontario as representing Métis communities in that province. It is a member of the Métis National Council.

In a recent case at the Quebec Superior Court, where Kitigan Zibi acted as intervenor, it was ruled there is no historic or contemporary Métis community in the Maniwaki region of Quebec, which was originally part of the reserve.

‘Really problematic’

“She’s hurting us,” said Claudette Commanda, an Algonquin Anishinabe elder from Kitigan Zibi, of Foucault’s claim to her community.

“It’s about protecting our people, protecting our spirit, protecting our rights, protecting what legitimately is ours,” she said.

“If we let this slip, what’s going to be there for our children and our grandchildren?”

Commanda said she was upset by the media coverage she saw about the restaurant.

“They’re just giving so much credibility to this person and her business,” she said.

“Meanwhile you have so many legitimate First Nation businesses that they’re not even promoting at all.”

Kahente Horn-Miller, vice-president of Indigenous teaching and learning at Carleton University in Ottawa, pays attention to the news because she says what’s happening in the media is important to the Indigenous students she teaches.

She said she read an article about the restaurant, prompting her to look up the restaurant’s website. She said she found it painful reading menu items.

Horn-Miller, who is Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) from Kahnawà:ke, south of Montreal, said Foucault’s menu is an example of appropriation of Indigenous concepts, words, ceremonies, images, and identity.

“When you live in a community, you understand the hardship. You know, our families are grappling with the intergenerational traumas and that’s an everyday thing.” Horn-Miller said.

“You cannot just take the best of what we are, in our images and our dances and our songs, and draw from that.”

The “sacred tobacco grazing board,” a charcuterie board, is just one of the items Horn-Miller found troublesome.

“It was just like this mishmash of terms that come out of our own memes and public social media terminology that we use to bring humor to situations or to characterize situations or even that we talk about ceremonially — like sacred tobacco,” she said.

“It’s problematic.”

The mission statement on Manitou Bistro’s website says, “We are one nation.”

Odjick disagreed.

“No we are not,” said Odjick.

“Indigenous people are made up of different First Nations with our own unique cultures, backgrounds, histories, and traditions. To do what she’s doing is frankly homogenizing us all.”

When asked what the “we are one nation” in the mission statement means, Foucault said she believes the entire world is one nation and “we need to live together and not tear each other down.”

“Let’s try and work together with respect and create something beautiful and the world, and stop pushing ourselves away,” she said.

Odjick also took exception to menu items like “Windigo poutine.”

“I think there’s some gravy happening here but I think it’s a woman jumping on the gravy train because Windigo is a term throughout many nations that in some places is not even spoken out loud.”

CBC Indigenous presented Foucault with concerns people raised about her menu items and decor in her restaurant.

“Let them be concerned,” Foucault said.

“I would say it’s your choice to be concerned. This is my restaurant. This is what I choose to call it. That’s all I can say.”

She said at times the criticism the restaurant saw on social media turned into direct attacks toward herself and her family, which she called very inappropriate.

Foucault told CBC Indigenous that she’s seen criticism on social media about her menu including the poutines.

“My grandfather used to talk about the Windigo all the time and the White Buffalo. Those are my memories,” she said.

“If they have any issues where they don’t want to partake in the Windigo or the White Buffalo, then don’t come, but let it go at that.”

‘This is my dream

Horn-Miller said it’s important for people who claim Indigenous roots to be accountable to the community they claim. She said that means getting to know your family and being in service to your community.

“I mean there are lots of people who claim identity and ancestry going way back and they work hard to go back to the community, find their ancestors, find their relatives, and get to know them,” she said.

“They’re not opening restaurants.”

CBC Indigenous asked Foucault about the community’s urging to educate herself about her roots.

“I think in their eyes, they don’t think I’m from [Kitigan Zibi], but we are from there. It’s where we’re from,” she said.

“I’m entitled to do whatever the hell I want. If I want to open a restaurant, I’m going to open a restaurant. I don’t need anybody’s approval. I don’t even need my dad’s and mom’s approval. This is my money; this is my dream; this is my story.”