thumb|Louis Riel Sr. Louis Riel Sr. (père) (July 7, 1817 – January 21, 1864) was a farmer, miller, Métis leader, and the father of Louis Riel.
Life
Born in Île-à-la-Crosse, Rupert's Land, Riel was the eldest son of Jean-Baptiste Riel, dit L’Irlande, a voyageur, and Marguerite Boucher, a Franco-Chipewyan Métis. The Riel family moved back to Lower Canada while Louis was a child. He was educated in Quebec, learning the trade of carding wool. He joined the fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1838 and was stationed at Rainy River, Ontario, where he fathered a daughter named Marguerite in 1840. He left the HBC in 1842 and returned to Quebec with the intention of joining the priesthood at the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Saint-Hilaire, but withdrew a year later.
He returned to the Canadian West, settling in the Red River Colony on a river lot in Saint-Boniface (now a district of modern Winnipeg, Manitoba). He married Julie Lagimodière, daughter of voyageur Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière and Marie-Anne Gaboury in January, 1844. Together they had eleven children, and by all accounts formed a devout and close-knit family.
Riel established a number of businesses in the Red River Colony. In 1847, he opened a small mill on his farm with the support of chief factor John Ballenden with the hope of establishing a fulling mill operation in the settlement. However, Riel had little success with his fulling mill. He also attempted to open and operate a carding and grist mill to grind grain and card wool for the Grey Nuns of St. Boniface, hence his title of "miller of the Seine", but to little success.