Mackoodzie

MACKOODZIE (aka THE SINGING GIRL)

Mackoodzie (aka The Singing Girl) married John Tod à la façon du pays, while he was employed as Clerk in Charge at McLeod's Lake in British Columbia,1824-33. They had a daughter whose name is not known Hudson Bay's Company Archives: Biographical Sheets

Beattie and Buss had this to say about Mackoodzie: It cannot be regarded as certain but it does seem quite likely that Mackoodzie: "the Singing Girl" belonged to the Athabaskan-speaking Sékanais people who inhabited this area.They are represented now by the McLeod Lake Tse'Khene First Nation Wikipedia: Sekani This proposition is supported by Beattie and Buss who name the Singing Girl as Mackoodzie and say this of her: "Mackoodzie, a Sikannic woman formerly with John Tod who appears in the Outstanding Balances for 1834-35" [Judith Hudson Beattie and Helen M. Buss, Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America, 1837-57 (UBC Press, 2003), page 348].

The "Singing Girl" is referred to in a letter Tod wrote to his friend Edward Ermatinger in 1826, in which he said, “My fellow labourer in the vineyard is possessed of an excellent ear for music and never fails to accompany me on the flute with her voice when I take up the instrument” The Children of Fort Langley

The "Singing Girl" seemed to be important to Tod because he wrote to Edward Ermatinger in 1829,
“she still continues the only companion of my solitude—without her, or some other substitute, life in such a wretched place as this, would be altogether insupportable" The Pioneer Explorations of "Scotch Boy" John Tod