Colonel George E. Laidlaw was born in Toronto in 1860, the son of George Laidlaw, a railway builder in the Trent Valley (See Encycopedia Canadiana). After graduating from the Royal Military College, Laidlaw became involved in the military. He fought in the west during the 1885 Riel Rebellion, and was an officer in the Lord Strathcona Horse during the Boer War. Laidlaw's other interests included politics and native and Ontario folklore. From the ranch that he and his partner Macdonald operated on Balsam Lake in Victoria County (called the Fort, where they raised beef cattle), Laidlaw found a base for his interests. He was at one time Reeve of Bexley Township, and as such, a member of the County Council. His literary efforts found an audience in small journals. He died at the Fort, in 1927.