Margaret Kell Virany

Kathleen's Cariole Ride Margaret Kell Virany

Author Margaret Kell Virany finds a romantic love story from the twenties buried in letters, journals, diaries and photos left by her parents. A spark ignited in World War I develops into a lasting love in the snowy expanses and frozen lakes of the northern Manitoba bush inhabited by the Swampy Cree. They were an unlikely pair. She was a city councilor's daughter from Portsmouth, England (pop. 190,000) and he was a farmer's son from Cookstown, Ontario, Canada (pop. 550 not counting the pigs, sheep, horses and cows). They met in 1917 when her father, a Sunday school teacher, invited some colonial servicemen home for tea. The courtship is conducted on onion skin stationery over 5,000 miles between fog and bog. The writing recounts serving with the Canadian Navy in the North Sea, flying from London to Paris in 1927, crossing the Atlantic, canoeing up the fur trade route, and trekking in winter on a cariole toboggan to get to the hospital for a baby to be born. Day-to-day life of aboriginals is observed, and the positive role of missionaries in that era. More than just a northern adventure story, it is the hard journey of two souls seeking to create a better world after the trauma of the war. The love story is presented by the author but written in Kathleen and Jack's own words.