Michael Nelson has written a compelling story of the return to the grave of the his grandfather, Bernhard Anders Nelson, who drowned and was buried on the Batchawana River in 1947.

To the author's generation the circumstances surrounding the death of Bernhard Nelson were largely a mystery. Drowned, They Said is an investigation of that family history and the author's ancestors, who had long participated in the fur trade, the Red River resistance, and the opening of the Superior area. The story is told in narrative fragments juxtaposed with archival family photographs, historical documents, letters and maps. The fragments comprise differing narrative streams of place and the events that occurred there, the local and extended history of the family, and the personal effort to make sense of that history.

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Michael Nelson was born in Sault Ste. Marie and grew up in Wawa. He studied Psychology and English Literature at the University of Toronto.This is his first book.