When you meet Grey Cloud Woman in the Families exhibit, you will get to hear about the many places she lived, as well as the many people -- both Dakota and fur traders -- who were part of her family and community. So look for Grey Cloud Woman in her blue broadcloth skirt and moccasins, and be sure to ask her about Grey Cloud Island!

Grey Cloud Woman was born in 1793 near Prairie du Chien in present-day Wisconsin. She was named for her mother, a Mdewakanton Dakota named Mahpiyahotawin and a member of the influential Wabasha family. Grey Cloud Woman was also known as Margaret Aird, after her father, Scots fur trader James Aird.

Grey Cloud Woman became an important member of the bicultural community that grew out of the fur trade. She married two well-known fur traders, first Thomas Anderson and later Hazen Mooers, and lived with them at fur posts throughout Minnesota. Grey Cloud Woman, for whom the Mississippi River Island southeast of the Twin Cities is named, died at Black Dog village in 1849. She was memorialized in a rare obituary in the St. Paul Pioneer, whose editor wrote that Grey Cloud Woman had "lived through life with an open heart and hand...was well known to all the pioneers and will long live in the memories of her Indian relatives."

Funding for research and development for the Grey Cloud Woman History Player project has been provided by the Noel Foundation.