Unsettled: Lord Selkirk’s Scottish Colonists and the Battle for Canada’s West, 1813–1816

To venture across the Atlantic Ocean in the early 1800s in search of a new life must have demanded extraordinary courage. Many Scottish people, having been displaced by the Highland Clearances, responded to the Earl of Selkirk’s offer of a new life in Canada, on land that is now situated in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In honor of their patron, they were called the Selkirk Settlers. One settler was Sam Lamont, a millwright and the author’s great-great grandfather. Filmmaker Lower’s detailed analysis focuses on principal characters, the brutal weather conditions, stifling class distinctions, and the colonizers’ assumption that the land, which belonged to the Métis people, was there for the taking. The settlers found themselves unwitting participants in the struggle between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company to control the lucrative fur trade. The clash between the fur traders, who resented the permanent settlements, and the settlers who wanted to bring agriculture to the area, culminated in the Seven Oaks massacre in June 1816, in which 22 people died. Includes a time line and list of characters.