Marie Anne : The Frontier Spirit of Marie Anne Lagimodière

In subject and tone, this volume exemplifies Grant MacEwan’s historical work. Leavening historical accounts with invented period-appropriate conversations and emotions to produce a genre that he calls “fictionalized history” (vii), he presents a popular biography of Marie Anne Lagimodière, a settler in western Canada (and Louis Riel’s grandmother). Unlike many wives of fur traders in the early nineteenth century, Lagimodière accompanied her husband to the North-West, becoming one of the first settlers in the Red River area. MacEwan’s account is more than a story of struggling to settle in the west – Lagimodière's contact with the Métis makes her biography a viewing gallery of events in the growing conflict between the Métis and settler governments, as well as Manitoba’s incorporation as a Canadian province.