Flett, Rev. George - Presbyterian Missionary
George Flett (1817-1897) was 70 when he visited the Bell Farm on June 24, 1887 with the contingent of Presbyterian ministers who had recently met at Winnipeg for their annual General Assembly.
Flett was born at Moose Lake, Manitoba to a Cree mother and Scottish-born father from the Orkney Islands. In 1840 he married Mary Ross, the daughter of Scottish fur trader Alexander Ross and Sally Timentwa, from the Okanagan area of the Rocky Mountains.
By the 1860s, Flett had worked in the fur trade, and established a Hudson Bay Company Post at Victoria Settlement,along the North Saskatchewan River, NE of Edmonton, Alberta.
He became fluent in several Indigenous and European languages, which served him well as a Christian missionary in western Canada, having helped Rev. James Nisbett establish a mission at Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) in 1866-67. Though not formally ordained into the Presbyterian Church until 1875, from 1873-1895 he served primarily as a missionary to the Ojibwa at the Okanase Reserve (now know as Keeseekoowenin), in the Riding Mountain area of Manitoba.
Rev. George Flett died in 1897 at age 80; Mary died in 1912 at age 91 and both were buried on the Okanase Cemetery.
SOURCES:
Memorable Manitobans: George Flett (1817-1897) - http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/flett_g.shtml
“Manitoba History”: George Flett, Presbyterian Missionary to the Ojibwa at Okanase, by Alvina Block , 1999- http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/37/flett_g.shtml
“George Flett: Native Presbyterian Missionary” – Masters Thesis by Alvina Block, 1997 – University of Winnipeg & University of Manitoba - https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape17/PQDD_0006/MQ32058.pdf
RESEARCH BY:
Michelle Cabana, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; and Frank Korvemaker, Regina, Sask.