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.
