This story, told through fact and fiction, is about the life and times of the ancestors of one Canadian family in their journey from deep in the mountains of Austria to the shores of Hay Bay on Lake Ontario.In the year 1620 Joerg leaves his father's house in the midst of religious chaos and war. He joins the army of the Catholic League. During the war he meets Katarina and between battles they start a line of tough survivors. Escaping religious persecution their offspring seek peace in the Neckar valley of Germany.In 1738 six-year-old Eberhardt leaves Germany to sail to America. After a terrifying sea voyage Eberhardt grows up amid internecine chaos on the lower Hudson River. A generation later Eberhardt, now a farmer, is uprooted by the American rebellion against British rule. He joins a British Provincial Regiment, the Loyal Volunteers. Surviving the Battles of Bennington and Saratoga he escapes to Canada to build fortifications on the St. Lawrence River. Meeting a young Mohawk / Irish woman Eberhardt takes her as a country wife and learns to walk in her tracks. At Cataraqui he is re-united with his oldest son, and given a grant of land they settle near the site of the ancient Native village and former French mission, Ganneious. Here begins a new life on a new frontier. This is the story of one immigrant family but it portrays the heartaches and hardships of many thousands of Euro-American peoples who came to a land they thought of as a wilderness but eventually made their home.

Gerald Brown is the author of Road to Ganneious

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