Metis Pioneers: Marie Rose Delorme Smith and Isabella Clark Hardisty Lougheed

In Metis Pioneers, Doris Jeanne MacKinnon compares the survival strategies of two Metis women born during the fur trade-one from the French-speaking free trade tradition and one from the English-speaking Hudson’s Bay Company tradition-who settled in southern Alberta as the fur trade transitioned to a sedentary agricultural and industrial economy. MacKinnon provides rare insight into their lives, demonstrating the contributions Metis women made to the building of the prairie west. This is a compelling tale of two women’s acts of quiet resistance in the final days of the British Empire.