Thursday, December 04, 2008

Marie Anne: An Extraordinary Story

Marie Anne herself
Marie-Anne Gaboury Lagimodière: Louis Reil's grandmother
The party arrived at Red River in the midst of a prairie fire, an annual event, and saw blinded buffalo with their hair singed off stumbling into rocks and creeks. At Fort Pembina (on a bend in the Red River now in North Dakota) they arrived at the mini kingdom of Alexander Henry the younger, whose entourage included his wife, a Salteux princess, two black servants from the West Indies, and a tame black bear.

From a new book, Marie Anne: The Extraordinary Story of Louis Riel's Grandmother
Marie Anne's husbandGABOURY, MARIE-ANNE (Lagemodière), first white woman resident in the west, grandmother of Louis Riel; b. 2 Aug. 1780 in Maskinongé, diocese of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, fifth child of Charles Gaboury (Gabourie) and Marie-Anne Tessier (Thésié); d.14 Dec. 1875 at Saint-Boniface, Man.

It was a long and arduous journey for a young woman and did not end until her arrival at a Métis encampment on the Pembina River in the autumn. At Fort Daer (Pembina, N.D.), on 6 Jan. 1807, her first child was born.

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