Page 66 - Fortier Family History

was a very fluent Cree speaker, not Ojibway necessarily, the letters always say Cree or just “Indian language”. In one of Nicol’s letters to son John he mentioned that the Cree at Long Lake gave him a Cree name and it was written as "Mis-qui-Kiweninne”. I have not been able to find any additional information about Nancy Ka-Na- Ka-Shi-Waite, but I’m currently trying to get her name translated by some Cree language speakers. Incidentally, Nicol and Nancy had another son named Benjamin born 1828-1834 who died at age 7 at “Grand Rapids” near the Red River Settlement and a daughter also named Anne or “Nancy” born circa 1819. She would have been the first born. She eventually married a man name Narcisse Chastelaine (various spellings) and they settled at Red River and later closer to Rainy River, Ont. Narcisse’s father was a “half-breed” fur trapper and trader named Nicholas Chastelaine who was interpreter at Sault St Marie during the 1849-1850 Robinson Superior Treaty negotiations. Nicol then went on to have a second “country wife” and her name was Anne or “Nancy” (yet again) Davis. She was actually a widow. She was “married” to HBC man John Davis who drowned in 1824 in the service of the HBC. Her father was an English HBC employee named John Hodgson and her mother was a half Scot half Cree woman named “Anne.” Nicol had a son with Anne Davis named Joseph Finlayson. Joseph also worked for the HBC but left Red River after the 1869-70 Métis Rebellion (Seven Oaks etc.) and took Scrip land in Prince Albert, Sask. He was later the first “Indian Agent” at the Carlton Agency (Fort Carlton, Sask.) for Indian and Northern Affairs. I have been in touch with some of Hector and Joseph’s descendants. Nicol then officially and legally got married to a woman named Elizabeth Kennedy in 1829. She was the daughter of HBC Chief Factor Alexander Kennedy and his “half-breed” “country wife” Agatha “Bear” Isbister. Nicol and Elizabeth or “Betsie” then had three children, Roderick 1830-1885 (died in Scotland) and Kenneth 1833(4)-1836 (drowned in Lake Superior), and Mary 1839-1923. Nicol’s wife Elizabeth died at Red River Settlement in 1842 at age 31 of Dropsy. Nicol took Mary and Roderick back to Nairn, Scotland during one of his health furloughs and they were left there in the care of his sister and her husband. Roderick died there fairly young at age of 55 in 1885. Nicol died there in 1877 and Mary married a James Lamb and they had several children. Her descendant from England contacted me back in the early 2000s and sent me some amazing old pictures of her when she was in her 80s and pictures of Nicol’s, Roderick’s and Mary’s cemetery plots in the small Scottish Highlands parishes where they came from, Loch Alsh, Fodderty, and Dingwall in the county or Shire of Ross. Getting back to the photo: John Finlayson is listed in his HBC bio as a “Pensioner” from 1877-1880 living at “Nipigon” (this refers to the HBC Lake Nipigon Post not the town of Nipigon) and then from 1880-1898 at Michipicoten. The photo, according to the book is from around 1895. So, given John’s apparent age in the picture, I always assumed this photo was taken in Michipicoten even though the caption below the photo in the book says “John Finlayson of the Hudson’s Bay Post, Pic River, with Indian wife and grandchildren.” John was definitely half Indian despite only his wife and children being described in the caption as “Indian.” This may be what caused some confusion regarding who was Nicol and who was John in the photo. John Finlayson was married to Angelique Shebagajig. That’s her sitting with the cradleboard on her lap. Some HBC and other records have her name as Ikwens, but that sounds too similar to the Ojibway suffix for woman “Ikwe” which many HBC men and later INA agents labeled Native women without a Christian name. Also, my late great aunt Ethel Michano Benoit wrote to me that Angelique’s “Indian” name was Geshagesic, which translates as “whirling sky” or something similar. But I have never found corroborating documents with that name. Let’s now consider the possible circumstances that made this photo possible to begin with. If it’s around 1895, most of the Indian families at Longlac, Heron Bay/Pic, Mobert etc., did not have the money to hire a photographer to take a formal portrait like this one. So where did John get the money on his meager HBC