Author Guest Post with Nancy M. Bell: Discarded

When the British arrived in Winnipeg in the 1800s it was convenient for the men to take Metis wives. They were called a la vacon du pays – according to the custom of the country.

Welcome to the September 12th stop on the blog tour for Discarded by Nancy M. Bell with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

When writing historical fiction such as Discarded an author spends more time digging into research than they do writing the actual story. Sometimes you come across things that as totally amazing and sometimes those gems of research end up being incorporated into the actual finished novel.

When I was researching and writing, Discarded, which is a historical mystery set in 1869, in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, I came across the Legend of White Horse Plain. I live in western Canada but have family in the east and so I have driven across the prairies many times. On the western edge of Winnipeg, just before Headingley, there is a statue of a white horse on a tall plinth. Being horse crazy as a kid, we always stopped there and so I was aware of the legend. But during the writing of Discarded, I had the opportunity to go down that research rabbit hole and dig a bit deeper. So, if you ever have the opportunity to drive along the Trans-Canada Highway, be sure to stop and visit the White Horse. Here is the story behind “Place of Interest.”

The Legend of White Horse Plain

For more than 250 years the region has borne the name White Horse Plain. It was so called for more than 50 years before the first white man set foot in the west. Over a hundred years before Manitoba existed as a province.

The legend is dated to an event in the 1690s. An Assiniboine chief had a beautiful daughter. The daughter had two suitors: a Sioux Chief from Devil’s Lake and a Cree Chief from Lake Winnipegosis. It was expected that the Sioux Chief would claim the daughter as his wife as the Sioux were related and allied to the Assiniboine. The Cree, on the other hand, were traditional enemies.

However, the Cree Chief had a plan. According to research by Margaret McLeod in the 1950s, the Cree Chief offered the Assiniboine Chief the gift of a magnificent white horse. This horse was of the famous Mexican breed Blanco Diablo (white devil). It was said this breed was nimble of foot, strong and sturdy and could outrun and outlast any other breed of horse. The horse could also go for three or four days longer than any other without food or water. The Assiniboine Chief could not resist, remember that horses were seen as a sign of riches and to own a horse of this magnitude was a rare opportunity. The Cree Chief was awarded the Assiniboine Chief’s daughter.

As you can imagine, his was not a popular choice.

Legend says the Assiniboine medicine man strongly disagreed quite publicly with the choice, accusing the chief of making peace with the enemies of their forefathers and disgracing the Assiniboine by mingling their blood with their foes.

Blinded by the beauty of the white stallion, the Assiniboine Chief disregarded his medicine man’s advice and sent word of his decision to the Sioux.

The Cree Chief brought the magnificent horse and presented it to the Assiniboine Chief. He then claimed his bride. There was much feasting and merry making, but before it could really get going a cloud of dust appeared in the distance. A party of Sioux warriors, led by their shunned chief, attacked the celebration. The Cree Chief and his new wife fled. She on the white horse and he on a gray. But of course, they were seen, and the Sioux gave chase.

In spite of her fear, the woman held her horse back to stay with her husband whose horse couldn’t match the white stallion’s speed. The Sioux caught up with them just east of present day St. Francois Xavier and without mercy shot both of them full of arrows. The Sioux captured the now loose gray horse, but the white stallion escaped. For years afterward, there were reports of the horse seen wandering on the nearby plain. According to aboriginal legend, the soul of the slain woman entered the white horse and as time passed it came to be believed that the ghost of the woman in the form of the white horse haunted the plain. There is a monument at the junction of Highway 1 (the Trans Canada Highway) and Highway 26 that commemorates the legend.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look into a tiny bit of western Canadian history.

You can find Discarded on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and wherever good books are sold; and you can visit my page on BWL Publishing.

Keep Reading!  Nancy M Bell

About the Book

Discarded
by Nancy M. Bell

Published 1 September 2023
BWL Publishing Inc.

Genre: Canadian Historical Mystery
Page Count: 289
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

When the British arrived in Winnipeg in the 1800s it was convenient for the men to take Metis wives. They were called a la vacon du pays – according to the custom of the country.

These women bore the brunt of ensuring survival in the harsh environment. Without them the British army and fur traders would not have survived the brutal winters. However, as society evolved it became accepted that wives must be white, schooled in British ways, fashionable in the European sense and married by the Anglican church.

The Metis wives and their ‘country born’ offspring were thrown out and forced to fend for themselves. The unrepentant husbands continued to live comfortably with their ‘new’ wives. It was inevitable that some discarded wives did not accept their fate quietly and hard feelings on both sides were unavoidable.

When the bodies of two discarded Metis wives, Marguerite and Marie-Anne, are found floating in the Red River, Guilliame Mousseau, sets out to get to the bottom of his sister Margueite’s murder.

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Excerpt

The group halted by the river and milled around, held back by the ring of men accompanying the Hudson Bay officers. Guillaume elbowed his way to the front, heedless of the feet he trod on. Reaching the wall of onlookers, he gripped the nearest man’s arm.

“What have they found? Do you know who it is?” He peered over the shorter man’s shoulder. A bit of ragged shawl fluttered in the brisk breeze. “Marie-Anne!” Guillaume shoved the man aside and shook off the next man who sought to hold him back. Pushing his way through, he approached the small group of Hudson’s Bay officers surrounding the bodies.

“Hold, you!” One of the clerks moved to block his vision. “Get back where you belong!”

“Lord Ashmore! I demand to speak with Lord Ashmore!” Guillaume stood his ground.

“Yes, what is it?” Miles Ashmore turned from his perusal of the scene at his feet. “Ah, Mister Mousseau, what brings you here? This isn’t a place for you.”

“Don’t you recognize her?” Guillaume shook off the man still attempting to hold him back and knelt by the figures on the cold earth. He pushed back the hank of hair that had come unbound and covered the nearest victim’s face. It was Marie-Anne, he was sure of it because of the colourful shawls, though her features were beaten beyond recognition. He glared up at Ashmore. “This is my sister, Marie-Anne.” He rose and turned the other woman over. “And this is also my sister, Marguerite.” He surged to his feet, taking two long strides closer to the Englishman. “How did this happen? They came to you for help, how did they end up like this?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” Lord Ashmore held up his hands, silently signalling the men to step back for the moment “I gave them a script to take to Doctor Schultz in order to obtain medicine for the boy. Other than that I have no idea where your women went afterward. It really is no concern of mine.”

“No concern of yours?” Guillaume’s voice dropped dangerously low. “Two women are murdered, one of them is the mother of your sons, and you claim it is no concern of yours?”

He ignored the surprised whispers from the enlisted men behind him, gaze pinning the man in his place. “Murders of innocent women are of no concern to you?” he repeated.

“I might quibble with the term innocent,” Ashmore began before quickly changing tack when Guillaume’s expression darkened, “but be that as it may, I think this is something that your community should handle. It’s not really a matter for me to be concerned with.” He stepped back, in effect washing his hands of the situation.

J.J. Hargreaves pushed his way through the line of soldiers. “What do we have here? Oh dear.” He stopped at the sight of the battered women laying on the banks of the Red River. Hargreaves came to stand beside Mousseau. “Do you know who they are?” He pulled a note pad and graphite stick out of his pockets.

“Oui, my sisters,” he said shortly.

“How did they come to be here so early in the morning, and in such condition?” Hargreaves licked the end of his pencil.

“I do not know. They came into the village late last night to ask for medicine for my nephew. They went to the lord’s house and got a script for Doctor Schultz and somehow ended up here.” He glared at Ashmore. “I came looking for them when I arrived home this morning and was informed they hadn’t returned last night.”

“Really?” Hargreaves scribbled on his note pad. “Did they ever make it to the apothecary’s?”

“That I do not know, yet. I had only started my search when I heard the commotion and came here with no idea of what I would find. Certainly, not this.” He nodded at his sisters’ bodies.

“Of course.” Hargreaves nodded, turning to speak to Lord Ashmore. “When did you become aware something was wrong?”

“At the same time as everybody else.” The man’s reply was terse.

“Who found the bodies, who reported it to you?” Hargreaves persisted.

Guillaume refused to be moved, intent on hearing Ashmore’s response.

“A fur trader on his way to the Hudson’s Bay store.” He glanced at Guillaume. “One of your people.”

“Who was it?” Mousseau demanded.

“How am I to know that? It was a fur trader, dirty and stinking. How am I to tell one from the other of you?”

Guillaume clenched his jaw. He would find out, someone at the store would know. The clerks loved gossip and surely this would be top of their minds this morning. First, he needed to take care of his sisters. “I need to find someone to help me move my sisters. Are you willing to have a few of your men stay here until I return with a cart and some help.”

Ashmore’s expression was undecided, glancing at the nearest men who were muttering among themselves, hunched against the cold.

“She is the mother of your sons, surely you can give her that much respect,” Guillaume insisted.

The Englishman nodded, signalling for three of the Company men to stay with the bodies and ordering the others to move the group of onlookers away.

“Let no one touch them,” Guillaume ordered the three men who met his words with blank faces. “No one.”

“See that no one interferes with anything,” Ashmore directed the men before marching off with the others trailing behind.

Excerpt

Nancy Marie Bell is a proud Albertan and Canadian. She lives near Balzac, Alberta with her husband and various critters.  She is a member of The Writers Union of Canada and the Writers Guild of Alberta.

Nancy has numerous writing credits to her name, having three novels published and her work has been published in various magazines. She has also had her work recognized and honoured with various awards, and most recently, a silver medal in the Creative Writing category of the Alberta 55 Plus Summer Games in 2013. 

Nancy has presented at the Surrey International Writers Conference in 2012 and 2013, and at the Writers Guild of Alberta Conference in 2014. She has publishing credits in poetry, fiction and non-fiction.

Nancy blogs on the first of each month at the Canadian Historical Brides Blog and on the 18th of every month at the Books We Love Insider Blog. Please drop by and say hi.

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