Thousands of Métis who call themselves Canada's "forgotten people" gathered last week in Saskatch-ewan at the old battlefield in Batoche to celebrate the anniversary of a historic clash between Métis natives and Canadian soldiers in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.

There is no consensus among academics on exactly what took place, or the precise implications of the battle. This in itself is a powerful indication of just how muddled Métis history really is.

For some anglo-Canadians, the battle marked the end of an era during which Métis people warred against the Prairie settlers for political dominance in the region.

For the Métis, the date marked the anniversary of the crushing of a rebellion led by Louis Riel, a loss that started the closing of Canada's door on the proverbial Métis foot.

Now, more than 100 years later, Métis are engaged in an aggressive campaign to try to force the government to reopen that door, in particular through two large land claims they have placed before the courts. They are the only land claims ever to be made by Métis.

The first, filed by the Manitoba Métis Federation in 1981 and based on challenges to the Manitoba Act of 1870, has dragged on more than 20 years, but is expected to see some movement next spring. The second involves land in northwest Saskatchewan. It was filed by the Métis-Nation Saskatchewan in 1994, but researchers say there is no foreseeable end in sight.

Last month, the two claimants met to discuss amalgamating future claims and pooling their research capabilities, a move that found overwhelming support among Métis communities.

"We've always been very passive in our negotiations," said David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Métis Federation. "A lot of our younger [people] want to take a more stern position. It's scary to listen to, but there's some people talking about standing up against Canada," he said.

That support, Mr. Chartrand said, has helped fuel their campaign to help inform the public about the Métis' situation. If their claims are recognized in court, they say, it could end up costing the federal government billions.

Mr. Chartrand said the Métis people in Manitoba together with the Métis Nation of Alberta and the Métis-Nation of Saskatch-ewan have enough evidence to prove they are entitled to more than 2.4 million hectares of land stretching across all three of the Prairie provinces, encompassing a number of cities including Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Regina.

And, while the groups would prefer to settle out of court, there are no processes in place for Métis to negotiate with federal bodies. Brief talks between the federal government and Métis representatives in the early 1980s went nowhere, since the Métis --who consider themselves aboriginals but are not recognized as such under the Indian Act -- do not have access to the comprehensive land-claims process used to negotiate First Nations treaties. Instead, they must appeal to the courts to define the scope of their rights.

For one day last week, however, the prospect of negotiating looked hopeful. Ralph Goodale, the federal interlocutor for the Métis people, announced at Batoche that the federal government would enter into exploratory talks with the Métis for the first time since 1869. His remarks kindled hopes among Métis leaders for a speedy resolution of their claims. Métis spokesmen began granting interviews, calling the government's agreement to open talks a historic victory.

But just one day later, Mr. Goodale's office began backpedalling, responding to media inquiries about the implications of the exploratory talks with a calculated pessimism that quickly snuffed out Métis' hopes of accelerating the process.

John Embury, a spokesman for Mr. Goodale, said the federal government is not required by law to handle the Métis' claims.

"The federal government really has no real responsibility for Métis people, Mr. Embury said. "Our role is very limited. We're serious about talking about Métis rights, but that may or may not mean anything in the end."

He went on to say the federal government has made no promises to negotiate Métis land claims outside of court, or at all, for that matter. "Land claims across the country are in a complete jumble," he said. "This is the sort of thing you need a definitive line for who is responsible for what. In the Métis case, the line is pretty fuzzy."

However, the feeling among those in the Métis community, as well as among academics who have studied the muddled history of the "half-breed nation," are so high that the government may change its tune when the Métis people finally have their day in court, and a chance to present evidence detailing their "true" history, a version they say never made it into the history books.

"We have gone to battle to try and protect our rights. The conqueror has written the history of the Métis people, not the Métis people themselves," Mr. Chartrand said.

The first interactions between the Canadaian government and Métis people, born from the marriages of Cree, Ojibwa and Salteaux native women, and the French, Scottish, Scandinavian, Irish and English fur traders, began well after the Métis first established their communities in Western Canada in 1770s.

In his eagerness to settle the West, Sir John A. MacDonald is said to have promised the Métis a 570,000-hectare block of land in exchange for their presence in the new federation.

His promise, written into the federal Dominion Lands Act, which later became a part of the Constitution in 1871, would eventually be the key to settling the West.

MacDonald failed to hand over the land, but his promise would fuel the Métis' notion that they deserved to be compensated for signing the land they had once called their own over to Canada.

Today, some 60,000 Métis spread across the Prairie provinces in small communities are waiting to reap the benefits of Sir John A.'s promise, still entrenched in the Constitution -- Canada's highest law.

"In the eagerness of developing Western Canada, there were constitutional promises made to Métis that have been forgotten," Mr. Chartrand said. "The [570,000-hectare block] was an attempt to make sure that Métis land claims were dealt with, but ultimately, our claims have never been dealt with," he said.

After coming under fire in the mid-1880s for refusing to give Métis their block of land, the federal government appointed a series of "scrip commissions" and proceeded to issue scrip coupons to individual Métis families. These coupons could be redeemed for plots of surveyed land at any Dominion Lands office in Western Canada. However, the Métis allege that many of their people were fraudulently cheated out of their land, or simply never received scrip from the government.

Fears that whatever rights they have may be extinguished have driven their campaign since the early 1970s, when Métis groups across the Prairies first quietly began to organize, stockpiling massive amounts of research to back their claims.

Now that they have decided to work together on subsequent claims, more pointed legal challenges are to come, they say, with hopes the legal battles will end with historic victories.

Paul Chartrand (no relation to David Chartrand) is a leading legal expert in aboriginal rights, a professor of law at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Law, and the author of the book Manitoba's Métis Settlement Scheme of 1870.

Paul Chartrand says there is compelling evidence in favour of the Manitoba claim to be found in federal legislation dating back to the negotiations with MacDonald.

"All the provisions regarding Métis rights in the Manitoba Act are still a part of the constitution of Canada today. There is a strong case to be made," he said.

Frank Tough, the country's leading expert on Métis land claims and the director of the School of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, is the principal investigator for the Saskatchewan claim.

So far, his research has uncovered 712 scrip applications dating back to the 1885 scrip commissions that involved 1,100 individuals in northwestern Sask-atchewan. It is proof, he says, that the government once acknowledged the Métis had some sort of entitlement to land. Together, the scrips form a massive paper trail, and the most substantive evidence yet found to support the Saskatchewan claim.

"Because you were supposed to go in person to the lands office to locate your scrip coupon, many of the coupons had family names written right on them," Dr. Tough said. "There is an enormous amount of documentation surrounding these scrips."

Brenda Macdougall, an assistant native studies professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a researcher involved with the Saskatchewan claim, said while evidence seems to be in favour of the Métis' claims, researchers are skeptical that compensation will be awarded given that there are no precedents to support such a decision.

"There is more than enough evidence now to demonstrate that what occurred in the scrip era was not in the best interest of the Métis people, but endless legal battles are not serving anybody's interest," she said.

"People knew in different communities that their interests hadn't been met by scrip, but nobody until now has tried to track down an entire community's scrip to see what they are owed," she said. "The Métis do not have a direct relationship with the federal Crown, so in terms of negotiating a final settlement, we just don't know. The reality is right now the Crown is embroiled in treaty processes all across Canada."

Jim Miller, a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan specializing in native history, echoed Ms. Macdougall's concern, adding that time poses a problem for Métis seeking to have their claims realized through the oftenlengthy processes of the courts.

"It really is more of a question of how long it will take. There has never been any evidence to suggest that the government won't try and drag out the cases," he said. "It is hard to be dogmatic about it. Most of the research that is going to confirm the case is not complete."

At the time of Confederation, nearly 10,000 Métis are thought to have lived in the Western provinces. So far, land title has been substantiated with scrip for only one-tenth of that population.

Dr. Miller said the legal test used to evaluate whether or not an aboriginal title exists involves proving that the group in question was an effective occupier of land before the assertion of British or Canadian law in the given territory. The scrip, he said, could be key to proving such occupation.

"It is pretty clear that Métis dominated the west-central areas of Saskatchewan they are claiming. When the smoke clears, they will likely be recognized as having some sort of valid claim," he said.

Tom Flanagan, a consultant for the federal department of justice on the Manitoba Métis case and the author of the book Métis Lands in Manitoba will testify in court for the government about his findings on Métis history.

"The way I have read the Manitoba Act is that it recognized the Métis people had inherited a share of aboriginal title, but the act didn't create a legal category of Métis people with continuing special status," he said.

"Beyond that, I think, is the assumption that through their Indian ancestry, Métis people had a share of Indian title. The government was choosing to extinguish [their title] in the form of grants of land to individuals.

"In the end, the land was given."