Minutes 42 seconds
West, variation 20 degrees 44 minutes 47 seconds East) is pleasantly
situated about a quarter of a mile from the river's side on the flat
ground under the shelter of the high banks that bound the plains. The
land is fertile and produces with little trouble ample returns of wheat,
barley, oats, and potatoes. The ground is prepared for the reception of
these vegetables about the middle of April and when Dr. Richardson
visited this place on May 10th the blade of wheat looked strong and
healthy. There were only five acres in cultivation at the period of my
visit. The prospect from the fort must be pretty in summer owing to the
luxuriant verdure of this fertile soil; but in the uniform and cheerless
garb of winter it has little to gratify the eye.
Beyond the steep bank behind the house commences the vast plain whose
boundaries are but imperfectly known; it extends along the south branch
of the Saskatchewan and towards the sources of the Missouri and
Asseenaboine Rivers, being scarcely interrupted through the whole of this
great space by hills or even rising grounds. The excellent pasturage
furnishes food in abundance to a variety of grazing animals of which the
buffalo, red-deer, and a species of antelope are the most important.
Their presence naturally attracts great hordes of wolves which are of two
kinds, the large, and the small. Many bears prowl about the banks of this
river in summer; of these the grizzly bear is the most ferocious and is
held in dread both by Indians and Europeans. The traveller in crossing
these plains not only suffers from the want of food and water but is also
exposed to hazard from his horse stumbling in the numerous badger-holes.
In many large districts the only fuel is the dried dung of the buffalo;
and when a thirsty traveller reaches a spring he has not unfrequently the
mortification to find the water salt.
Carlton House and La Montee are provision-posts, only an inconsiderable
quantity of furs being obtained at either of them. The provisions are
procured in the winter season from the Indians in the form of dried meat
and fat and, when converted by mixture into pemmican, furnish the
principal support of the voyagers in their passages to and from the
depots in summer. A considerable quantity of it is also kept for winter
use at most of the fur-posts as the least bulky article that can be taken
on a winter journey. The mode of making pemmican is very simple, the meat
is dried by the Indians in the sun or over a fire, and pounded by beating
it with stones when spread on a skin. In this state it is brought to the
forts where the admixture of hair is partially sifted out and a third
part of melted fat incorporated with it, partly by turning the two over
with a wooden shovel, partly by kneading them together with the hands.
The pemmican is then firmly pressed into leathern bags, each capable of
containing eighty-five pounds and, being placed in an airy place to cool,
is fit for use. It keeps in this state if not allowed to get wet very
well for one year and with great care it may be preserved good for two.
Between three and four hundred bags were made here by each of the
Companies this year.
There were eight men besides Mr. Prudens and his clerk belonging to
Carlton House. At La Montee there were seventy Canadians and half-breeds
and sixty women and children who consumed upwards of seven hundred pounds
of buffalo meat daily, the allowance per diem for each man being eight
pounds: a portion not so extravagant as may at first appear when
allowance is made for bone and the entire want of farinaceous food or
vegetables.
There are other provision posts, Fort Augustus and Edmonton farther up
the river, from whence some furs are also procured. The Stone Indians
have threatened to cut off the supplies in going up to these
establishments to prevent their enemies from obtaining ammunition and
other European articles; but as these menaces have been frequently made
without being put in execution the traders now hear them without any
great alarm though they take every precaution to prevent being surprised.
Mr. Back and I were present when an old Cree communicated to Mr. Prudens
that the Indians spoke of killing all the white people in that vicinity
this year which information he received with perfect composure and was
amused as well as ourselves with the man's judicious remark which
immediately followed, "A pretty state we shall then be in without the
goods you bring us."
GOITRES.
The following remarks on a well-known disease are extracted from Dr.
Richardson's Journal:
Bronchocele or Goitre is a common disorder at Edmonton. I examined
several of the individuals afflicted with it and endeavoured to obtain
every information on the subject from the most authentic sources. The
following facts may be depended upon. The disorder attacks those only who
drink the water of the river. It is indeed in its worst state confined
almost entirely to the half-breed women and children who reside
constantly at the fort and make use of river water drawn in the winter
through a hole cut in the ice. The men, being often from home on journeys
through the plain, when their drink is melted snow, are less affected;
and if any of them exhibit during the winter some incipient symptoms of
the complaint the annual summer voyage to the sea-coast generally effects
a cure. The natives who confine themselves to snow-water in the winter
and drink of the small rivulets which flow through the plains in the
summer are exempt from the attacks of this disease.
