#30: Learn your family's history and #31: dispossession history.

I've spent the good part of four days of holidays glued to Ancestry.ca pulling together both Ralph's lineage and my own for this post. It's as though I've been given a magical looking glass into the lives of our ancestors. For Ralph's ancestors we were able to go back to the 1400s and for my own into the 1500s. None of this has been double checked by a historian so if there are grave errors, that would be both my fault and the fault of our ancestors for being so free with the spellings of their names.

My grandfather Harvey Gladue's ancestors were predominentely French until settling for several generations in Lac La Biche. Prior to Lac La Biche, they lived in the Montreal area, specifically the Lachine Settlement in New France in 1689 (there were 375 inhabitants at the time, today there is around 45,000). While there, the majority of the family was killed during the Beaver Wars, and specifically the Lachine Massacre, which resulted due to continued disputes of land with the Iroquois. Those who survived the massacre made their way west to Red River and Lac La Biche with a few taking residence in Pelican Portage and Calling Lake, Alberta. Along the way a great grandmother appears to have signed away their treaty rights which is likely why my grandfather and his ancestors were considered Metis or non-Status. It was near Calling Lake where he met my grandmother, Maggie Auger, who's family is essentially a mystery on Ancestry.ca perhaps due to their Cree names which were only changed in the latter part of the 1800s due to residential school. All I know are my great grandparents names and very little else, perhaps one day I'll spend much more time in Wabasca and hear from my family members more about them and the ancestors before them.

My maternal ancestors arrived in Canada in the mid 1800s likely upon the promise of homesteading. Many family members continue to farm the homestead in Meanook and around Athabasca to this very day. I'm unsure of the Indigenous history of the area other than the name Meanook means "good camping spot" in Cree which suggests that it was a stopping point. Perhaps my paternal ancestors had stopped at the very spot where my grandfather's barn sits today. It was the building of the Athabasca Landing Trail (what we know call the old highway). It is the same trail that was used by Indigenous hunters who travelled north (to Wood Buffalo) for buffalo hunting. My grandfather Harvey told me that it was a right of passage for young hunters to get a buffalo but it was a long journey so he only went for himself once.

Once the railroad reached Calgary in 1883, goods were shipped to Edmonton, then to Athabasca Landing where they were loaded onto steam boats and carried down the Athabasca River. The Trail saw hundreds of Klondikers travel its dirt path in 1897 and 1898 on their way to strike it rich. From then on, homesteaders came by the thousands to settle the area, including my maternal family the Browns, Tuckers, Doreys and Hopps.

I could go on and on but will end with a few ancestral discoveries about Ralph:

• His 15th great grandfather is Sir William Dormer (who allegedly broke an engagement with Jane Seymour so that King Henry VIII could pursue her). Just to be clear Ralph is not royalty. The Vicountcy and Earldom died with Charles Dormer, 2nd Earl of Carnavon in 1709, leaving the title of Baron, now held by Baron William Robert Dormer who is 5 years Ralph's junior.
• His 8th great grandfather is Nathan Gold, one of the judges in the Connecticut witch trials.
• His 5th great grandfather Abel Gold, was a Union Colonel who died on April 27, 1777 at the battle of Ridgefield during the American Civil War.
• His great grandfather is Chief John Baptiste who was born in Oka, Quebec and raised his family on Paudash Lake, Ontario. That area is now cottage country and the subject of a highly disputed land claim.

Now how do we fit into the dispossession of Indigenous people in Canada? I think that is indisputable that our family members (both maternal and paternal) participated in the settlement of the Americas as both as settler and Indigenous. How does that make me feel? Surprisingly ok, because if both of our families could come together and intertwine (willingly and lovingly) then I believe there is hope for reconciliation and seeing each other's perspectives.