IN 1771, the year Captain James Cook completed his first voyage around the world, an Orkney man by the name of Magnus Twatt set out for Canada, where, like many islanders before him and after, he joined the Hudson Bay Company.

Little did his family expect that more than 200 years after his death in 1801, the native American peoples of his adopted homeland and his Orkney descendants would call each other brother and sister.

The story of Orkney's links to the Cree nation of Saskatchewan is one of shared suffering, perseverance and an unshakeable belief in common bonds that stretch across the centuries and half way around the world.

And this summer, a group of Orcadians is to make the pilgrimage to the land of their common ancestors, where they are to be guests of honour at a powwow celebrating the centenary of the founding of Saskatchewan, an endeavour in which both parties, Cree and Orcadian, had a part to play.

The remarkable tale came to light just over three years ago when Orkney woman Kim Foden, nee Twatt, was conducting research into her ancestor Magnus.

While leafing through Hudson Bay Company documents, she discovered a reference to Magnus's death, news of which was announced by "the arrival of Magnus Twatt's two sons and their mother".

Company employees were not allowed to take wives with them. Kim realised Magnus must have had a native Indian wife drawn from the local Cree nation.

Reading Magnus's journals, the name Sturgeon River cropped up on several occasions and so, after finding a reference on the internet to the office of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation, a native Indian reserve, she sent them a brief fax asking if anyone knew anything about Magnus Twatt. The reply was equally brief: "You have found your relations."

It transpired that the first chief of the Sturgeon Lake First Nation was William Twatt, Magnus's grandson.

Wes Stevenson, vice-president of the First Nations University in the Saskatchewan capital Regina, said: "When the Orkney men came over they were not supposed to mingle with the Indian women, but right across Canada, east and west coast, we find Orkney names within the indigenous communities. They lifted their kilts quite often."

Contacts were developed and Foden was even made an honorary Cree by descendants of her relative. Then in September last year, members of the Cree First Nation travelled to Orkney for a cultural visit.

"We wanted to show them where their ancestors came from, that we didn't go there intentionally to change their lives and give them the hard time they seem to have had from other people, " Foden said.

While in Orkney, an invitation from the chief of the Council of Sturgeon Lake First Nation was issued to all Orcadians to attend the celebrations in July.

A delegation from Kirkwall Grammar School has accepted the invitation, while another eight or so Orcadians with the surname Drever or Twatt, both of which survive in First Nations people in Saskatchewan, are to travel to Sturgeon Lake this summer.

Place names like Colonsay, Sutherland and Aberdeen, all in the vicinity of Saskatoon, pay testament to the fact Orcadians were not the only Scots to settle there. But what makes this story so remarkable is the lack of any hostility, particularly when the history of white men's involvement with native Indians is too often one of deliberate annihilation.

However, the descendants of Orkneymen and the Cree people, by then intertwined, worked together.

Foden said: "One of the Drevers from Westray, James Drever, went to Canada around 1850 and married one of Chief Mistawasis's daughters, so there's ever so many descendants of his now of that family.

Then in 1876, chief Mistawasis and William Twatt, grandson of the Orkneyman who left here, signed Treaty Six with the Queen's commissioners.

"The white people were killing the buffalo, the railway was coming across Canada, the telegraph was also coming.

The indian people knew their way of life was going, but they wanted to retain their lifestyle, to have land they could hunt, so they knew they needed to set up treaties with the British."

Sadly, the treaties were not observed, but the Cree did not forget them.

"More and more restrictions were put on them, their children were taken away and put in residential schools, traditional customs and language were banned. But through it all, they still regard the treaties as sacred."

So the invitation extending the hand of friendship is "groundbreaking", Foden says.

Stevenson, who also has roots in Scotland, is helping to co-ordinate the visit by Kirkwall Grammar School. He was among those to visit Orkney last year, an "eye-opening experience" for him.

"Our families who have Orkney names had heard many stories passed down, so many of us knew there was a connection but we never had the time or the money to follow it up.

"We are rooted in Orkney and Canada. That blood connection will last forever, because nothing is stronger than blood. That's our connection to Orkney - we are family."

www. gov. sk. ca www. firstnationsuniversity. ca www. sicc. sk. ca/bands/ bsturg. html www. afn. ca