Métis Scrip Records

Commissions

Alberta/Assiniboia and Saskatchewan/Manitoba Commissions

Land Scrip

Dept. of the Interior, RG 15, Series D II 8i, Land Scrip to Métis, 1885-1917, 1.1 m, vol. 1406 to 1410.

This series contains cancelled notes for land scrip awarded by the Department of the Interior to Métis claimants of the former North-West Territories. The notes issued by the Alberta-Saskatchewan Commission are inter-filed with the notes awarded by other scrip commissions. As previously noted, all claimants for land scrip under the Alberta-Saskatchewan Commission were awarded 240 acres (unlike earlier Commissions, there was no distinction made between heads of families and children). The scrip was awarded as one 80 acre note and one 160 acre note. Unlike some of the other Commissions a single 240 acre note does not appear to have been used by the Alberta-Saskatchewan Commission.

The land scrip retained by Library and Archives Canada is grouped according to the amount of the scrip (i.e., 80 acres or 160 acres), and in numerical order within each group. Finding aid FA15-13 will guide researchers to the volume in RG 15 where the note is stored; but to use this finding aid researchers must know the scrip number. To find the note awarded to a particular claimant when the number of the scrip note is unknown, researchers should first refer to the delivery register (RG 15, volume 1520, described elsewhere) to obtain the scrip note number, and then to finding aid FA15-13 to find the RG 15 volume number where the note is stored.

Location registers for the 160 acre scrip are retained in RG 15, volumes 1546, 1547, and 1550; and for the 80 acre scrip in RG 15, volumes 1545, 1548, and 1549 (see descriptions elsewhere). The registers serve as an index to the lands which were patented to holders of Métis scrip awarded under P.C. 438, 2 March, 1900. Once again, all the books are organized by scrip number. Each entry gives the name of the allottee, the name of the patentee, the legal description of the land awarded, acreage, date of patent, and the liber and folio numbers. These are the same liber and folio numbers used by Library and Archives Canada. The Letters Patent are retained in RG 15, Series D III 10.