Newfield House, Homesteaders on the Canadian Prairie

In the spring of 1881, William Bell and his son-in-law Walter leave their families in Pickering, Ontario, and head west in hopes of securing land in what was then the North-West Territories. At fifty-six William is determined to keep a promise made to his dead wife, Annie, that they find land and settle where they can make a life for themselves on their own terms, a place where their family can forge a future beholden to none. And so it is that the two make their way first to Winnipeg, then on to Portage la Prairie—where the railroad ends—passing north of Brandon on foot and out into the vast unbroken heartland of the continent.