Walter Traill's journal continues..
"Other courses consisted of gollet
made from two sacks of Red Dog flour, also especially imported, tea from
two huge kettles, sugar and tobacco, all served out-of-doors and apparently
much appreciated ... When the braves were enjoying their after-dinner smokes
and were in an unusually happy frame of mind I proceeded to unfold for
their benefit the improvements of my revised tariff. . . (13)
"Next comes the foraging for local sources of food
to relive the present demands being made on our store of pemmican. To this
I am now devoting most of my time and have discovered a mountain lake teeming
with jackfish. An Indian fisherman has been engaged who is taking so many
that we shall have a winter's supply of fish for the train dogs. Previously
they have been fed with pemmican hauled all the way from Fort Ellice. There
is now an abundance of ducks and geese in this neighbourhood and these
I am preserving in quantity for the men and myself by the simple process
of freezing.
"Since writing the above, I have been south on an
elk hunt.
"The Indians, I fear, are continuing in accordance
with their reputation to be a bad lot. . . The Indians here are perfect
devils . . . the worse in the District.
"It is now well into January and we are having a
beautiful winter. I have just received word from a party of Indians outfitted
by us that they want someone to come from here to get their furs and to
bring more goods to trade. Their camp is a day's journey to the east of
us, which means taking food for two days for men and dogs ... Four days
later we are back again at Riding Mountain House. When we reached the point
where the Indians are camped it was to find that they had moved on towards
Lake Dauphin. Next morning we followed their trail which was due north
but not overtaking them before nightfall we made camp again. The following
morning we discovered that all our dogs were missing and on following their
trail to the crest of the hill near which we had camped we saw the Indian
camp just beneath us.
"As we were approaching it, there came to meet us
several of our own dogs packing what we thought was the leg of a moose.
At their heels followed a little Indian boy who looked at us inquiringly,
and by way of conversation, I asked him if someone had killed a moose.
He explained in a matter-of-fact manner with the aid of the interpreter
that it was his grandmother's leg, pointing to a raised platform at some
distance . . .
"The trade I have made here is a good one, the receipts
of fur for the winter being more than three times those of last year, which
has established Riding Mountain House as one of the most important posts
in the Swan River District and has resulted in my being instructed to build
a permanent post. . .
"We have traded between 3 and four thousand pounds
of pemmican at two shilling per pound, and can put all the fur on one dog
sled, but mink, martens and fishers are nearly worth their weight in gold.
Can you imagine putting seven hundred martens in a pack two feet square?
Each of these skins is worth 30 to 40 shillings so that a boat of cargo
is a very valuable thing.
"I have harvested more [skunk skins] than this outpost
has received for many a year. The pelts are not the only source of value
that the Indians derive from these furbearers, for they esteem the meat
a great delicacy to be preferred above all other. . ."
"We have managed to plough three acres and sow them
with barley and wheat seed in order that we may raise our own grain for
our saddle horses. . .
"Back at Riding Mountain House [in the fall of 1868]
it is to find that a freetrader has taken advantage of my absence to establish
himself quite close to my Post. . . Always in this locality the Indians
have caused us much trouble, and now they will be more independent and
unmanageable than ever. But after they have been trading with freemen for
two years, or at the longest four, they come back to the Company and are
the truest Indians we have. Then they see that they are fools to think
that the freemen pay them more for their fur because at times they give
more for some skins. But they sell only liquor on which they make an exorbitant
profit...
"The Indians have learned that
my neighbour . . . pays them far less than I do for their mink. He gives
half a pint of alcohol for a mink while I give a large Hudson's Bay Blanket
for two mink. The price of one pint of alcohol is one shilling in Red River
while a blanket costs eleven shillings in London . . ." (14)
3 large stock locks, 2 double padlocks, 1 doz shawls,
1 silk handkerchief, 7 men's black felt hats, fancy cut steel buttons,
1 doz sampler belts, 1 doz hunting knives, 20 yards gold ribbon, 1/2 doz
nipple feeders, 12 fancy regent shirts, 5 pieces Canadian cloth, 1 carpenters
bench wooden screw, 1 blacksmith's plate, 1 chain, 1 doz cowbells.
(15)