A distinct feature of the Canadian fur trade was the extent to which traders took wives from among the Indian tribes. An Indian wife could familiarise a white man with Indian language and customs; she also performed important domestic tasks around the post such as making moccasins and netting snowshoes. Before church marriages were available in Rupert's Land, the fur-traders devised their own marriage rite known as the "custom of the country." This practice derived largely from Indian attitudes toward marriage. The ceremony was simple - the fur-trader asked the consent of the girl's parents and gave a generous present of trade goods to them. The old lady pictured here was the daughter of an Okanagan chief when she became the bride of the young Nor'Wester Alexander Ross around 1814. Ross took "Sally", as he called her, to live in the Red River Colony. A total of thirteen children were born to Mrs. Ross, and she was cherished and protected by her family. Here is part of a feeling tribute written by her eldest son on Christmas Eve 1856:
What if mama is an Indian! She has. in a wonderful degree the essential qualities of any good mother. Who more tender-hearted? Who more attached to her children and more desirous of their happiness? Who more attentive to their wants anxious about their welfare? None Better far give me my mama with her Christian meekness her kind affection her motherly heart than the cold-hearted so-called lady who prides herself, in her fine shape her clever but foolish jesting her superficials and secondaries of writing and hairbrushing and gart and posture.
