Southbranch Settlement

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Southbranch Settlement was the name ascribed to a series of French Metis settlements on the Canadian prairies in the 19th Century, in what is today the province of Saskatchewan. Metis settlers began making homes here in the 1860s and 1870s, many of them fleeing economic and social dislocation from Red River, Manitoba.

The Settlements stretched along both sides of the South Saskatchewan River in river lot style from Fish Creek north through Batoche and St. Laurent to St. Louis which was its northern boundary. They were proximal to several Cree reserves, as well as settler and Anglo-Metis settlements to the north around Prince Albert.

The Northwest Rebellion of 1885 was a traumatic event for all the Southbranch communities, and they had passed their prime by the 1890s when the railway brought in hoards of new immigrant settlers. Some of the settlements, such as St. Louis still remain however.