This paper develops an analytical method for assessing the interplay of economic behavior and ecological energetics among the Metis Cree, offspring of Cree Indian-European unions in north-central Canada. Business account-book analysis provides unique insights into the production and exchange behavior of individual laborers and their families during the twilight of the fur trade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The evidence generally supports conventional interpretations of the subartic Metis as economically and socially intermediate between Indian hunting bands and the Euro-Canadian managerial class. However, fine-grained account-book analysis also reveals that this general adaptation exhibited highly variable coping strategies, forming a continuum in work regimens and level of integration into trading-company hierarchies. A focus on individual variability reflects the growing interest among ecological anthropologists in individual strategy, theories of choice, and actor-based decision models.