Item 0006 - Letter, Portage la Prairie, MN, to Lorne

Alfred Campbell Garrioch was born on 10 February 1848, at Middlechurch near Fort Garry, Manitoba. He attended St. John's College in Winnipeg, and was ordained as a priest of the Anglican Church in 1875. A year later he was sent to the northwest as a missionary in the Peace River country. His first assignment was to establish a mission at Fort Vermilion, Alberta. In 1886, following his success at Vermilion, Garrioch was sent south to help the ailing St. Saviour's mission in the community of Dunvegan. Five years later, in 1891, Alfred Garrioch returned to Manitoba, where he served at various churches until his retirement in 1905.
Alfred Campbell Garrioch translated various religious texts into the Cree and Beaver languages, and he also developed a reference guide for English, Cree and Beaver vocabulary. It was also during this period that Garrioch began developing his skills as an English-language author of historical and fictional works. His Dunvegan years saw the commencement of two fiction manuscripts, "The Far and Furry North" and "Hatchet Mark in Duplicate." Both were semi-autobiographical and provided accounts of life in the rugged northwest. Back in Manitoba, Garrioch enjoyed his retirement years by completing and publishing these works, along with two others "First Furrows" and "The Correction Line."
Alfred Campbell Garrioch passed away in Winnipeg, on the 3rd of December, 1934.