• Epic Adventures with all the Ingredients for a Hollywood film adaptation.
• A synopsis from two different script writers.
• Which One do You Like Best?
BOOK I: Pelts of Empire
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2026/09/book-i-pelts-of-empire.html
BOOK II: Empires of the Wilderness: The Bloodline of New France
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2026/09/book-ii-empires-of-wilderness-bloodline.html
Let me know: https://www.facebook.com/ENGLAND1942/
(A synopsis from Drifting Cowboy & Grok xAI)
Biographical notes on the key players:
Drawn from primary records, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, notarial acts, parish registers, and contemporary accounts of the fur trade in New France.
These families formed an interconnected web of merchants, seigneurs, voyageurs, coureurs des bois, soldiers, and settlers centered on Montreal and La Prairie (Prairie-de-la-Madeleine), a strategic Jesuit mission and frontier outpost south of the St. Lawrence that became a launch point for western trade.
Generation Z / Founders
Robert LeBer (c. 1601–aft. 1651) and Colette Cavelier (c. 1605–1694) of Rouen (or nearby Pîtres/Pistre, Normandy). Robert was a merchant. Colette may have been related to the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Their children who emigrated to New France included François, Jacques, and Marie (who became an Ursuline nun in Quebec).
Jacques Le Ber (dit Larose / later de Saint-Paul de Senneville) (c. 1633–1706). Arrived in Canada c. 1657; settled in Montreal. Married Jeanne Le Moyne (sister of Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil et de Châteauguay) on 7 January 1658. Formed a highly successful commercial partnership with his brother-in-law; they operated stores in Montreal and Quebec and controlled key fur-trade routes. In 1667–1671 they purchased land from La Salle and built Lachine’s first fur-trading post (the still-standing Le Ber–Le Moyne House, the oldest complete building in Montreal). Jacques expanded into fisheries, West Indies trade, timber, and seigneuries (including parts of Île Saint-Paul and Senneville). He served in the militia against the Iroquois, joined war parties, and was ennobled in 1696 (purchasing letters of nobility for 6,000 livres). One of the wealthiest and most influential merchants in New France; he left a substantial estate.
Jeanne Le Ber (1662–1714), daughter of Jacques and Jeanne Le Moyne. Goddaughter of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance. Educated with the Ursulines in Quebec. Rejected marriage (despite a large dowry) and conventional religious life; from about age 18 she lived as a recluse, first in a cell behind the Hôtel-Dieu chapel, later in a purpose-built three-room apartment behind the altar of the Congregation of Notre-Dame church (which she helped finance). She took perpetual vows of seclusion, chastity, and poverty in 1685/1695, practiced severe mortifications, embroidered vestments, supported the poor and perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and became known as the “recluse of New France” or “Angel of Ville-Marie.” She retained an attendant (her cousin) and managed some property. Buried beside her father.
Generation 1
François Leber (Le Ber / Lebert) (c. 1626–1694). Brother of Jacques; arrived around the same time. First marriage produced daughter Anne; second marriage (2 December 1662, Montreal) to Jeanne Testard (c. 1642–1723), daughter of Jean Testard (dit Lafontaine) and Anne Godefroy (linked to the Godefroy de Linctot and de Normanville interpreters associated with Champlain’s circle). The family lived first at Pointe-Saint-Charles (property later sold to Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Congrégation), then moved to La Prairie. François appears in the 1681 census with arms and cultivated land; he and his sons were active as coureurs des bois / voyageurs (documented engagements to the Ottawa country, e.g., 1688). He died in La Prairie.
Children with Jeanne Testard included Joachim Jacques (1664–1695, voyageur, engagements to the Ottawas and Michilimackinac, captured and interrogated at Albany in 1692), Marie (see below), François (1673–1746, also a voyageur), and others.
Generation 2
Marie Le Ber (1666–1756). Daughter of François and Jeanne Testard. Married (1) Charles Robert dit Deslauriers (briefly); (2) François Bourassa (c. 1659–1708) on 4 July 1684 at Contrecœur/Chambly; (3) later Pierre Hervé. She lived a long life in La Prairie, managing the household and farm while her husband and sons pursued the fur trade. François Bourassa (dit La Ronde) (c. 1659–1708). From the Luçon area (Vendée/Poitou). Arrived in New France by the early 1680s. Married into the Le Ber network. Active as a voyageur/coureur des bois: engagements for western and Ottawa country trips (e.g., with René Legardeur, Joachim Leber, etc., in the late 1680s–1690s); associated with the Compagnie du Nord (Hudson Bay ventures). Family tradition and secondary accounts note a prolonged absence (possibly capture or delay by Iroquois hostilities) after which he was presumed dead before returning. He held land concessions in La Prairie and died during a 1708 epidemic. His sons continued and expanded the trade.
Sons: René Bourassa dit La Ronde (1688–1778) — the most documented. Fined for illicit trade with Albany (1722); partnered for pays d’en haut expeditions (Green Bay, Michilimackinac, La Vérendrye posts). In June 1736, captured by Prairie Sioux near Michilimackinac; prepared for burning at the stake until his Sioux slave girl successfully pleaded for his life (the same party later ambushed and killed Jean-Baptiste de La Vérendrye’s group). Wintered at western posts; later settled at Michilimackinac with family and slaves, becoming a prominent local trader before returning to Montreal. Other sons François Joachim and Antoine were also voyageurs/fur traders.
Generation 3
Marie Élisabeth Bourassa (1695–1766). Daughter of François Bourassa and Marie Le Ber. Married Jean dit Jacques Pinsonneault (Pinsonneau) dit Lafleur (c. 1682–1773) on 21 July 1712 in La Prairie. Jacques was the son of François Pinsonneau dit Lafleur (c. 1646–1731), a Carignan-Salières Regiment soldier (Saint-Ours company, arrived 1665 on La Justice), and Anne Leber (a fille du roi). The couple raised a large family in La Prairie; descendants continued mixed farming and fur-trade engagements.
Generations 4–5
Joseph Pinsonneau (Pinsono / dit Lafleur) (1733–1799). Son of Jacques and Marie Élisabeth. Married Marie Madeleine Duquet (daughter of Étienne Duquet dit Desrochers, a canoe builder, and Marie Françoise Deneau). Documented 29 April 1763 engagement in Montreal as a voyageur for Michel (or Jacques) Lasselle, bound for the Detroit trade. Lived and died in the Longueuil/La Prairie area.
Gabriel Pinsonneau (Pinsono / dit Lafleur) (1770–1807). Son of Joseph and Marie Madeleine. Married Marie Louise Vielle (whose father Michel Vielle dit Cossé served in the Régiment de La Reine). Documented 1797 engagement as a voyageur for a Detroit run. Father of Gabriel (Gilbert) Passino/Pinsonneau (1803–1877), who continued the voyageur tradition into the early 19th century (later American records sometimes anglicize the name).
These lines intermarried with other La Prairie fur-trade and military families (Cusson, Deneau, Duquet, Godefroy connections, Le Moyne network). La Prairie’s location on the Richelieu corridor and proximity to Montreal made it ideal for outfitting brigades heading west via the Ottawa River or Great Lakes while remaining vulnerable to Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) raids during the Beaver Wars and later Anglo-French conflicts.
Pelts of Empire — The Movie Treatment
Picture this as the opening sequence of a sweeping historical epic—think The Revenant meets Empire of the Sun with the dynastic intrigue of The Godfather and the spiritual intensity of The Mission, all set against the glittering, deadly beauty of the northern rivers.
Fade in: Normandy, mid-17th century. Cloth and ambition in the markets of Rouen. Robert LeBer’s sons stare at maps of a New World that promises beaver gold and certain death. François and Jacques cross the Atlantic into a colony bleeding from Iroquois raids. Montreal is a stockaded outpost of faith and commerce. Jacques marries into the Le Moyne powerhouse—the Canadian nobility in the making—and with his brother-in-law builds the stone trading post at Lachine that commands the gateway to the interior. Pelts flow east; silver and brandy flow west. Jacques becomes one of the richest men in New France, ennobled by a king desperate for cash, while his daughter Jeanne locks herself away in a cell behind the altar, praying through the nights as war parties slip through the woods outside. The “Angel of Ville-Marie” and the merchant prince—two poles of the same fierce will.
Across the river at La Prairie, François Leber clears land with one hand and signs voyageur contracts with the other. His daughter Marie marries the hard-driving François Bourassa. The young couple’s life is a rhythm of plantings, births, and long absences. Bourassa disappears into the pays d’en haut; months stretch into years; Marie is told he is dead. Then one day a gaunt figure steps from a canoe—scarred, changed, alive. Their sons inherit the hunger. René Bourassa paddles farther than almost anyone: Green Bay, the La Vérendrye posts, the edge of the known map. In 1736 a hundred Sioux warriors seize him. The stake is prepared. The fire is lit. His own slave girl throws herself forward and begs for his life. He walks free; the party behind him is annihilated. He returns to Michilimackinac, builds a house inside the fort, owns slaves and meadows, and watches empires change hands.
The bloodline flows into the Pinsonneaus—descendants of a Carignan soldier who fought the same Iroquois wars a generation earlier and a fille du roi. Joseph signs on for Detroit in 1763 as the British take control. Gabriel follows in 1797. Generation after generation of engagés load the great canoes at Lachine, sing the old paddling songs, portage around the roaring rapids, winter in the snow with Indigenous allies and rivals, and come home—or do not—to the farms at La Prairie.
Through it all runs the same thread: family networks tighter than any company charter, the constant gamble of river and forest, the collision of faith and profit, French and Indigenous worlds, and the quiet women who held the farms and the ledgers while the men vanished into the mist. Raids burn the fields. Epidemics empty the cradles. Empires rise and fall. The canoes keep leaving.
This is not one hero’s journey. It is a multi-generational saga of survival, ambition, and improbable return—the founding of a commercial empire on the edge of the wilderness, a mystic recluse whose prayers were said to turn back fleets, a trader who stared death in the face and was saved by the voice of a captive girl, and the ordinary-extraordinary voyageurs who carried the trade west until the maps finally closed. A Hollywood writer would see the set pieces immediately: the construction of the Lachine post, Jeanne’s irrevocable enclosure behind the altar, Bourassa’s reappearance from the dead, the Sioux stake and the desperate plea, the 1763 engagement signed under a new flag, the final Detroit runs as the old French world dissolves.
The rivers are still there. The stories are still waiting.
%20by%20FRANCES%20ANNE%20(BEECHEY)%20HOPKINS,%20(1867).jpg)
(A synopsis from Drifting Cowboy & Gemini AI)
Part I: Biographical Notes on the Key Players
1. The Founders: LeBer & Cavelier
2. The Frontier Dynasties: Leber, Testard & Godefroy
3. The Patriarch of the Paddles: François Bourassa
4. The Coureurs des Bois & Master Craftsmen
5. The Westward Line: Joseph & Gabriel Pinsonneau
Part II: The Movie Treatment
TITLE: EMPIRES OF THE WILDERNESS
LOGLINE: Over three generations, a fierce Norman dynasty in New France marries into
Champlain's elite wilderness interpreters, building a multi-million dollar fur empire,
battling Iroquois war parties, and driving birchbark canoes into the uncharted heart
of North America.
GENRE: Historical Epic / Action-Drama
COMPARABLE FILMS: The Revenant, The Last of the Mohicans, Master and Commander
SCENE SETTING: THE CANOE FACTORY AT LA PRAIRIE (1750)
The screen opens on the misty, roaring waters of the St. Lawrence River. Smoke rises from the shore at La Prairie. Inside a massive timber workshop, ETIENNE DUQUET is shaping the cedar ribs of a 36-foot canoë de maître. Outside, dozens of buckskin-clad men load bundles of trade beaver pelts.
Among them stands JOSEPH PINSONNEAU (17), his hands calloused from ash wood oars, listening to his grandfather, the aging coureur des bois JACQUES PINSONNEAULT, recount the bloodline that built this river kingdom.
ACT I: THE BLOOD AT LACHINE (1680s–1690s)
FLASHBACK to Montreal, 1689.
The frontier is ablaze. The Iroquois Confederacy, backed by the English, strikes the settlement at Lachine. JACQUES LEBER DIT LAROSE and his brother FRANÇOIS LEBER grab their muskets, defending their trading posts behind wooden palisades.
Sitting in the stronghold is young MARIE LE BER (23). Her mother, JEANNE TESTARD, holds the legacy of the legendary GODEFROY BROTHERS—men who walked with Samuel de Champlain, spoke five Indigenous languages, and survived months alone in the snowbound woods.
While her cousin, JEANNE LEBER, chooses a life as a secluded religious hermit in Montreal, Marie turns her eyes to the wilderness. She marries FRANÇOIS BOURASSA, a towering, iron-willed fur trader who sees that the future of North America belongs not to kings in Paris, but to the men who can command the rivers.
ACT II: THE MAP OF BEAVER SKINS (1700s–1730s)
Cut to Michilimackinac—the crossroads of the upper Great Lakes.
François Bourassa and Marie Le Ber have created a vast commercial network. Their sons and sons-in-law, including JACQUES PINSONNEAULT, paddle thousands of miles beyond European settlement.
We see high-stakes negotiations inside Ojibwe and Odawa longhouses. The French voyageurs do not conquer by the sword; they adapt, marry into native families, speak the dialects, and paddle 18 hours a day to the rhythm of French folk songs (A la claire fontaine).
When François Bourassa dies, MARIE LE BER takes over the family's financial operations from La Prairie. She is the matriarch of the wilderness—managing contracts, securing permits (congés de traite), and sending her sons, RENÉ BOURASSA LA RONDE and FRANÇOIS JOACHIM, ever deeper into the Superior country.
ACT III: THE BATTLE FOR THE CONTINENT (1750s–1780s)
Fast-forward to the French and Indian War.
JOSEPH PINSONNEAU marries MARIE MADELEINE DUQUET, uniting the master canoe-builders with the premier paddling families. But the world is shifting. The British army lays siege to Quebec and Montreal.
Joseph and his brother-in-law, MICHEL VIELLE DIT COSSÉ (a soldier in the elite Régiment de La Reine), fight in the trenches against the Redcoats. When Montreal falls in 1760 and New France is ceded to Britain, the French aristocracy flees back to Europe.
The voyageur families stay.
They know every river, portage, and trading post between Montreal and the Rocky Mountains. The incoming British merchants (who would found the North West Company) realize they are completely helpless without the French canadiens.
ACT IV: THE NORTH WEST VOYAGEURS (1800s)
The climax centers on GABRIEL PINSONNEAU and his young son, GABRIEL (GILBERT) PASSINO.
It is 1805. The fur trade has become an international titan. At the Grand Portage on Lake Superior, hundreds of voyageurs gather for the annual rendezvous.
Gabriel leads his crew through a harrowing storm on Lake Huron, racing rival brigades to deliver trade goods before the winter freeze. The cinematography captures the staggering scale of North America: towering granite cliffs, endless pine forests, roaring white-water rapids, and the rhythmic splash of dozens of paddles striking the water in unison.
Back home in La Prairie, the women—descendants of Colette Cavelier and Jeanne Testard—hold the farms together, proving that the endurance of New France was built as much on the strength of its matriarchs as the muscle of its men.
CLOSING SCENE
An aging GABRIEL PASSINO stands on the banks of the St. Lawrence River at sunset. He looks out over the water where his ancestors—Bourassa, LeBer, Godefroy, Duquet, and Pinsonneau—paddled into history.
SUPER: "From a single family in Rouen and La Prairie sprang the explorers,
translators, and voyageurs who paddled 3,000 miles across North America—
mapping a continent and forging the frontier legacy of the West."
FADE TO BLACK.
Every genealogist knows the thrill of tracing a quiet thread back through the century marks, only to watch it expand into the grand narrative of world history.
In an earlier post, we explored how our family tree connects to the Sinclair (St. Clair) line—most famously through Henry I Sinclair, the 14th-century Earl of Orkney, Lord of Roslin, and North Atlantic mariner. But if you keep following that northern compass back through medieval Scotland and across the sea, you arrive at the very source of the Orkney Jarldom: Rognvald Eysteinsson (Jarl of Møre), our 33rd great-grandfather.
It is an unbroken chain of 33 generations connecting a 9th-century Norwegian fjord ruler to my maternal grandmother, Lydia Corinna Brown (1891–1971).
The Dual Legacy of Rognvald the Wise
Born in 9th-century Norway, Rognvald Eysteinsson was a key advisor to King Harald Fairhair during the unification of Norway. From his seat in Møre, Rognvald launched two distinct branches that reshaped western Europe:
Four centuries later, these two Scandinavian streams merged when the Norman-descended St. Clair family—kinsmen of Rollo who took their name from Saint-Clair-sur-Epte—intermarried with the native Norse-Gaelic rulers of the north, assuming the hereditary Earldom of Orkney and building Rosslyn Castle.
33 Generations: From Jarls of Møre to the American West
Rognvald Eysteinsson "The Wise" (c. 840–890)
Jarl of Møre, Norway — 33rd Great-Grandfather
│
├──► Rollo (Hrolf the Walker), 1st Duke of Normandy (Southern Branch / Cousin Line)
│
└──► Einarr "Torf-Einarr" Rognvaldarson (c. 858–910)
Jarl of Orkney — 32nd Great-Granduncle
│
▼
Thorfinn "Skull-Splitter" Torf-Einarsson (d. c. 963)
Jarl of Orkney — 31st Great-Grandfather
│
▼
Hlodvir Thorfinnsson (c. 945–988)
Jarl of Orkney
│
▼
Sigurd "the Stout" Hlodvirsson (c. 960–1014)
Jarl of Orkney (Fell at the Battle of Clontarf)
│
▼
Thorfinn "the Mighty" Sigurdsson (1009–1065)
Jarl of Orkney & Earl of Caithness
│
▼
Paul Thorfinnsson (d. 1098)
Jarl of Orkney
│
▼
Hakon Paulsson (d. 1123)
Jarl of Orkney
│
▼
Margaret Hakonsdottir of Orkney
(m. Maddad, Earl of Atholl — Merging Norse Orkney with Celtic Scottish Nobility)
│
▼
Harald Maddadsson "the Old" (1134–1206)
Earl of Caithness & Jarl of Orkney
│
▼
ROBERT DE ST. CLAIR (c. 1190–1248)
Lord of Saint-Clair & Early Rosslyn Lineage — 22nd Great- Grandfather
│
▼
Sir William St. Clair (1230–1297) — 6th Lord of Rosslyn
│
▼
Sir Henry St. Clair (1255–1331) — 7th Baron of Rosslyn
│
▼
Sir William "the Crusader" St. Clair (1283–1330) — Fell in Spain with Bruce's Heart
│
▼
Sir William St. Clair (1327–1358) — 8th Lord of Roslin
│
▼
HENRY I SINCLAIR (1345–1400)
1st Sinclair Earl of Orkney, Lord of Roslin ("The Mariner")
│
▼
Henry Sinclair, 2nd Earl of Orkney (1375–1420)
│
▼
William Sinclair (1404–1484) — 1st Earl of Caithness, Builder of Rosslyn Chapel
│
▼
William II Sinclair (1459–1513) — 2nd Earl of Caithness (Fell at Flodden Field)
│
▼
Lady Agnes Sinclair (1495–1572)
│
▼
Lady Jean Hepburn (1543–1599)
│
▼
John Sinclair, 1st of Greenland & Rattar (1566–1627)
│
▼
Janet Sinclair (1595–1686)
│
▼
Marjory Robertson of Inshes (1619–1665)
│
▼
Jean Mackenzie of Redcastle (1658–1679)
│
▼
Margaret Urquhart (1675–1720)
│
▼
Elizabeth Wright (1703–1782)
│
▼
Jacob Weeks (1736–1791) — DNA Match
│
▼
Simon Weeks (1768–1840) — Revolutionary War Veteran
│
▼
Maria (Mariah) Weeks (1810–1890)
│
▼
John Galloway Brown (1833–1915)
│
▼
Abraham Lincoln Brown (1864–1948)
│
▼
Lydia Corinna Brown (1891–1971) — Maternal Grandmother
Part I: The Iron Line of Torf-Einarr
While Rollo was establishing Normandy along the Seine, his brother Torf-Einarr earned his moniker by teaching the islanders of Orkney how to cut peat for fuel. He established an unbroken line of sea-kings who governed the northern seas:
Through strategic alliances with native Celtic nobility—including the ancient Earls of Atholl and Strathearn—these Viking Jarls gradually merged into the feudal fabric of medieval Scotland.
Part II: The Norman-Scottish Bridge & The Barons of Rosslyn
By the early 13th century, Robert de St. Clair (c. 1190–1248) bound the Anglo-Norman St. Clair bloodline to the ancient northern lords. Over the next two centuries, his descendants carved out a central place in Scottish history:
Part III: Crossing to the American Trail
Following the death of William II Sinclair at Flodden Field in 1513, the high nobility of Caithness filtered through generations of highland history. Through Lady Agnes Sinclair, the Hepburns, and the Sinclairs of Greenland and Rattar, the line moved down into the merchant and landed families of Inverness-shire—the Robertsons, Mackenzies, and Urquharts.
By the early 18th century, Elizabeth Wright and her son, Revolutionary War veteran Simon Weeks (1768–1840), carried this lineage to the shores of the New World. The line passed through Maria Weeks, John Galloway Brown, and Abraham Lincoln Brown, arriving directly at my maternal grandmother, Lydia Corinna Brown (1891–1971).
From 9th-century Norwegian fjords to the stormy cliffs of Orkney, through the stone carvings of Rosslyn Chapel, and down to the dusty trails of the American West—it is a remarkable 1,100-year legacy written into our family bloodline.
Thank you Gemini AI for your wisdom and research assistance. -- Drifting Cowboy
More Viking, Sinclair & Voyageur Tales on this blog:
• Henry I Sinclair Earl of Orkney, Lord of Roslin: 14th-century Mariner
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2026/04/henry-i-sinclair-earl-of-orkney-lord-of.html
• From Rollo’s Viking Invasion of Normandy to the Voyageurs of New France
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2025/12/from-rollos-viking-invasion-of-normandy.html
• From Charlemagne's Legacy to New France: Tracing the Royal Descent to Anne Couvent, Mother of Voyageurs
https://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2025/12/from-charlemagnes-legacy-to-new-france.html
