From SarahHC: Sarah presents Local History and the return of Elfio with more Book Stacks (50 points)

Hello Everybody!

Today I present Lady Francis Simpson, star of my very favourite animated Canadian Vignette. 

'Canadian Vignettes' were a series of short animated history clips, along with the nature shorts 'Who's Who of the Hinterland' and the live action re-creations of 'Heritage Moments' which were staples of Canadian TV in the '70s & '80s. 

Watching these short documentaries (most around a minute, perfect Canadian Content to include within TV commercial breaks) as a kid growing up these were really fundamental to a whole generation's sense of Canadian identity. Grab your popcorn, enjoy the film! 

But back to Lady Francis ... Francis Simpson of London, England was married at 18 to her older (cousin??) husband Lord Simpson, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1830, the couple and entourage traveled from London to Montreal, then an arduous journey by canoe and portage from Montreal to the Red River Settlement in what is now Winnipeg, Manitoba. Lady Francis and her travelling companion Miss Reid were the first European women to have travelled. 

What is really remarkable, is that Lady Simpson brought her PIANO from London to Fort Garry ...the first piano in the territory! I believe the piano is on display at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg and Lady Simpson's journals are at the Hudson Bay Company Archives/Manitoba Archives (where Curt worked as a young archivist many moons ago).

I struggled to find a suitable a suitable figure for Lady Francis. The figure I selected does not have the correct style of dress for the 1830s, the skirt should be puffier with hoops, and larger sleeves. For the sake of comfort on her long journey in canoe, I assume she will have foregone with the hoop skirts as a space-saving measure .. haha! However, head wear was large, feathered and elaborate...so this figure was promptly downloaded from MyMiniFactory. 

I choose pink as homage to the short film and pink in 1830s was a highly fashionable colour for day dresses. (Wow! Pink is a hard colour to paint, and the dress is bit of a mess, I used Vallejo Rosa Pink as the base colour and then Citadel contrast Volupus Pink) The piano, another 3D print from MyMiniFactory, was fun to paint, except for the sloppy black keys (don't look too close). The piano is a simple print, I tried to add some design flair by attempting to paint trompe l'oeil flowers on the front and added a brass rail to hold sheet music.

Elfio (previously scored) has become something of a pet amongst the Librarians (he’s verrrry fit and does like to work out) … he has begun to organize the back log of books, unfortunately Elfio is now sorting by colour …. all ready to be loaded on to a book cart (that's coming soon)!

Five more stacks of mysterious books, (possibly aesthetically dangerous books for Elfio) books to be used as scatter/decor.


Points tally:

Lady Simpson (54mm) & Piano (local history location): 20 + 20 = 40 Points

some more book stacks: say 3 points? 

Total = 43 points

Thanks for coming in for a visit!

- Sarah

Excellent work, Sarah! Now that's a lady worthy of milady in her resplendent pink dress. A very interesting backstory too, I really don't envy those porters lugging a piano along. Let's hope Lady Francis had a repertoire sufficient to while away the arduous long hours in that canoe! Trying not to be the proverbial thrifty Dutchman here too much, while obviously still keeping up our national reputation (if not that for consistency), I'll score the stacks of books at 2 points each, so rounding up the total for today to 50.

Martijn