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Walter Traill reported that in 1866, "At Riding Mountain, sixty miles to the east, a half-breed is in charge and our trade is not as profitable as it should be." (9)
In 1867, "the poor provisioning of the outpost and its premature abandonment by the Company so aggravated the Indians that they burned the Post." (10)
Traill reported that in 1868:
"Mr. [Robert] Campbell and Mr. [Archibald] McDonald came down to Fort Ellice to see what could be done about carrying on the trade at Riding Mountain. This is a good Post for fine furs about eighty miles from here, which has always been in the charge of a temporary trader for want of a regular officer. Last spring, it had to be abandoned before the spring trade was over on account of running out of provisions. The Indians were annoyed to find they had to take their furs so much farther to us here and burned the Post...
"I volunteered to take charge of Riding Mountain and to return every week or so to keep me accounts here [at Fort Ellice] . . . 'Take the best men, the best buffalo-runners, the best interpreters and anything else you like,' said Mr. MacKay 'if you can save the valuable furs that should come in to this Post from falling into the hands of freetraders'.
Thus it was that Apprentice Clerk Walter J.S. Traill (11) was put in charge of the Riding Mountain winter post. Using two American carpenters in the area, he rebuilt the post to the south down to the Little Saskatchewan River to where the Merchiston Ranch was to be located, later to be the home of Robert Campbell. (12) By dog team, the Riding Mountain post was a day's travel from Fort Ellice. Westbourne Mission, 12 miles from Portage and situated on the White Mud River near the northern end of the overland portage, was two days of rapid travel.
Traill reported in his journal:
". . . One of the men going with me is Louis Vandall, a French halfbreed, who will cook and look after the horses. . . Two weeks later, it is the 30th of September and I find myself camped by the edge of the Little Saskatchewan River on the prairie without a stick of wood. I must wait all day having sent my factotum back 30 miles for a bag of shot he lost out of his cart the day before yesterday. To boil my tea I must use buffalo chips. . .
". . . The house that I am building at Riding Mountain is pleasantly situated on this river, the Little Saskatchewan, a hundred miles further up than I am now. I changed the site from the old Fort that was burned and built on the river bank. . . It is 30 feet by 16 and built of large logs hewn inside and out and thatched. A store and a house for the men must be built before winter. . .
"When I arrived in mid-September and proceeded to build temporary quarters, I did not get a very cordial reception from Little Bone Chief and his followers who came to interview me. They demanded that if they let the Company re-establish the Post, it must be kept open until the spring trade is over.
"This is quite in accordance with my own instructions in coming up here, but a second demand presents a serious problem for they insist that there be a revision of the tariff on all goods downward and on all furs upward.
". . . In my new place, all our furs are chiefly marten, fisher and mink, and are packed only on a horse. I intend to travel about with horses until the snow gets too deep, as the Indians are all at some distance from the Post and I must go after them.
"For this reason I have a guard of 25 horses . . . On October 6th, i am back again at Riding Mountain House, though I am living in a leather tent at present. In a few days the houses will be finished, I hope, for it is exceedingly cold with deep snow, though it is not too late in the year to have some fine autumn weather which will enable me to make a trip or two round the indian camps. Then I hope to be able to send my men to them with goods to trade for their furs. . . All [my letters] are written in pencil as the ink here was frozen .. . and is too pale to use.
"It will require all my own resourcefulness to keep the Post at Riding Mountain open throughout the year. It has given us good returns in fur during the months it has been open, but as a rule it has been abandoned before the furs are all in. The indians here have always been a turbulent band and when this happened early last March, they regarded it as an unfriendly act on the part of the Company and burned the post in revenge. In addition to making sure I have enough provisions to last all year, I must now revise the tariff as demanded by Little Bone Chief and his followers.
". . . Towards the end of October, I am back again at Riding Mountain with the realization that it is one thing to revise a tariff and quite another to get Little Bone and his leading followers to consent to it. With this in view, I have issued a general invitation to all the Riding Mountain Indians to come to a banquet. The main course of this feast will be provided by an ancient bull brought from Fort Ellice especially for the occasion . . .
Footnotes
9 Traill, Walter, In Rupert's Land: Memoirs of Walter Traill, edited by Mae Atwood. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1970. p. 102. (back)
10 Atwood, M., ed., In Rupert's Land: Memoirs of Walter Traill. Toronto, McLelland and Stewart Ltd., 1970, p. 122. (back)
11 Traill was the youngest son of Catherine Parr Traill, who became famous for her writings about family life in Ontario in the days of early European settlement and her book, Canadian Wild Flowers. Walter was born in 1847, and at age 19, set out for Rupert's Land as a clerk with the HBC, his father's cousin being married to James J. Hargrave, secretary to Governor Mactavish, and an officer of the HBC. Traill first arrived at St. Paul, where he was befriended by Norman Kittson who had come to the Red River Valley in 1843 from Quebec. After his retirement from the HBC, he lived at Pembina and Kalispell, Montana. (back)
12 HBCA B.239/k/3.p411.(back)
