Marie anne gabourey biography of albert

French-Canadian settler and grandmother of Louis Riel (1780–1875)

Marie-Anne Lagimodière (née Gaboury; 15 August 1780 – 14 December 1875) was a French-Canadian woman noted as both the grandmother of Louis Riel,^[1] and as the first woman of European descent to travel to and settle in what is now Western Canada.^[2]

Early life

Gaboury was born in Maskinongé, Quebec, a village near modern Trois-Rivières.^[3] As a young woman, she kept house for a priest there until her marriage on 21 April 1806 to Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière.^[4] Lagimodière was originally from nearby Saint-Ours; he had become a coureur des bois employed in the fur trade by the Hudson's Bay Company in Rupert's Land.

Travels in the west

Immediately following their marriage, and in defiance of the custom of the time, Gaboury travelled to the west with her new husband. They went first to the area near the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red Rivers