Before this the education and elevation of the people was represented by a few schools chiefly maintained by private or church effort.

The writer intends to bring out, from selected quotations from different sources, the few bright spots in the gloom--the pictures of silver--on a rather dark background.
ABBE DUGAS' STORY.
The good Father's story circles around the first Canadian woman known to have reached Red River.

This was Marie Gaboury, wife of J.Baptiste Lajimoniere, who reached the Forks in 1811 in the very year when the Colonists were lying at York Factory.

The Lajimonieres spent the winter in Pembina.

It was the brave husband of Marie Gaboury who made the long and lonely journey from Red River to Montreal.