The 1894 death of David Scollie in Peterborough, Ontario, has haunted both the town and the family of Hessie Gray, the sharp-tongued Irish woman accused of his murder. Hessie's descendant, Bev Lundahl, has searched a century's worth of historical documents looking for the truth. If David Scollie died in a house fire, as it seemed, why had his head disappeared? How did he meet his grotesque death? And what did three men of the Hiawatha Reserve know about the charred remains? Like the primal blasts of the searing winter storm, the repercussions of this event--the collision of two cultures--has reverberated down the decades. This flashpoint in her family history created shockwaves that propelled the author into unfamiliar territory to begin a journey into the heart of First Nations country and follow an obscure trail that would expose the bones of Canadian history.

Genealogy has led Bev Lundahl down obscure trails that have lured her into hidden places and exposed forgotten slivers of Canadian history. Based on her late father’s experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War, “e “underbird, the Quesnel & the Sea illustrates Canada’s challenges in its relations with Indigenous peoples. Her first book, Entangled Roots, the Mystery of Peterborough’s Headless Corpse (YNWP 2014) shares another family story that delves into Canada’s struggles with class and race in 19th-century Ontario.

Bev Lundahl's profile page