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“I am not now as formerly assailed with the landing of noisy brigades and canoes, men, women, and dogs clamouring for potatoes and fish-which though certainly attended with some moments of uneasiness yet afforded me many hours of pleasure”He began a relationship with a local Native woman, whose name is unknown. She may have been from the local Sekani people who lived in the area of McLeod Lake. In a letter to his friend Edward Ermatinger in 1826, 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.”That is why we refer to her as the "Singing Girl." This relationship lasted for several years and we know there was at least one daughter born. We know this from a story Tod wrote about some children drowning during a canoeing tragedy in the river. “All, except mine, sunk to rise no more"” (letter to E. Ermatinger, February 18, 1830; Ermatinger Papers, BC Archives). The "Singing Girl" seemed to be important to Tod because he wrote to Edward 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.”
Tod's health deteriorated from the harsh living conditions at Fort McLeod, and the isolation caused him to sink deeper into depression. He had lost all hope of promotion in the Company or transfer to a more comfortable post, and so he resigned from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1832. When he boarded a canoe back to York Factory, his Singing Girl did not accompany him.
It is not known why Tod left her behind, but the fact that First Nations families were not accepted by some people in Tod's acquaintance, especially in the East where he had planned to retire, may have been the reason. Neither she nor any children she may have had were ever mentioned again in Tod's writing. Perhaps he wanted to forget his time at Fort McLeod and the hardships he suffered there.
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