Baptiste (Jean-Baptiste) is a very common name among the Métis; and I doubt that the 'lament' in Bowen' novels was pointing at any specific person. I have heard Métis fiddlers play a tune called a lamentation, but can't recall any specific names.

The late history of the group is quite different in the U. S. and Canada.
In Canada, Métis had some success in obtaining reserves in Alberta, on the order of the Indian reserves, and some actions are still being pursued. Some live on Indian reserves in the north of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In some ways this has reinforced poverty, as there is little beyond marginal farming, hunting and fishing and timber cutting on these lands, and education remains at a low level.
In the Red River group, the upper class *"has virtually melted into the ranks of white society," and are successful in the administrative, business, farming and professional fields. Those who maintained Indian ways and failed to adapt to the modern economy, still have a marginal existence, finding employment as laborers and workers in the bush.

A Canadian native television network, APTN, carries some Métis material, including musical groups.
In Canada, those of combined Scots-English and Indian roots often refer to themselves as "Country," insisting that only the French-Indian mixture should be called Métis. In general, this group mostly has been absorbed into white society.

*The best survey of the Métis is the two volume "The Métis in the Canadian West," Marcel Giraud (trans. George Woodcock), 1986, The University of Alberta. Originally pub. in France as "Le Métis Canadien," Institut d'Ethnologie.