Four generations of my Indigenous roots are buried at St. Andrews-on-the-Red Anglican Church in this small community near Winnipeg, Manitoba. My brother Rob Florence and I visited their graves recently, paying homage to our joint Scottish-Cree heritage.

Welcome to Letters From Windermere, where I write about:

• HISTORY: mostly Western Canada history.
• WRITING: info about my new historical novel.
• BOOKS: I recommend a good book every month.

But First, My Writing Life

My historical novel Finding Flora, about an intrepid female homesteader, will appear on April 1, 2025, exactly five years to the day I started my research.

If you’re wondering why the heck it took so long, I wrote an article that explains the painful process. Read it here: My NaNoWriMo Was a Train Wreck.

I have also updated my website with new colours and information. If you haven’t poked around on my site recently, please visit the categories listed on the green Menu Bar above, including:

About Page: More than you ever wanted to know about me.

Finding Flora Page: A synopsis, a link to the entire first chapter, and instructions for preordering. (All preorders will be processed on launch day, giving Flora the best chance to become a bestseller).

Blog Page: My blog posts are sorted into two categories. Letters From Windermere is my current blog (although I hate the word blog and prefer to call it a newsletter). All my wartime stories are filed under the heading Lest We Forget.

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My Indigenous Roots Run Deep

My friend once joined a genealogy group and quit immediately because, as she said, there’s nothing more boring than someone else’s family history!

With that in mind, I won’t crush you with the details. But if you love Canadian history, you will appreciate my passion for the past.

My Indigenous roots spring from two different Cree women, from two different tribes, in distant regions of what is now Canada.

Both married Scottish men who came here to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Those two men are considered founding fathers, because if they had not married Indigenous women, there would be no Métis Nation today.

Donald McDonald

Born in the tiny village of Ascoilemore in the Highlands of Scotland, young Donald signed on with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1813 and left his country forever. His village was later burned to the ground during the Highland Clearances. I have seen the remains of the village, shown in this photograph. Read about my visit: Bonny Scotland.

When Donald arrived in North America, Rupert’s Land was a vast uncharted territory encompassing one-third of what is now Canada. The British government granted this land in 1670 to the new Hudson’s Bay Company for the purpose of acquiring valuable beaver pelts from the Indigenous tribes. The Bay built forts and trading posts, and for the next two hundred years reigned supreme.

Donald had a storied career with the Bay, including a two-year stint living with the Blackfoot Tribe. He later married a Half-Breed woman named Jane Beaudry, daughter of a French trader and a Plains Cree, at Fort Edmonton. (These marriages were common, since there were no white women in Western Canada until the late 1800s.)

I’m using the term Half-Breeds because that was the official designation for anyone with white and Indigenous blood until 1982, when the federal government decided to call them Métis instead, the French word for “mixed.”

After finishing his employment with the Bay, Donald and Jane moved to St. Andrews in 1836, a community composed of retired company officials, mainly Scots, and their Half-Breed wives and children. Donald and Jane had thirteen children, three of whom died in infancy. Among the survivors was a son named Alexander McDonald.

John Tait

John was born in South Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands. Like his two brothers, young John signed on with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1820 and headed off to Rupert’s Land.

We know from the Bay employment records that he was a “middleman,” one of the guys who sat in the middle of the heavy rowboats called York Boats, used to transport people and goods up and down the rivers.

The Lower Fort Garry historic site, not far from St. Andrews, has a York boat on display.

John Tait served at a number of Bay forts and married a Half-Breed at Moose Factory, Ontario, named Elizabeth Brown, daughter of an English trader and a Swampy Cree.

Like Donald McDonald and other retired Bay employees, he and his family were granted a river lot in St. Andrews in 1829 — a long, narrow piece of land leading back from the Red River. There he started a mill, and became a miller by profession.

He and Elizabeth had eleven children, only four of whom survived into adulthood. Tragically, smallpox, typhoid and other diseases tended to wipe out children at an alarming rate. One of their surviving children was a daughter, Ann Tait.

Indigenous Roots Unite

The Red River region included much of the area that is now Winnipeg, centred around The Forks, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.

Several generations of Half-Breeds lived in the Red River area. They formed a distinct society with their own identity, customs and dialect.

(Although it is somewhat controversial, having mixed white and Indigenous blood does not mean you can call yourself Métis. You must be able to trace your roots back to the Red River community, considered the official Métis Homeland.)

The two Scotsmen and their Indigenous families would have known each other well. Their Half-Breed children, Alexander McDonald and Ann Tait, grew up, fell in love, and were married in St. Andrews-on-the-Red Church.

Alexander and Ann McDonald farmed at St. Andrews and had thirteen children of their own, among them a daughter named Jessie McDonald.

Losing Their Rights

Then the fateful day arrived in 1870 when they received word that the Hudson’s Bay Company had sold Rupert’s Land to the new Dominion of Canada.

Federal government officials arrived to register all Half-Breeds living in the Red River area. In exchange for signing a paper that extinguished all their rights as Indigenous people, they were given a piece of paper called a scrip coupon, entitling them either to $160 cash, or a parcel of land.

Alexander and Ann registered themselves as Half-Breeds, along with their five daughters. My great-grandmother Jessie McDonald was only fourteen years old when she received her land scrip coupon. This is registered with Library & Archives Canada.

As shown on this document, her father swore an oath on July 23, 1875 on behalf of his five daughters: “My said children respectively claim to be entitled to participate in the allotment and distribution of the 1,400,000 acres of land set apart for Half-Breed children pursuant to the statutes in that behalf, and I believe them to be so entitled.”

However, the government never honored the deal. Those who tried to claim their land were subjected to a blizzard of paperwork and intentionally long delays in processing their claims. Most recipients gave up and sold their scrip to white predators called “scrip sharks” for a few dollars.

What happened to Jessie’s land? It’s a mystery. Métis historian Darcy McRae told me that only three percent of people who received scrip were successful in claiming the land they were promised.

Riel Leads Rebellion

The people of Red River were so unhappy with the new country’s government that they rebelled under the leadership of Louis Riel, who in 1869 tried to negotiate better terms for entering Confederation.  The attempt failed, and he fled to the United States.

In 1878 he returned to lead another uprising at Batoche, Saskatchewan, called the North-West Rebellion. The rebels were easily defeated by government troops and Riel was hanged as a traitor. Today he is revered as a hero by the Métis people.

The descendants of the people he represented have been fighting to recover their legal rights ever since.

In 1982, the Métis were recognized by the government as one of Canada’s three legally, politically and culturally and distinct Indigenous peoples, including Indian and Inuit.

Jessie McDonald

Four years after receiving her scrip coupon, my great-grandmother Jessie married a white man of English descent, a young man named Albert Boskill who had moved to St. Andrews from Port Hope, Ontario. They, too, were married in St. Andrews-on-the-Red Anglican Church.

Jessie and Albert, who was a skilled carpenter, lived in St. Andrews for their entire married life. All their children were born there and two of them, sadly, lie in the old churchyard — the fourth generation of my Indigenous roots.

Just two months after Jessie gave birth to her ninth child, she succumbed to typhoid and died at the age of thirty-seven. She joined her infants in the St. Andrews Cemetery.

Her grieving husband raised his surviving seven children alone, with the help of his eldest daughter, Mary Margaret, who was just fourteen when her mother died.

Indigenous Roots Severed

Perhaps wanting to escape his unhappy memories, or seek a better life for his Half-Breed children, Albert moved his family west in 1905 when he and his eldest son Percy filed on homesteads at Maymont, Saskatchewan. Here is Albert with his seven children. The girl standing behind him is my grandmother, Mary Margaret Boskill.

And that’s where the connection to our Indigenous roots was severed. Perhaps it was deliberate, or perhaps time and distance played their part.

My ladylike grandmother Mary Margaret married a white homesteader named George Florence (in the Maymont Anglican Church built by her own father, Albert Boskill), and proceeded to become whiter than white.

She was a leading member of the Associated Countrywomen of the World, and a delegate to the national Progressive Conservative convention. She never mentioned her Indigenous roots, although her own grandparents, aunts and uncles were still living in St. Andrews.

Although this was unfortunate in many ways, I understand why she wanted to protect herself and her own children from the racism that was so prevalent. Nevertheless, it was well-known in the area that the Boskills were “Breeds.”

My own father Douglas Florence was called this derogatory term on more than one occasion. Here’s a photo of my dear old Dad, who joined his ancestors in 2002.

Back to the Present

It was an extremely powerful experience to visit the little community that played such an important role in our family history.

We were fortunate to attend Sunday service on October 20, 2024, which marked a special anniversary — one hundred and seventy-five years since the church was founded in 1849.

My brother Robert Florence and his wife Wendy live on the farm near North Battleford, Saskatchewan where I grew up.

Here Rob and Wendy stand at the altar where generations of McDonalds and Taits celebrated their baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

Their son Andrew Florence is the fifth consecutive generation of farmers to follow in the footsteps of the original homesteader, Albert Boskill.

The church is so old that the kneeling boards are covered in buffalo hide!

On the wall is a memorial plaque dedicated to one of the founding fathers of my Indigenous family, John Tait of the Orkney Islands. In honor of the occasion, I donned my Métis sash.

The church and the cemetery are now a National Historic Site. Although the old stones are so decayed, we managed after hours of searching to find the graves of our two white founding fathers and their Half-Breed wives. Both couples remained faithful unto death.

Here lies Donald McDonald and his Half-Breed wife, Jane.

And this is John Tait’s grave beside that of his Half-Breed wife, Elizabeth.

Sadly, the stones are so badly weathered that we could not find Jessie’s grave or those of any other family members. We know they are there, however, because their burials are listed in the church’s register. Like most old cemeteries in Canada, this one has hundreds of unmarked graves.

Thanks to the fact that our family members were legally married, and their births and deaths on the public record, we have incontrovertible proof of our Indigenous roots.

Two decades ago, in honor of my ancestors, I became a card-carrying citizen of the Métis Nation of British Columbia.

Rest in peace, my McDonald and Tait ancestors.

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Book of the Month

Since my heritage is so tied up with the history of The Bay, I picked up this award-winning book at the Winnipeg International Airport and I am engrossed!

The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire is the best kind of non-fiction book, one that is lively and engaging and filled with interesting characters.

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Friends, thank you for bearing with me through this long family saga. Watch for my next Letter From Windermere on December 18, 2024. Until then, I wish you good cheer as we enter the Christmas season.

And always, Elinor