BUFFALO HUNTING.
In the leafy month of June carts were seen to emerge from every nook and corner of the Settlement bound for the plains. As they passed us, many things were discovered to be still wanting, to supply which a halt had to be made at Fort Garry shop; one wanted this thing, another that, but all on credit. The day of payment was yet to come; but payment was promised. Many on the present occasion were supplied, many were not; they got and grumbled, and grumbled and got, till they could get no more; and at last went off, still grumbling and discontented.
From Fort Garry the cavalcade and camp-followers were crowding on the public road, and thence, stretching from point to point, till the third day in the evening, when they reached Pembina, the great rendezvous of such occasions. When the hunters leave the Settlement it enjoys that relief which a person feels on recovering from a long and painful sickness. Here, on a level plain, the whole patriarchal camp squatted down like pilgrims on a journey to the Holy Land, in ancient days: only not so devout, for neither scrip nor staff were consecrated for the occasion. Here the roll was called, and general muster taken, when they numbered on the occasion 1,630 souls: and here the rules and regulations for the journey were finally settled. The officials for the trip were named and installed into their office, and all without the aid of writing materials.
The camp occupied as much ground as a modern city, and was formed in a circle: all the carts were placed side by side, the trams outward. Within this line, the tents were placed in double, treble rows, at one end; the animals at the other in front of the tents. This is the order in all dangerous places: but whenno danger is feared, the animals are kept on the outside. Thus, the carts formed a strong barrier, not only for securing the people and the beasts of burden within, but as a place of shelter and defence against an attack of the enemy without.
There is, however, another appendage belonging to the expedition, and to every expedition of the kind; and you may be assured they are not the least noisy. We allude to the dogs or camp followers. On the present occasion they numbered no fewer than 542; sufficient of themselves to consume no small number of animals a day, for, like their masters, they dearly relish a bit of buffalo meat.
These animals are kept in summer as they are, about the establishments of the fur traders, for their services in the winter. In deep snows, when horses cannot conveniently be used, dogs are very serviceable to the hunters in these parts. The half-breed, dressed in his wolf costume, tackles two or three sturdy curs into a flat sled, throws himself on it at full length, and gets among the buffalo unperceived. Here the bow and arrow play their part to prevent noise; and here the skillful hunter kills as many as he pleases, and returns to camp without disturbing the band.
But now to our camp again—the largest of its kind perhaps in the world. A council was heldfor the nomination of chiefs or officers for conducting the expedition. Two captains were named, the senior on this occasion being Jean Baptiste Wilkie, an English half-breed brought up among the French, a man of good sound sense and long experience, and withal a bold-looking and discreet fellow, a second Nimrod in his way. Besides being captain, in common with others, he was styled the great war chief or head of the camp, and on all public occasions he occupied the place of president.
The hoisting of the flag every morning is the signal for raising camp. Half an hour is the full time allowed to prepare for the march, but if anyone is sick, or their animals have strayed, notice is sent to the guide, who halts until all is made right. From the time the flag is hoisted however, till the hour of camping arrives, it is never taken down. The flag taken down is a signal for encamping, while it is up the guide is chief of the expedition, captains are subject to him, and the soldiers of the day are his messengers, he commands all. The moment the flag is lowered his functions cease and the captains and soldiers' duties commence. They point out the order of the camp, and every cart as it arrives moves to its appointed place. This business usually occupies about the same time as raising camp in the morning, for everything moves with the regularity of clockwork.
The captains and other chiefs have agreed on rules to govern the expedition, such as, that no buffaloes are to be run on Sunday, no party is to lag behind or to go before, no one may run a buffalo without a general order, etc. The punishment for breaking the laws are for a first offence: the offender had his saddle and bridle cut up: for the second, to have the coat taken off his back and cut up: for the third, the offender was flogged. Any theft was punished by the offender being three times proclaimed "THIEF," in the middle of the camp.
On the 21st of June, after the priest had performed mass, for many were Roman Catholics, the flag was unfurled at about six or seven o'clock and the picturesque line was formed over the prairie, extending some five or six miles towards the southwest. It was the ninth was gained. This was a journey of about 150 day from Pembina before the Cheyenne River miles, and on the nineteenth day, at a distance of 250 miles, the destined hunting grounds were reached. On the 4th of July, since the encampment was in the United States, the compliment was paid of having the first buffalo race.
No less than 400 huntsmen, all mounted and anxiously waiting for the word "Start," took up their position in a line at one end of the camp, while Captain Wilkie issued his orders.
HERD OF BUFFALOES FEEDING ON THE HIGH PLAINSHERD OF BUFFALOES FEEDING ON THE HIGH PLAINS
At eight o'clock the whole cavalcade broke ground, and made for the buffaloes. When the horsemen started the buffaloes were about a mile and a half distant, but when they approached to about four or five hundred yards, the bulls curled their tails or pawed the ground. In a moment more the herd took flight, and horse and rider are presently seen bursting upon them, shots are heard, and all is smoke, dust and hurry, and in less time than we have occupied with a description a thousand carcasses strew the plain.
When the rush was made, the earth seemed to tremble as the horses started, but when the animals fled, it was like the shock of an earthquake. The air was darkened, the rapid firing, at first, soon became more and more faint, and at last died away in the distance.
In such a run, a good horse and experienced rider will select and kill from ten to twelve buffaloes at one heat, but in the case before us, the surface was rocky and full of badger holes. Twenty-three horses and riders were at one moment all sprawling on the ground, one horse gored by a bull, was killed on the spot, two more were disabled by the fall. One rider broke his shoulder blade, another burst his gun, and lost three fingers by the accident, another was struck on the knee by an exhausted bull. In the evening no less than 1,375 tongues were brought intocamp. When the run is over the hunter's work is now retrograde. The last animal killed is the first skinned, and night not unfrequently, surprises the runner at his work. What then remains is lost and falls to the wolves. Hundreds of dead buffaloes are often abandoned, for even a thunderstorm, in one hour, will render the meat useless.
The day of a race is as fatiguing on the hunter as on the horse, but the meat well in the camp, he enjoys the very luxury of idleness.
Then the task of the women begins, who do all the rest, and what with skins, and meat and fat, their duty is a most laborious one.
It is to be regretted that much of the meat is wasted. Our expedition killed not less than 2,500 buffaloes, and out of all these made 375 bags of pemmican, and 240 bales of dried meat; 750 animals should have made that amount, so that a great quantity was wasted. Of course, the buffalo skins were saved and had their value.
Our party were now on the Missouri and encamped there. A few traders went to the nearest American fort, and bartered furs for articles they needed.
After passing a week on the banks of the Missouri we turned to the West, when we had a few races with various success. We were afterwards led backwards and forwards at the pleasure of the buffalo herds. They crossed and recrossedour path until we had travelled to almost every point of the compass.
Having had various altercations with the Indians, the party reached Red River, bringing about 900 lbs. of buffalo meat in each cart, making more than one million pounds in all. The Hudson's Bay Company took a considerable amount of this, and the remainder went to supply the wants of the Red River Settlement for another year.
WHAT THE STARGAZERS SAW.
The writer remembers meeting in Boston, a good many years ago, a scientific explorer, who along with two companies, one of whom is the greatest astronomer in the United States, as an astronomical party in 1860, made a visit through Red River Settlement, on their way to the North Saskatchewan to observe an eclipse. The disappointment of the party was very great, for, after travelling three thousand miles, their fate was "to sit in a marsh and view the eclipse through the clouds, so heavy was the rain."
The three astronomers have given their account under assumed names in a little book, of which there are few copies in Canada. Their view of Red River Settlement in 1860 is a vivid picture.
What an extraordinary Settlement! Here is a Colony of about ten thousand souls scattered among plantations for thirty miles along the Red and half as many along the Assiniboine River, almost wholly dependent for intelligencefrom the outer world on one stern-wheeled steamer. That breaks down; and before word can be sent of their complete isolation, weeks must pass before the old and painful canoe-route by way of Lake of the Woods can be opened, or the wagon make its tedious journey to the headwaters of the Red and back, improvising on the way its own ferries over the swift and deep streams which feed it.
Finding haste of no avail, and despatching our luggage on carts to the Upper Fort and centre of the Settlement, twenty miles away, we start there on foot the next day to view the land and its inhabitants. The road, "the King's road," is a mere cart-track in the deep loam, taking its independent course on either side of the houses, all of which front the river in a single wavering line; for the country is given up absolutely to farming, for which the rich mould, said to be three or four feet deep, eminently fits it; and the lots each with a narrow frontage at the bank of the river, extends back two miles into the prairie. All is at a dead level. John Omand had asked us to dine at his house; but accidentally passing it without recognizing it from his description, we select a fair representative of the common class of houses, and ask for dinner. It is a log-cabin, like all of this class (some far better ones have walls of stone) with a thatched roof and a rough stone and mortarchimney planted against one wall. Inside is but a single room, well whitewashed, as is indeed the outside and exceptionally tidy; a bed occupies one corner, a sort of couch another, a rung ladder leads up to loose boards overhead which form an attic, a trap door in the middle of the room opens to a small hole in the ground where milk and butter are kept cool; from the beam is suspended a hammock, used as a cradle for the baby; shelves singularly hung held a scanty stock of plates, knives and forks; two windows on either side, covered with mosquito netting, admit the light, and a modicum of air; chests and boxes supply the place of seats, with here and there a keg by way of easy-chair. An open fireplace of whitewashed clay gives sign of cheer and warmth in the long winter, and a half-dozen books for library complete the scene.
Our hosts feel so "highly honored to have such gentlemen enter the house"—these are their very words—that it is with the greatest difficulty they are forced to take any compensation for the excellent meal of bread, butter, and rich cream which they set before us, and to which we do ample justice.
This was not the only interior we saw; we had before called on the single scientific man of the Settlement, Donald Gunn, and later in the day are forced by a thunderstorm to seek shelter in the nearest house; where we are also warmlywelcomed, and the rain continuing, are glad to accept the cordial invitations of its inhabitants to pass the night. This is a larger house, but only the father of the family and his buxom daughter, Susie, a lively girl of eighteen or nineteen, are at home, the others being off at the other end of their small farm, where they have temporary shelter during the harvest.
We have each a chamber to ourselves in the garret, reached in the same primitive method as before mentioned—and are shown with a dip of buffalo-tallow to our rooms. The furniture of these consists of a sort of couch, with buffalo skins for mattress and wolf skins for sheets and coverlet, a chest for a seat, a punch-bowl of water on a broken chair for a washstand, and a torn bit of rag for towel; while a barrel covered with a white cloth serves as a centre-table, and is besprinkled with antique books. Among those in his chamber our naturalist discovers one which appears to be a catechism of human knowledge containing, among other entertaining and instructive information as an answer to the question, "What is a shark?" the highly satisfactory reply that it is "An animal having eighty-eight teeth."
The wants of the Colony were few, the peasantry simple and industrious, and their lot in life did not seem to them hard. The earth yielded bountifully, and in time of temporarydisaster fishing and hunting stood them in good stead. When they hunt, they go accompanied by Indians, who live on the outskirts of the Colony. Further and further they have been compelled to go, until at our visit no buffalo could be found within a hundred miles at nearest.
The hunt is just over as we reach the Settlement, and every day carts come in laden with the buffalo meat, hides, and pemmican. The prairie, back from the river, by Fort Garry, is dotted with carts, lodges and tents. Many are living in rude shelters formed of the carts themselves, placed back to back, and the sides secured by hides.
These carts illustrate well the primitive nature and the isolation of the Colony. They are the vehicles in universal use, and are built on the general pattern of our one-horse tip-carts, though they do not tip, and not a scrap of iron enters into them. They are without springs, of course, and rawhide and wooden pins serve to keep together the pieces out of which they are constructed. As they have no tires, and the section of the wheel part or crowd together, according to the moisture, a train of these carts bringing in the products of the hunt is a strange sight. Each cart has its own peculiar creak, hoarse and grating, and waggles its own individual waggle, graceless and shaky, on the uneven ground. To add to its oddity, the shaftsare heavy, straight beams, between which is harnessed an ox, the harness of rawhide (shaga-nappi) without buckles.
Everybody makes for himself what he wishes in this undifferentiated Settlement. We return in tatters. Not a tailor, nor anything approaching the description of one, exists here, and a week's search is needed to discover such a being as a shoemaker. A single store in the Hudson's Bay post at each of the two forts, twenty miles apart, supplies the goods of the outside world, and the purchaser must furnish the receptacle for carriage. For small goods this invariably consists, as far as we can see, of a red bandanna handkerchief, so that purchases have to be small and frequent; not all of one sort, however, for the native can readily tie up his tea in one corner, his sugar and buttons in two others, and still have one left for normal uses. How many handkerchiefs a day are put to use may be judged from the fact that the average sale of tea at Upper Fort Garry is four large boxes daily—all, be it remembered, brought by ship to Hudson Bay, and thence by batteaux and portage to the Red River.
The caravan by which we and a number of others were carried back to civilization was a stylish enough turnout for Red River. It was supplied by McKinney, the host of the Royal Hotel of the village of Winnipeg. Three largeemigrant wagons, with canvas coverings of the most approved pattern, but of very different hues, drawn each by a yoke of oxen, convey the patrons of the party, with the exception of a miner, who rides his horse. The astronomers take the lead under a brown canvas; a theological student for Toronto University, a gentleman for St. Paul, and others follow under a black canvas full of holes; and the third wagon with a cover of spotless purity, conveys the ladies of the party and a clergyman. Behind them follow not only half a dozen Red River carts, with a most promiscuous assortment of baggage, peltry, and squeak, but also a stray ox and a pony or two; a number of armed horsemen, and for the first day a cavalcade of friends giving a Scotch convoy to those who were departing. The astronomers at length reached St. Paul, when they declare their connection with the world again complete, after an absence of about three months, during which they had travelled thirty-five hundred miles.
APPLES OF GOLD.
Shakespeare's play of "As You Like It" is an eulogy of the flight from the highly formal life of city life to the simplicity of the forest and the retirement of the plains. Even in the banished Duke, there is a strain of oddity and quaintness. Not many years after the middle of last century, a Detroit lawyer fled from the troubles of society and city life to the peaceful plains of secluded Assiniboia. Marrying, after his arrival, a daughter of one of our best native families, and on her death, a pure Indian woman, he reared a large family. The poetic spirit of Frank Larned was never repressed, and we give, with some changes, to suit our purpose, and at times some divergence from the views expressed, scenes of the Red River Settlement, in which he, for more than a generation, dwelt.
BRITAIN'S ONE UTOPIA—SELKIRKIA.
That brave old Englishman, Thomas More—afterwards, unhappily for his head—Lord High Chancellor of England—wrote out, in fair Latin,—in his chambers in the City of London, over three centuries ago—his idea of an Utopia. This, modest as are its requirements, has yet found no practical illustration, even among the many seats of the great colonizing race of mankind.
The primitive history of all the colonies that faced the Atlantic—when the new-found continent first felt the abiding foot of the stranger—from Oglethorpe to Acadia, reveals, alas! no Utopia. It remained for a later time,—the earlier half of the present century, amid some severity of climate, and under conditions without precedent, and incapable of repetition,—to evolve a community in the heart of the continent, shut away from intercourse with civilized mankind—that slowly crystalized into a form beyond the ideal of the dreamers—a community, in the past, known but slightly to the outer world as the Red River Settlement, which is but the bygone name for the one Utopia of Britain—the clear-cut impress of an exceptional people living under conditions of excellence unthought of by themselves until they had passed away.
THE UTOPIAN COLONY.
A people, whose name in the vast domain, was in days by gone, sought out and coveted by all. Unknown races had rested here and gone away,leaving only their careful graves behind them. The "Mandans"—the brave, the fair, the beautiful, and the "Cheyennes," pressed by the "Nay-he-owuk," and the "Assin-a-pau-tuk," had quitted their earthen forts on the banks of the streams and urged their way to the broader tide of the Missouri. More fatal to the conquerors came afterward, the white man, "Nemesis" of all Indian life, spying with the instinct of his race, a spot of abounding fertility, where the great water-reaches stretched from the mountains to the sea, and southward touched almost the beginning of the great River of the Gulf.
Quick changing his errant camp for barter into a stronghold for the trade, making the "Niste-y-ak" of the "Crees" his settled home, the white man's grasp of the fair domain but grew with years. From the seas of the far north came with the men, fair-haired, blue-eyed women and children. The glamour of the spot, the teeming soil, the great and lesser game, that swam past,—or wandered by their doors—soon drew to this Mecca of the Plains and Waters—the roving, scattered children of the trade—Bourgeois and voyageur alike heading their lithe and dusky broods. Here touched and fused all habitudes of life, the blended races, knit by ties conserving every divergence of pursuit, all forms of faith and thought, free from assail or taint begotten of contact with aughtother than themselves. A people whose unchecked primal freedom was afterward strengthened by the light hand of laws that conserved what they most desired; whose personal relations with their rulers were of such primitive character as to make the Government in every sense paternal; the petty tax on imports attending its administration one practically unfelt!
A people whose land was dotted with schools and churches, to whose maintenance their contributions were so slight as to be unworthy of mention. The three separate religious denominations, holding widely different tenets—elsewhere the cause of bitter sectarian feeling,—was with them so unthought of as to give where all topics were eagerly sought—no room for even fireside discussion. Side by side, "upon the voyage,"—as they termed their lake or inland trips—the Catholic and the Protestant knelt and offered up their devotions—following the ways of their fathers,—no more to be made a subject of dispute than a difference in color or height.
The cursings and obscenities that taint the air and brutalize life elsewhere, were in this quaint old settlement unknown. Sweet thought, pure speech, went hand in hand, clad in nervous, pithy old English, or a "patois" of the French, mellowed and enlarged by their constant use ofthe liquid Indian tongues, flowing like soft-sounding waters about them, their daily talk came ever welcome to the ear.
AN ARCADIA.
Where locks for doors were unknown, or, known, unused, where a man's word, even in the transfer of land, was held as his bond—honesty became a necessity. Lawyers were none. Law was held to be a danger. Still the importance attached by simple minds to an appearance in public, the amusing belief cherished by some, that, if permitted to plead his own case, exert his unsuspected powers, there could be but one result, brought some honest souls to the Red River forum, with matter of much moment, "the like never heard before." None can read the quaint, minutely-detailed record of these "causes celébres" that shook the little households as with a great wind, without a smile, or resist the conviction that no scheme of an English Utopia can safely be pronounced perfect without some such modest tribunal to afford vent for that ever-germinating desire for battle inherent in the race.
ALEXANDER ROSSALEXANDER ROSSSheriff and Author.Came to Red River Settlement in 1825 from British Columbia. Died in 1856.
Their manners were natural, cordial, and full of a lightsome heartness that robed accost with sunshine,—a quietude withal—that rare quality —that irked them not at all—one gathered from their Indian kin-folk. Their knowledge of eachother was simply universal—their kin ties almost as general. These ties were brightened and friendships reknit in the holiday season of the year, the leisure of the long winters, when the far-scattered hewn log houses—small to the eye—were ever found large enough to hold the welcome arrivals,—greeted with a kiss that said,"I am of your blood." These widespread affiliations broke down aught like "caste." Wealth or official position were practically unheeded by a people in no fear of want and unaccustomed to luxuries, who sought their kinswoman and her brood for themselves, not for what they had in store. The children and grandchildren of men, however assured in fortune or position, wove anew equalizing ties, seeking out their mates as they came to hand; hence a genial, not a downward level, putting to shame fine-spun theories of democracy in other lands—spun, not worn.
This satisfaction of station—as said—grew out of the slight exertion necessary for all the wants of life, with unlimited choice of the finest land on the continent; the waters alive with fish and aquatic fowl; rabbits and prairie fowl at times by actual cart-load; elk not far, and countless buffalo behind,—furnishing meat, bedding, clothing and shoes to any who could muster a cart or go in search; the woods and plains in season, ripe with delicious wild fruit, for present use or dried for winter,—the whole backed by abundant breadstuffs. The quota of the farmers along the rivers, whose fertile banks were dotted by windmills, whose great arms stayed the inconstant winds, and yoked the fickle couriers to the great car of general plenty.
A LAND OF PEACE.
Poverty in one sense certainly existed; age and improvidence are always with us, but it was not obtrusive, made apparent only towards the close of the long winter, when some old veteran of the canoe or saddle would make a "grand promenade" through the Settlement, with his ox and sled, making known his wants, incidentally, at his different camps among his old friends, finding always before he left his sled made the heavier by the women's hands. This was simply done; few in the wild country but had met with sudden exigencies in supply, knew well the need at times of one man to another, and, when asked for aid, gave willingly. Or it may be that some large-hearted, jovial son of the chase had overrated his winter store, or underrated the assiduity of his friends. His recourse in such case being the more carefully estimated stock of some neighbor, who could in no wise suffer the reproach to lie at his door, that he had turned his back, in such emergence, upon his good-natured, if injudicious countryman.
This practical communism—borrowed from the Indians, among whom it was inviolable—was, in the matter of hospitality, the rule of all, —a reciprocation of good offices, in the absence of all houses of public entertainment, becominga social necessity. The manner of its exercise hearty, a knitting of the people together,—no one was at a loss for a winter camp when travelling. Every house he saw was his own, the bustling wife, with welcome in her eyes, eager to assure your comfort. The supper being laid and dealt sturdily with, the good man's pipe and your own alight and breathing satisfaction, —a neighbor soul drops in to swell the gale of talk, that rocks you at last into a restful sleep. How now, my masters! Smacks not this of Arcady?
Early and universal marriage was the rule. Here you received the blessings of home in the married life, and the care of offspring. There were thus no defrauded women—called, by a cruel irony, "old maids"; no isolated, mistaken men, cheated out of themselves, and robbed of the best training possible for man. This vital fact was fraught with every good.
On the young birds leaving the parent nest, they only exchanged it for one near at hand—land for the taking; a house to be built, a wife to be got—a share of the stock, some tools and simple furniture, and the outfit was complete. The youngest son remained at home to care for the old father and mother, and to him came the homestead when they were laid away. The conditions were all faithful, home life dear indeed.
To the Hunters accepting their fall in the chase no wilder thought could scarce be broached than that of solicitude as to the future of their young. Boys who sat a horse almost as soon as they could walk, whose earliest plaything was a bow and arrows; girls as apt in other ways, happy; sustained in their environment with a faith truly simple and reverent.
With so large an infusion of Norse blood and certain traditions anent "usquebae" and "barley bree" it would—with so large a liberty—be naturally expected, a liberal proportion of drouthy souls, but with an abundance of what cheers and distinctly inebriates in their midst they were a temperate people in its best sense, with no tippling houses to daily tempt them astray their supplies of spirits were nearly always for festive occasions. "Regales" after a voyage or weddings that lasted for days, and these at times under such guard as may be imagined from the presence of a custodian of the bottle, who exercised with what skill he might his certainly arduous task of determining instantly when hilarity grew into excess.
This novel feature applies, however, almost entirely to the English-speaking part of the people. The Gallic and Indian blood of the Hunters disdained such poor toying with a single cherry and drank and danced and drank and danced again with an abandon, an ardor andfull surrender to the hour characteristic alike of the strength of the heads, the lightness of their heels and the contempt of any restraint whatever.
These were, however, but the occasional and generous symposiums of health and vigor that rejects of itself continued indulgence. Our Utopia would be cold and pallid indeed lacking such expression of redundant strength, and joyful vigor.
Certainly the greatest negative blessing that this exceptional people enjoyed, was that they had no politics, no vote. The imagination of the average "party man" sinks to conceive a thing like to this; yet, if an astounding fact to others, no more gracious one can be conceived for them selves. In the unbroken peace in which they lived politics would be but throwing the apple of discord in their midst, an innoculation of disease that they might in the delirium that marked its progress vehemently discuss remedies to allay it.
Another great negative advantage was the peculiar and admirable intelligence of the great body of the population. The small circulating collection of books in their midst attracting little or no attention, their own limited to a Bible or prayer book,—many not these. With their minds in this normal healthy state, unharassed by the sordid assail of care, undepressed by anysense whatever of inferiority, unfrayed by the trituration of the average book, their powers of apprehension—singularly clear—had full scope to appropriate and resolve the world about them, which they did to such purpose as to master every exigence of their lives. Seizing upon the minutest detail affecting them they mastered as if by intuition all difficult handiwork, making with but few tools every thing they required from a windmill to a horseshoe.
Their real education was in scenes of travel or adventure in the great unbroken regions sought out by the fur trade, their retentive memories reproducing by the winter fireside or summer camp pictures so graphic as to commend themselves to every ear.
The tender heart and true of the brave old knight, Sir Thomas More, put a ban upon hunting in his Utopia. Alas and alack for the wayward proclivities of our Utopians, predaceous creatures all, hunting was to them as the breath of their nostrils, for to them, unlike the sons of Adam, it was given—with their brothers resting upon the tranquil river—to lay upon the altar of their homes alike the fruits of the earth and the spoils of the chase.
THE BUFFALO HUNT.
What pen can paint the life of the "Chasseurs of the Great Plains," tell of the gatheringof the mighty Halfbreed clan going forth—each spring and fall—in a tumult of carts and horsemen to their boundless preserves, the home of the buffaloes, whose outrangers were the grizzly bear, the branching elk, the flying antelope that skirted the great columns, the last relieving the heavy rolling gait of the herds by a speed and airy flight that mocked the eye to follow them, scouting the dull trot of the prowling wolves—attent upon the motions of their best purveyor—man.
What a going forth was theirs! this array of Hunters, with their wives and little ones; this new tribe clad in semi-savage garniture, streaming across the plains with cries of glee and joyance; the riders in their "travoie" of arms and horse equipment—the vast "brigade" of carts and bands of following horses, kept to the cavalcade by those reckless jubilants—the boys—seeming a part of the creatures they bestrode. The sunshine and the flying fleecy clouds, emulous in motion with the troop below: what life was in it all; what freedom and what breadth!
And as the sun sank apace and the guides and Headmen rode apart on some o'er-looking height and reined their cattle in, the closing up of the flying squadron for the evening camp, the great circular camp of these our Scythians proof against sudden raid crowning the landscape far and wide, seen, yet seeing every foe, whose subtle coming through the short-lived night was watched by eyes as keen as were their own.
When reached, their bellowing, countless quarry: the plain alive and trembling with their tumult, what tournament of mail-clad knights but was as a stilted play to this rude shock of man and beast—carrying in a cloud of dust that hid alike the chaser and the chased, till done their work the frightened herds swept onward and away, leaving the sward flecked with the huge forms that made the hunters' wealth! And now! on: fall prosaic from the wild charge, the danger of the fiercemelee!—drifting from the camp the carts appear piled red in a trice with bosses, tongues, back fat and juicy haunch, a feast unknown to hapless kings.
We but glance at this great feature, that fed so fat our Utopia, leaving to imagination the return, the trade, the feasting and the fiddle when lusty legs embossed by "quills" or beads kept up the dance.
The outcome of the "Plain Hunt" was not only a wide spread plenty among the Hunters on reaching the quiet farmer folk upon the rivers, but also the diffusion of a sunshine, a tone of generous serenity that sat well on the chivalry of the chase—the bold riders of the Plain.
THE SUMMER PRAIRIES.
Beneficent nature nowhere makes her compensations more gratefully felt than in the summer season of our Utopia of the north, where the purest and most vivifying of atmospheres hues with a wealth of sunshine the great reaching spaces of verdure covered with flowers in a profusion rivaling their exquisite beauty. Green waving copses dot the level sward, and rob the sky line of its sea-like sweep. The winding rivers, signalled by their wooded banks, upon which rest the comfortable homes of the dwellers in the "hidden land" guarding their little fields close by where the ranked grain standing awaits the sickle, turning from green to gold and so unhurried resting. The shining cattle couched outside in ruminant content or cropping lazily the succulent feast spread wide before them; the horses wary of approach, just seen in compact bands upon the verge; the patriarchal windmills—at wide spaces—signalling to each other their peaceful task; the little groups of horsemen coming adown the winding road, or stopping to greet some good wife and her gossip—going abroad in a high-railed cart in quest of trade, or friendly call. And as the day wanes, the sleek cows, with considered careful walk and placid mien, wend their way homeward, bearing their heavy udders to the house-mother, who, pail in hand awaiting their approach, pauses for a moment to mark the feathered boaster at her feet, as he makes his parting vaunt of a day well spent and summons "Partlet" to her vesper perch hard by.
O'er all the scene there rests a brooding peace, bespeaking tranquil lives, repose trimmed with the hush of night, and effort healthful and cool as the freshening airs of morn.
L'ENVOI.
Longfellow—moving all hearts to pity—has painted in "Evangeline" the enforced dispersion of the French in "Acadia." Who shall tell the homesick pain, the vain regrets, the looking back of those who peopled our "Acadia"? No voice bids them away; they melt before the fervor of the time; hasten lest they be 'whelmed by the great wave of life now rolling towards them. Vain retreat, the waters are out and may not be stayed. It is fate! it is right, but the travail is sore, the face of the mother is wet with tears.
This outline sketch proposed is at an end; we have striven to be faithful to the true lines. There is no obligation to perpetuate unworthy "minutæ." Joy is immortal! sorrow dies! the petty features are absorbed in the broad ones; those capable only of conveying truth.
The Red River Settlement in the days adverted to is an idyl simple and pure: a nomadic pastoral, inwrought with Indian traits and color; our one acted poem in the great national prosaic life. When the vast country in the far future is teeming with wealth and luxury, this light rescued and defined will shine adown the fullness of the time with hues all its own. The story that it tells will be as a sweet refreshment: a dream made possible, called by those who shared in its great calm, "Britain's One Utopia—Selkirkia."
PICTURES OF SILVER.
Lord Selkirk's Colonists never had, as have seen, a bed of roses. Adversity had dodged their steps from the time that they put the first foot forward toward the new world—and Stornoway, Fort Churchill, York Factory, Norway House, Pembina and Fort Douglas start, as we speak of them, a train of bitter memories. Flood and famine, attack and bloodshed, toil and anxiety were the constant atmosphere, in which for a generation they existed. Higher civilization is impossible when the struggle for shelter and bread is too strenuous. Though the ministrations of religion were supplied within a few years of the beginning of the Colony, yet the Colonists were not satisfied in this respect till forty years had passed. It was a generation before the Roman Catholic Church had a Bishop, who held the See of St. Boniface instead of the title "in the parts of the heathen." It was not before the year 1849 that a Church of England Bishop arrived, and it was two years after that date when the first Presbyterian minister came to be the spiritual head of the Selkirk Colonists. Before this the education and elevation of the people was represented by a few schools chiefly maintained by private or church effort. The writer intends to bring out, from selected quotations from different sources, the few bright spots in the gloom—the pictures of silver—on a rather dark background.
ABBE DUGAS' STORY.
The good Father's story circles around the first Canadian woman known to have reached Red River. This was Marie Gaboury, wife of J. Baptiste Lajimoniere, who reached the Forks in 1811 in the very year when the Colonists were lying at York Factory. The Lajimonieres spent the winter in Pembina. It was the brave husband of Marie Gaboury who made the long and lonely journey from Red River to Montreal. The Abbe says: "J.B. Lajimoniere was engaged by the Governor of Fort Douglas to carry letters to Lord Selkirk, who was then in Montreal. Lajimoniere said he could go alone to Montreal, and that he would make every effort to put the letters confided to his care into Lord Selkirk's hands. Being alone, Madame Lajimoniere left the hut on the banks of the Assiniboine to become an inmate of Fort Douglas. Lajimoniere is reported to have urged upon Lord Selkirk in Montreal to send aspart of his recompense for his long journey, a priest to be the guide of himself and family. Father Dugas says: (See printed page 2.)
"Lord Selkirk before his departure had made the Catholic colony on the Red River sign a petition asking the Bishop of Quebec to send missionaries to evangelize the country. He presented this petition himself and employed all his influence to have it granted.
"Though a Protestant Lord Selkirk knew that to found a permanent colony on the Red River he required the encouragement of religion. Should his application succeed the missionaries would come with the voyageurs in the following spring and would arrive in Red River towards the month of July. This thought alone made Madame Lajimoniere forget her eleven years of loneliness and sorrow.
"Before July the news had spread that the missionaries were coming that very summer, but as yet the exact date of their arrival was not known. Telegraphs had not reached this region and moreover the voyageurs were often exposed to delays.
"After waiting patiently, one beautiful morning on the 16th of July, the day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a man came from the foot of the river to warn Fort Douglas and the neighborhood that two canoes bringing the missionaries were coming up the river, and that all thepeople ought to be at the Fort to receive them on their arrival.
"Scarcely was the news made known when men, women and children hurried to the Fort. Those who had never seen the priests were anxious to contemplate these men of God of whom they had heard so much. Madame Lajimoniere was not the last to hasten to the place where the missionaries would land. She took all her little ones with her, the eldest of whom was Reine, then eleven years old.
"Towards the hour of noon on a beautiful clear day more than one hundred and fifty persons were gathered on the river bank in front of Fort Douglas. Every eye was on the turn of the river at the point. It was who should first see the voyageurs. Suddenly two canoes bearing the Company's flag came in sight. There was a general shout of joy. The trader of the Fort, Mr. A. McDonald, was a Catholic, and he had everything prepared to give them a solemn reception. Many shed tears of joy. The memory of their native land was recalled to the old Canadians who had left their homes many years before. These old voyageurs who had been constantly called upon to face death had been deprived of all religious succour during the long years, but they had not been held by a spirit of impiety. The missionaries were to them the messengers of God.
"The canoes landed in front of Fort Douglas, M. Provencher and his companion both invested in their cassocks stepped on shore and were welcomed with outstretched hands by this family, which was henceforth to be theirs.
"They were admired for their manly figures as much as for the novelty of their costumes. M. Provencher and his companion, M. Severe Dumoulin, were both men of great stature and both had a majestic carriage. They stood at the top of the bank and after making the women and children sit down around them M. Provencher addressed some words to this multitude gathered about him. He spoke very simply and in a fatherly manner. Madame Lajimoniere who had not listened to the voice of a priest for twelve years could hardly contain herself for joy. She cried with happiness and forgetting all her hardships, fancied herself for a moment in the dear parish of Maskinongé where she had spent such happy peaceful years.
"The missionaries arrived on Thursday, July 16th. M. Provencher having made known to his new family the aim of his mission wished immediately to begin teaching them the lessons of Christianity and to bring into the fold the sheep which were outside.
"While waiting till a house could be built for the missionaries, M. Provencher and his companion were hospitably entertained at the Fortof the Colony. A large room in one of the buildings of the Fort had been set apart for them, and it was there that they held divine service. M. Provencher invited all the mothers of families to bring their children who were under six years of age to the Fort on the following Saturday when they would receive the happiness of being baptised. All persons above that age who were not Christians could not receive that sacrament until after being instructed in the truths of Christianity.
"When M. Provencher had finished speaking the Governor conducted him with M. Dumoulin into the Fort. Canadians, Metis and Indians feeling very happy retired to return three days afterwards.
"There were four children in the Lajimoniere family, but only two of them could be baptised, the others being nine and eleven years of age. On the following Saturday Madame Lajimoniere with all the other women came to the Fort. The number of children, including Indians and Metis, amounted to a hundred and Madame Lajimoniere being the only Christian woman stood Godmother to them all. For a long time all the children in the colony called her 'Marraine.'
"M. Provencher announced that from the next day the missionaries would begin their work and that the settlers ought to begin at thesame time to work at the erection of a home for them.
"M. Lajimoniere was one of the first to meet at the place selected and to commence preparing the materials for the building. The work progressed so rapidly that the house was ready for occupation by the end of October.
"Madame Lajimoniere rendered every assistance in her power to the missionaries."