Crow Lake’s protagonist, Kate Morrison, reflects that her great-grandmother is responsible for a lot of family trouble. A photograph of Great-Grandmother Morrison hangs in Kate’s childhood home. She was a severe-looking woman, the mother of 14 children on the Gaspé Peninsula. She loved reading; Kate recounts a story of one day when her great-grandmother, reading while spinning wool, became so absorbed in her book that she continued spinning half an hour into Sabbath day. 

Kate has three siblings: Luke, Matt, and Bo. Of the four of them, only “tall and serious and clever” Matt resembles their great-grandmother (4). Matt is 10 years older than Kate and loves to show her the insects and wildlife that live in a series of local ponds. Kate believes that the eventual trouble between her and Matt all comes back to Great-Grandmother Morrison. 

The Morrison family lives in Crow Lake, a small farming community in Ontario. Their closest neighbors are the troubled Pyes, who have a farm a mile away. Luke and Matt both work on the Pye farm. Luke is two years older than Matt, and they both have fair hair and gray eyes. Kate is 10 years younger than Matt, and Bo is just a baby.