Goodreads asked Catherine McKenzie:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Catherine McKenzie This story might be apocryphal family history, but if so, who cares? It goes something like this: My great, great grandfather Edward McKenzie was born in 1865 and grew up in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. He worked in the coal mines there. When he was twenty years old, in 1885, he went to Nevada because he heard of the silver mines that were scattered throughout the state. He quickly found work as a miner, but also soon found it too wild for him as, according to my grandfather, "somebody got killed very night of the week." How did he get there? What town was it? None of these facts are known. What we do know, however, is that he soon tired of the fights, and decided to leave. He'd heard that there was coal mining in Lethbridge, Alberta, 1000 miles due north. Edward walked from the silver mines of Nevada all the way to Lethbridge, arriving there in the fall of 1885, where he went on to marry a woman who had recently moved there from, wait for it, Pictou County. Amazing story, right? Who was being killed every week? Did he witness one (or more) of these killings? I checked the list of "Old West Gunfights" on Wikipedia (yeah, that's a thing, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...), but none of them seem to fit the bill. Any history buffs want to help me out? Any idea where my great, great grandfather worked and what he saw?

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