Canadiana Victoria Callihoo: Buffalo Hunter is Cora Taylor’s biography of the woman who partly inspired Taylor’s beloved Our Canadian Girl character, Angelique. The celebrated children’s book author recounts Victoria Belcourt Callihoo’s story, growing up in an Alberta Métis community almost 150 years ago. She was born before Canada was a nation and by the time Alberta became a province she was a grandmother. Victoria Callihoo's life spanned more than a century from travel by Red River carts to automobiles; from pemmican to fast food and from the vast herds of prairie bison she saw on family buffalo hunts as a young girl to the time when the only buffalo to be see were in parks and zoos. She freighted for the Hudson’s Bay Company and saw the introduction of currency take over from fur bartering. She talked to Alberta heroes like Father Lacombe and Lieutenant Governor Grant McEwan, but never lost her love of her Métis heritage, celebrating her 100th birthday by demonstrating how the Red River jig should be danced. Her life and spirit embodied our Alberta history and her documented memories of daily life in 19th-century western Canada are invaluable pieces of our collective history Includes family tree of Belcourts and Callihoos Includes bibliographical references (pages 178-185) and index
