Elizabeth Waterston (1922- ), born and educated in Montreal, is Professor Emeritus in English at Guelph University. Her books include "Plaid Around the Mountain" (2001 Borealis); "Rapt in Plaid: Canadian Literature and Scottish Tradition" (2003), "Writing a Life" (2001), "Kindling Spirit: Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables" (1993), and "Survey: A Short History of Canadian Literature" (1973). She is co-editor of the multi-volume work "The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery."

Plaid Around the Mountain is set in Montreal in 1804 - an explosive Napoleonic time in a still-French city. Montreal backgrounds another kind of battle in that year: the great Scottish fur merchants struggle to block the way of Lord Selkirk´s settlement schemes. When a passionate, witty young English woman, eager for freedom, marries one of Selkirk´s agents and comes to Montreal, she finds herself involved in a tangle of French-Scottish-American intrigues.