MARIE-ANNE: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF LOUIS RIEL'S GRANDMOTHER.

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2008. 307 pp, 9 1/4" H. B&w maps. Inscribed by author on title page: "For Walter. Dec/08 To a wonderful writer and friend Maggie Siggins"."Beautiful and spirited, Marie-Anne rejected suitor after suitor until she was twenty-six - a rebellion unheard of in 1800s Quebec habitant society. Then, shortly after her marriage to the handsome coureur de bois Jean-Baptiste Lagimodiere, she insisted on accompanying him back to the uncharted wilderness of western Canada. The year was 1807, and no white woman had tackled the fierce wilderness of Canada's fur-trading country. Marie-Anne travelled almost three thousand kilometres by canoe brigade, facing tumultuous rapids, portages, and deadly storms on the way to the Red River Valley. She packed a flatiron for the voyage, a disturbing sign that she was woefully unaware of what lay ahead. They arrived in the midst of tribal warfare triggered by the fur-trade economy, and a fierce rivalry between the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. She would experience near starvation at cramped fur-trading forts but also joyous summers hunting buffalo with Jean-Baptiste on the prairies. As she settled into life among the Aboriginal people, she soon traded her dainty shoes and dresses for caribou-skin leggings and embroidered moccasins. She gave birth to her first four children Indian-style. She learned to make pemmican and became fluent in Ojibwe and Cree. Eventually, she and Jean-Baptiste helped with the establishment of Winnipeg and became successful farmers and entrepreneurs. Maggie Siggins tells a vivid story of Marie-Anne's journey west and her new life there, powerfully evoking her often cruel existence and the beautiful and inhospitable Canadian lanscape." A blank bookplate on the front free endpaper covers a previous owner's inscription, light wrinkling at the top and bottom of the spine. Dust jacket has light wrinkling - mainly at the top of the spine and flap-folds.. Initialled By Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good.