My friends of Orkney, in my last correspondence, I left Clifton and Estelle Isbister bouncing along country roads upon their mechanical steed – a Model T Ford. The Great War had run its appalling course a few years earlier and the future seemed bright.
    Clifton, as you may recall, was the grandson of James who at the age of 18 had immigrated with several siblings to Canada where he eventually made his way to a little village in the heart of Southwestern Ontario. James and his young bride, one Jennet Douglass, had prospered, James having led the construction of several fine stone homes and also the Presbyterian Church, the community’s largest building.
    It was a transformative period for the family. The Orkney Isles had held few prospects beyond a hand-to-mouth, agricultural existence or low-wage jobs in what little industry the islands had had to offer.
    Consequently, a portion of the family’s holdings on the largest island of archipelago, Mainland, was sold, providing enough money for safe passage to the Canadas though little more.
    The legacy of Orkney loomed large for the newcomers. The islands had been a part of Scotland for centuries but its inhabitants, prone to refer to themselves as Orcadians, had long viewed themselves as somehow being separate, distinct with their Scandinavian connections.
    In centuries past, the islands had even been the home base for a small, maritime empire, stretching north to the Shetlands and south to Dublin, Ireland.
    The Islands, though picturesque, with their low, hills and windswept shores, were in reality just a small place in the scheme of things, never home to much more than 30,000 souls of whom roughly a third emigrated over the course of the 19th century.
    Orcadians, in fact, had long been world travelers, serving in the United Kingdom’s merchant marine fleet and supplying much of the manpower that gave rise to the famed Hudson’s Bay Company, a company formed in 1670. In what then was known as Rupert’s Land, they gained a reputation for being tough and uncomplaining, able to survive the harsh conditions that took them deep into the interior, travelling by canoe for the fur trade with indigenous communities.
    In time, Orcadian and other European bloodlines mingled with that of indigenous peoples and a new, distinct society evolved.
    Born to this new society in 1833 was another James Isbister, a Canadian Métis fluent in English, Gaelic, Cree, Dene and Michif – a mixed language incorporating elements of Cree and French to various degrees. Well educated, likely schooled at the Red River Settlement, he used his income from the Company to establish a farm along the North Saskatchewan River at what is today, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Like Louis Riel, he was prominent among those supporting Métis self-determination after the Company ceded the vast lands under its sway to the Dominion of Canada with no consultation with the people living there.
    Was there a family link between this Métis Isbister and the brash, young Clifton? Beyond their common Orcadian heritage, the answer to that question may never be known but among Cliff’s grandchildren was a young fellow whose life would also be indelibly changed 75 years later through a brief yet intimate contact with certain members of the First Peoples of this land.
    Not far from the border with the Northwest Territories, sunsets linger with winter’s approach and seem to stretch along the horizon in all directions. It’s land of lakes, rivers and muskeg punctuated by occasional rocky outcrops, home to the ‘The People’.
    I think of the place often, my Orkney friends, and when I do, I think of Estelle.
    Her grandfather John Richardson had immigrated to Canada in 1851 and, like Clifton’s grandfather, would eventually find his way to the same village.
    John and his wife Mary Shearer had seven children including Estelle’s father who was born in 1867 at the family’s newly acquired farm.
    From the southeast of Scotland, Dumfriesshires, the family also had a connection to the famed Netherby Estate just across the border in England, John’s younger brother having been employed there. Immigrating to Canada was more a prerogative rather than an imperative for the family who, like the Isbisters, rose to prominence in the community.
    “Mr. Richardson was devoted to his church, never letting a shower of rain or bad weather keep him home from church service on the Sabbath … he was presented with a watch and chain by the congregation in 1884,” Estelle’s maiden sister wrote.
    John Richardson was still living when his granddaughter Estelle was born in 1900, the same year the Queen Mother.
    She loved her Clifton. One summer day in the early 1950s, after all that had passed, they posed for a Brownie black-and-white. Cliff wears a white undershirt, suspenders and work pants, his right arm is curled around Estelle’s ample waist, a partially consumed a cigar between the first and second fingers of his left hand and a look upon his defiant, battered face suggesting words, “Care to knock me down? Care to try.”
    Estelle smiles shyly.
    She had seen the north, the little camp on quiet water, the scar of the workings; just of the two of them as they took their evening strolls, enveloped by the great silence.
    To be continued...