BUFFALO were plentiful in my first years and I have seen thousands of
them. Many of the old freighters have told me that very often when the
buffalo were travelling south that they were compelled to stop their
brigades of carts and camp for one or two days until the great herds
passed. Of course the freighters picked out the choice ones, or as many
as they required, for meat supply on the trip.
I saw where buffalo in the fall had tried to cross the Saskatchewan
River, and had broken through the ice. The animals behind had forced
the others on, trampling them to death. Carcasses of dead buffalo
completely bridged the river, the remainder of the herd passing over
them. Buffalo always followed the leader like sheep. There were
millions of them in that part of the country and all disappeared in a
few years. Today there is a herd of about two hundred and fifty animals
in the MacKenzie River valley. They have not increased in numbers. The
Siberian wolves get among them continually and destroy many of the
calves. There is another herd in the government park at Wainwright,
Saskatchewan, which is thriving and increasing.
After the buffalo had disappeared, the plains Indians, who numbered
many thousands at that time, were reduced to starvation. Many of them
died, and the Canadian government of that day was compelled to gather
them all into reservations throughout the country, and ration them.
Living in small log houses, with only one room, was a great change from
their roaming, open-air life on the plains, and they became afflicted
with all kinds of diseases, consumption being their greatest destroyer.
The number of horses an Indian owned was the gauge of his wealth. Some
of them had as many as three hundred head, of which quite a large
number were in the buffalo-runner class. A horse in that class was
never put to any other work. He had to be extra long-winded, swift
and tough as steel, able to keep pace with a stampeding herd until
his rider had shot down ten or fifteen animals. As a rule, these
horses stood about fourteen and a half hands high and weighed nearly a
thousand pounds. Their sires were usually imported thoroughbreds. The
most of that breed of horses have gone to the "happy hunting grounds"
where the Indian says the buffalo have gone. The gun used was a single
barrel, muzzle-loading, flint-lock shot gun, using number twenty-eight
ball instead of shot. Skill in riding was necessary and quickness at
re-loading.
Fort Ellice, where I was assigned to duty, was built on the south bank
of the valley of the Assiniboine River. It was a beautiful location
with charming scenery, about three miles from where the Qu'Appelle
River empties into the Assiniboine. The Assiniboine Valley was about
two miles wide and that of the Beaver Creek about one thousand yards.
The Fort was built on the top level between the two, on a beautiful
plain dotted with little poplar bluffs, with numerous springs of
gushing water up at the top of the level in the face of the banks.
The river in the centre of the valley winds its tortuous way to empty
itself later on into the Red River, thence to Lake Winnipeg, thence to
Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Fort itself was built in a large square, the big front gates being
about thirty yards from the edge of the bank which was very precipitous
at this point, and well wooded with small trees, ferns and saskatoon
bushes.
On one side of the square was a long row of one-storey log buildings,
with thatched roofs all joined with one another. Our carpenter shop
was at one end of this row and the blacksmith's shop at the other. The
doors or entrances all faced to the Fort. There was the men's house,
the mechanics' house, the native servants' and dog drivers' houses,
also the married servants' houses, each consisting of one large room.
A door opened into each from the outside and there was no other means
of entrance to any of the other houses in that long row of buildings,
except by its own door or down the chimney. Two tiers of rough bunks
round the walls represented the sleeping accommodations. A large mud
chimney and open fire-place provided ventilation. We did all cooking at
the open fireside.
On the other side of the square, in an equally long row, built in the
same style, were warehouses, ration houses, dry meat and pemmican
house, flour, pork and beef house, and a well-appointed dairy, with
a good cellar and lots of ice. These buildings were one and a-half
storeys high and were without chimneys or fire-places.
At one side of the big gate in front was the trading store and
district office, and on the other side the fur store and reserve stock
warehouse. Each of these buildings was very long and substantial, fully
one and a-half storeys high.
The main building in the Fort was the Factor's dwelling or the "big
house," as it was called. This was the quarters of the officers and
clerks. It stood well back in the square, its front being in line with
the end of the long rows of buildings on either side, so that every
house in the Fort could be seen from its windows. The "big house" was a
two and a-half storey building, with a large kitchen behind, built from
the same plan as the officers' dwellings in Fort Garry, and known as a
Red River frame building.
It had a fine balcony and verandah. The main entrance was in the centre
of the building opening into a large recreation and council hall.
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[Illustration: _Carrying supplies aboard an H.B.C. flatboat or scow
on the Athabasca River. The scow has remained one of the principal
links in the Company's chain of transportation in this district where
tumbling waters make steam or motor boat operation precarious._]
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The Factor's private office was at the right, and the parlour or
sitting-room to the left. The large mess-room, dining-room, and
private bedrooms were in the rear. Upstairs was a large hall and
reading-room, and bedrooms for the clerks. The upper floor was heated
with large Carron stoves, as well as the hall downstairs, and the
trading shop and district office.
There were four fire-places on the ground floor and another in the
kitchen, as well as a large cooking range. A splendid mud oven stood
outside for baking bread and cooking extra large roasts. There was also
a fine well close at hand with the proverbial oaken bucket attached to
a rope and chain. The "big house" and kitchen were thatched, and all
the houses were mudded and white-washed with lime. They presented a
good appearance from a distance.
A four foot sidewalk ran all around the square, and another one from
the front gate to the front door of the "big house." There was a nice
vegetable, flower and kitchen garden of about an acre behind the house.
The flagstaff stood at the front gate, and the belfry stood outside
the Factor's private office. While a high stockade enclosed the whole
square, so when the big gates were locked at night there was no danger
of losing any scalps before morning.
(_To be continued_)
[Illustration: _Igloos, the bungalows of Eskimo-land, on the east coast
of Hudson Bay. No, that is not a destroyer in the distance. It is a
sleigh filled with eatables placed high on a stage of snow blocks out
of reach of the vandal dogs_.]
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