Betsy
Ramsay Grave Site

From....Historic
Sites of Manitoba....
John Ramsay, a prominent member of a Saulteaux Aboriginal band in the
Lake Winnipeg region, and his family, were instrumental in assisting
the first Icelandic immigrants who arrived in Manitoba in 1875. The
Ramsays provided the settlers with meat and instructed them in local
survival skills: the building of warm log cabins and local fishing and
hunting techniques. A smallpox epidemic that struck the settlement in
1876-1877 also affected local Aboriginals, including the Ramsay family.
John lost his wife Betsey and four of his five children. They were
buried here at Sandy Bar. In 1880 he went to Lower Fort Garry where he
traded furs and purchased a marble gravestone for Betsey’s grave. He
hauled the stone back to this site (which is now in the Municipality of
Bifrost-Riverton), set it on the grave, and built a fence around it.









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