Coutts Marjoribanks and his Ranch Foreman, late 1880s

Coutts Marjoribanks (seated on the left side) with his North Dakota Ranch foreman (‘Bernie’ Kelly) are dressed in their cowboy attire. Coutts, like many other young ‘remittance men’, looked at ranching as a grand romantic adventure with an emphasis on hunting, gambling and drinking.

“He has had a bad time of it,” Lady Aberdeen confided to family friend John Sinclair, “between droughts and losses of stock generally… everything is mortgaged… we are going to try to get Coutts over into Canada into some civilized part, probably British Columbia.”

Excerpt from Scoundrels, Dreamers & Second Sons, British Remittance Men in the Canadian West, p.51.