Edmonton--The Ruffian Tahakooch--French Missionaries--Westward still--A
beautiful Land--The Blackfeet-Horses--A "Bellox" Soldier--A Blackfoot
Speech--The Indian Land--First Sight of the Rocky Mountains--The Mountain
House--The Mountain Assineboines--An Indian Trade--M. la
Combe--Fire-water--A Night Assault.
EDMONTON, the head-quarters of the Hudson Bay Company's Saskatchewan
trade, and the residence of a chief factor of the corporation, is a large
five-sided fort with the usual flanking bastions and high stockades. It
has within these stockades many commodious and well-built wooden houses,
and differs in the cleanliness and order of its arrangements from the
general run of trading forts in the Indian country. It stands on a high
level bank 100 feet above the Saskatchewan River, which rolls below in a
broad majestic stream, 300 yards in width. Farming operations,
boat-building, and flour-milling are carried on extensively at the fort,
and a blacksmith's forge is also kept going. My business with the officer
in charge of Edmonton was soon concluded. It principally consisted in
conferring upon him, by commission, the same high judicial functions
which I have already observed had been entrusted to me before setting out
for the Indian territories. There was one very serious drawback, however,
to the possession of magisterial or other authority in the Saskatchewan,
in as much as there existed no means whatever of putting that authority
into force.
The Lord High Chancellor of England, together with the Master of the
Rolls and the twenty-four judges of different degrees, would be perfectly
useless if placed in the Saskatchewan to put in execution the authority
of the law. The Crees, Blackfeet, Peagins, and Sircies would doubtless
have come to the conclusion that these high judicial functionaries were
"very great medicines;" but beyond that conclusion, which they would have
drawn more from the remarkable costume and head-gear worn by those
exponents of the law than from the possession of any legal acumen, much
would not have been attained. These considerations somewhat mollified the
feelings of disappointment with which I now found myself face to face
with the most desperate set of criminals, while I was utterly unable to
enforce against them the majesty of my commission.
First, there was the notorious Tahakooch-murderer, robber, and general
scoundrel of deepest dye; then there was the sister of the above, a
maiden of some twenty summers, who had also perpetrated the murder of two
Black foot children close to Edmonton; then there was a youthful French
half-breed who had killed his uncle at the settlement of Grand Lac, nine
miles to the north-west; and, finally, there was my dinner companion at
Saddle Lake, whose crime I only became aware of after I had left that
locality. But this Tahakooch was a ruffian too desperate. Here was one of
his murderous acts. A short time previous to my arrival two Sircies came
to Edmonton. Tahakooch and two of his brothers were camped near the fort.
Tahakooch professed friendship for the Sircies, and they went to his
lodge. After a few days had passed the Sircies thought it was time to
return to their tribe. Rumour said that the charms of the sister of
Tahakooch had captivated either one or both of them, and that she had not
been insensible to their admiration. Be this as it may, it was time to
go; and so they prepared for the journey. An Indian will travel by night
as readily as by day, and it was night when these men left the tent of
Tahakooch.
"We will go to the fort," said the host, "in order to get provisions for
your journey."
The party, three in number, went to the fort, and knocked at the gate for
admittance. The man on watch at the gate, before unharring, looked from
the bastion over the stockades, to see who might be the three men who
sought an entrance. It was bright moonlight, and he noticed the shimmer
of a gun-barrel under the blanket of Tahakooch. The Sircies were provided
with some dried meat, and the party went away. The Sircies marched first
in single file, then followed Tahakooch close behind them; the three
formed one line. Suddenly, Tahakooch drew from beneath his blanket a
short double-barrelled gun, and discharged both barrels into the back of
the nearest Sircie. The bullets passed through one man into the body of
the other, killing the nearest one instantly. The leading Sircie, though
desperately wounded, ran fleetly along the moonlit path until, faint and
bleeding, he fell. Tahakooch was close behind; but the villain's hand
shook, and four times his shots missed the wounded wretch upon the
ground. Summoning up all his strength, the Sircie sprung upon his
assailant; a hand-to-hand struggle ensued; but the desperate wound was
too much for him, he grew faint in his efforts, and the villain Tahakooch
passed his knife into his victim's body. All this took place in the same
year during which I reached Edmonton, and within sight of the walls of
the fort. Tahakooch lived only a short distance away, and was a daily
visitor at the fort.
But to recount the deeds of blood enacted around the wooden walls of
Edmonton Would be to fill a volume. Edmonton and Fort Pitt both stand
within the war country of the Crees and Blackfeet, and are consequently
the scenes of many conflicts between these fierce and implacable enemies.
Hitherto my route has led through the Cree country, hitherto we have seen
only the prairies and woods through which the Crees hunt and camp; but my
wanderings are yet far from their end. To the south-west, for many and
many a mile, lie the wide regions of the Blackfeet and the mountain
Assineboines; and into these regions I am about to push my way. It is a
wild, lone land guarded by the giant peaks of mountains whose snow-capped
summits lift themselves 17,000 feet above the sea level. It is the
birth-place of waters which seek in four mighty streams the four distant
oceans--the Polar Sea, the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific.
A few miles north-west of Edmonton a settlement composed exclusively of
French half-breeds is situated on the shores of a rather extensive lake
which bears the name of the Grand Lac, or St. Albert. This settlement is
presided over by a mission of French Roman Catholic clergymen of the
order of Oblates, headed by a bishop of the same order and nationality.
It is a curious contrast to find in this distant and strange land men of
culture and high mental excellence devoting their lives to the task of
civilizing the wild Indians of the forest and the prairie--going far in
advance of the settler, whose advent they have but too much cause to
dread. I care not what may be the form of belief which the on-looker may
hold--whether it be in unison or in antagonism with that faith preached
by these men; but he is only a poor semblance of a man who can behold
such a sight through the narrow glass of sectarian feeling, holding'
opinions foreign to his own. He who has travelled through the vast
colonial empire of Britain--that empire which covers one third of the
entire habitable surface of the globe and probably half of the lone lands
of the world must often have met with men dwelling in the midst of wild,
savage peoples whom they tended with a strange and mother-like devotion.
If you asked who was this stranger who dwelt thus among wild men in these
Lone places, you were told he was the French missionary; and if you
sought him in his lonely hut, you found ever the same surroundings, the
same simple evidences of a faith which seemed more than human. I do not
speak from hearsay or book-knowledge. I have myself witnessed the scenes
I now try to recall. And it has ever been the same, East and West, far in
advance of trader or merchant, of sailor or soldier, has gone this
dark-haired, fragile man, whose earliest memories are thick with sunny
scenes by bank of Loire or vine-clad slope of Rhone or Garonne, and whose
vision in this life, at least, is never destined to rest again upon these
oft-remembered places. Glancing through a pamphlet one day at Edmonton, a
pamphlet which recorded the progress of a Canadian Wesleyan Missionary
Society, I read the following extract from the letter of a Western
missionary:--"These representatives of the Man of Sin, these priests, are
hard-workers; summer and winter they follow the camps, suffering great
privations. They are indefatigable in their efforts to make converts, but
their converts," he adds, "have never heard of the Holy Ghost." "The man
of sin "--which of us is without it? To these French missionaries at
Grand Lac I was the bearer of terrible tidings. I carried to them the
story of Sedan, the overwhelming rush of armed Germany into the heart of
France, the closing of the high-schooled hordes of Teuton savagery around
Paris; all that was hard home news to: hear. Fate had leant heavily upon
their little congregation; out of 900 souls more than 300 had perished of
small-pox up to the date of my arrival, and others were still sick in the
huts along the lake. Well might the bishop and his priests bow their
heads in the midst of such manifold tribulations of death and disaster.
By the last day of November my preparations for further travel into the
regions lying west of Edmonton were completed, and at midday on the 1st
December I set out for the Rocky Mountain House. This station, the most
Western and southern held by the Hudson Bay Company in the Saskatchewan,
is distant from Edmonton about 180 miles by horse trail, and 211 miles by
river. I was provided with five fresh horses, two good guides, and I
carried letters to merchants in the United States, should fortune permit
me to push through the great stretch of Blackfoot country lying on the
northern borders of the American territory; for it was my intention to
leave the Mountain House as soon as possible, and to endeavour to cross
by rapid marches the 400 miles of plains to some of the mining cities of
Montana or Idaho; the principal difficulty lay, however, in the
reluctance of men to come with me into the country of the Blackfeet. At
Edmonton only one man spoke the Blackfoot tongue, and the offer of high
wages failed to induce him to attempt the journey. He was a splendid
specimen of a half-breed; he had married a Blackfoot squaw, and spoke
the difficult language with fluency; but he had lost nearly all his
relations in the fatal plague, and his answer was full of quiet thought
when asked to be my guide.
"It is a work of peril," he said, "to pass the Blackfoot country all'
pitching along the foot of the mountains; they will see our trail in the
snow, follow it, and steal our horses, or perhaps worse still. At another
time I would attempt it, but death has been too heavy upon my friends,
and I don't feel that I can go."
It was still possible, however, that at the Mountain House I might find
a guide ready to attempt the journey, and my kind host at Edmonton
provided me with letters to facilitate my procuring all supplies from his
subordinate officer at that station. Thus fully accoutred and prepared to
meet the now rapidly increasing severity of the winter, I started on the
1st December for the mountains. It-was a bright, beautiful day. I was
alone with my two retainers; before me lay an uncertain future, but so
many curious scenes had been passed in safety during the last six months
of my life, that I recked little of what was before me, drawing a kind of
blind confidence from the thought that so much could not have been in
vain. Crossing the now fast-frozen Saskatchewan, we ascended the southern
bank and entered upon a rich country watered with many streams and
wooded with park-like clumps of aspen and pine. My two retainers were
first-rate fellows. One spoke English very fairly: he was a brother of
the bright-eyed little beauty at Fort Pitt. The other, Paul Foyale, was a
thick, stout-set man, a good voyageur, and excellent-in camp. Both were
noted travellers, and both had suffered severely in the epidemic of the
small-pox. Paul had lost his wife and child, and Rowland's children had
all had the disease, but had recovered. As for any idea about taking
infection from men coming out of places where that infection existed,
that would have been the merest foolishness; at least, Paul and Rowland
thought so, and as they were destined to be my close companions for some
days, cooking for me, tying up my blankets, and sleeping beside me, it
was just as well to put a good face upon the matter and trust once more
to the glorious doctrine of chance. Besides, they were really such good
fellows, princes among voyayeurs, that, small-pox or no small-pox, they
were first-rate company for any ordinary mortal. For two days we jogged
merrily along. The Musquashis or Bears Hill rose before us and faded away
into blue distance behind us. After sundown on the 2nd we camped in a
thicket of large aspens by the high bank of the Battle River, the same
stream at whose mouth nearly 400 miles away I had found the Crees a
fortnight before. On the 3rd December we crossed this river, and,
quitting the Blackfeet trail, struck in a south-westerly direction
through a succession of grassy hills with partially wooded valleys and
small frozen lakes. A glorious country to ride over--a country in which
the eye ranged across miles and miles of fair-lying hill and
long-stretching valley; a silent, beautiful land upon which summer had
stamped so many traces, that December had so far been powerless to efface
their beauty. Close by to the south lay the country of the great
Blackfeet nation--that wild, restless tribe whose name has been a terror
to other tribes and to trader and trapper for many and many a year. Who
and what are these wild dusky men who have held their own against all
comers, sweeping like a whirlwind over the sand deserts of the central
continent? They speak a tongue distinct from all other Indian tribes;
they have ceremonies and feasts wholly different, too, from the feasts
and ceremonies of other nations; they are at war with every nation that
touches the wide circle of their boundaries; the Crows, the Flatheads,
the Kootenies, the Rocky Mountain Assineboines, the Crees, the Plain
Assineboines, the Minnitarrees, all are and have been the inveterate
enemies of the five confederate nations which form together the great
Blackfeet tribe. Long years ago, when their great forefather crossed the
Mountains of the Setting Sun and settled along the sources of the
Missouri and the South Saskatchewan, so runs the legend of their old
chiefs, it came to pass that a chief had three sons, Kenna, or The Blood,
Peaginou, or The Wealth, and a third who was nameless. The two first were
great hunters, they brought to their father's lodge rich store of moose
and elk meat, and the buffalo fell before their unerring arrows; but the
third, or nameless one, ever returned empty-handed from the chase, until
his brothers mocked him for his want of skill. One day the old chief said
to this unsuccessful hunter, "My son, you cannot kill the moose, your
arrows shun the buffalo, the elk is too fleet for your footsteps, and
your brothers mock you because you bring no meat into the lodge; but see,
I will make you a great hunter." And the old chief took from the
lodge-fire a piece of burnt stick, and, wetting it, he rubbed the feet of
his son with the blackened charcoal, and he named him Sat-Sia-qua, or The
Blackfeet, and evermore Sat-Sia-qua was a mighty hunter, and his arrows
flew straight to the buffalo, and his feet moved swift in the chase. From
these three sons are descended the three tribes of Blood, Peaginou, and
Blackfeet, but in addition, for many generations, two other tribes or
portions of tribes have been admitted into the confederacy; These are the
Sircies, on the north, a branch, or offshoot from the Chipwayans of the
Athabasca; and the Gros Ventres, or Atsinas, on the southeast, a branch
from the Arrapahoe nation who dwelt along the sources of the Platte. How
these branches became detached from the parent stocks has never been
determined, but to this day they speak the languages of their original
tribe in addition to that of the adopted one. The parent tongue of the
Sircies is harsh and guttural, that of the Blackfeet is rich and musical;
and while the Sircies always speak Blackfeet in addition to their own
tongue, the Blackfeet rarely master the language of the Sircies.
War, as we have already said, is the sole toil and thought of the red
man's life. He has three great causes of fight: to steal a horse, take a
scalp, or get a wife. I regret to have to write that the possession of a
horse is valued before that of a wife-and this has been the case for many
years. "A horse," writes McKenzie, "is valued at ten guns, a woman is
only worth one gun;" but at that time horses were scarcer than at
present. Horses have been a late importation, comparatively speaking,
into the Indian country. They travelled rapidly north from Mexico, and
the prairies soon became covered with the Spanish mustang, for whose
possession the red man killed his brother with singular pertinacity. The
Indian to-day believes that the horse has ever dwelt with him on the
Western deserts, but that such is not the case his own language
undoubtedly tells. It is curious to compare the different names which the
wild men gave the new-comer who was destined to work such evil among
them. In Cree, a dog is called "Atim," and a horse, "Mistatim," or the
"Big Dog." In the Assineboine tongue the horse is called "Sho-a-th-in-ga,"
"Thongatch shonga," a great dog. In Blackfeet, "Po-no-ka-mi-taa" signifies
the horse; and "Po-no-ko" means red deer, and "Emita," a dog--the "Red-deer
Dog." But the Sircies made the best name of all for the new-comer; they
called him the "Chistli" "Chis," seven, "Li," dogs "Seven Dogs." Thus
we have him called the big dog, the great dog, the red-deer dog, the
seven dogs, and the red dog, or "It-shou-ma-shungu," by the Gros Ventres.
The dog was their universal beast of burthen, and so they multiplied the
name in many ways to enable it to define the Superior powers of the
new beast.
But a far more formidable enemy than Crow or Cree has lately come in
contact with the Blackfeet--an enemy before whom all his stratagem, all
his skill with lance or arrow, all his dexterity of horsemanship is of no
avail. The "Moka-manus" (the Big-knives), the white men, have pushed up
the great Missouri River into the heart of the Blackfeet country, the
fire-canoes have forced their way along the muddy waters, and behind them
a long chain of armed posts have arisen to hold in check the wild roving
races of Dakota and the Montana. It is a useless struggle that which
these Indians wage against their latest and most deadly enemy, but
nevertheless it is one in which the sympathy of any brave heart must lie
on the side of the savage. Here, at the head-waters of the great River
Missouri which finds its outlet into the Gulf of Mexico-here, pent up
against the barriers of the "Mountains of the Setting Sun," the Blackfeet
offer a last despairing struggle to the ever-increasing tide that hems
them in. It is not yet two years since a certain citizen soldier of the
United States made a famous raid against a portion of this tribe at the
head-waters of the Missouri. It so happened that I had the opportunity of
hearing this raid described from the rival points of view of the Indian
and the white man, and, if possible, the brutality of the latter--brutality
which was gloried in--exceeded the relation of the former. Here is
the story of the raid as told me by a miner whose "pal" was present in
the scene. "It was a little afore day when the boys came upon two
redskins in a gulch near-away to the Sun River" (the Sun River flows into
the Missouri, and the forks lie below Benton). "They caught the darned
red devils and strapped them on a horse, and swore that if they didn't
just lead the way to their camp that they'd blow their b---- brains out;
and Jim Baker wasn't the coon to go under if he said he'd do it--no, you
bet he wasn't. So the red devils showed the trail, and soon the boys came
out on a wide gulch, and saw down below the lodges of the Pagans. Baker
just says, 'Now, boys, says he, 'thar's the devils, and just you go in
and clear them out. No darned prisoners, you know; Uncle Sam ain't agoin'
to keep prisoners, I guess. No darned squaws or young uns, but just
kill'em all, squaws and all; it's them squaws what breeds'em, and them
young uns will only be horse-thieves or hair-lifters when they grows up;
so just make a clean shave of the hull brood. Wall, mister, ye see, the
boys jist rode in among the lodges afore daylight, and they killed every
thing that was able to come out of the tents, for, you see, the redskins
had the small-pox bad, they had, and a heap of them couldn't come out
nohow; so the boys jist turned over the lodges and fixed them as they lay
on the ground. Thar was up to 170 of them Pagans wiped out that mornin',
and thar was only one of the boys sent under by a redskin firing out at
him from inside a lodge. I say, mister, that Baker's a bell-ox among
sodgers, you bet."
One month after this slaughter on the Sun River a band of Peagins were
met on the Bow River by a French missionary priest, the only missionary
whose daring spirit has carried him into the country of these redoubled
tribes. They told him of the cruel loss their tribe had suffered at the
hands of the "Long-knives;" but they spoke of it as the fortune of war,
as a thing to be deplored, but to be also revenged: it was after the
manner of their own war, and it did not strike them as brutal or
cowardly; for, alas! they knew no better. But what shall be said of these
heroes--the outscourings of Europe--who, under the congenial guidance of
that "bell-ox" soldier Jim Baker, "wiped out them Pagan redskins"? This
meeting of the missionary with the Indians was in: its way singular. The
priest, thinking that the loss of so many lives would teach the tribe how
useless must be a war carried on against-the Americans, and how its end
must inevitably be the complete destruction of the Indians, asked the
chief to assemble his band to listen to his counsel and advice. They met
together in the council-tent, and then the priest began. He told them
that "their recent loss was only the beginning of their destruction, that
the Long knives had countless braves, guns and rifles beyond number,
fleet steeds, and huge war-canoes, and that it was useless for the poor
wild man to attempt to stop their progress through the great Western
solitudes." He asked them "why were their faces black and their hearts
heavy? was it not for their relatives and friends so lately killed, and
would it not be better to make peace while yet they could do it, and thus
save the lives of their remaining friends?"
While thus he spoke there reigned a deep silence through the council-tent,
each one looked fixedly at the ground before him; but when the
address was over the chief rose quietly, and, casting around a look full
of dignity, he asked, "My brother, have you done, or is there aught you
would like yet to say to us?"
To this the priest made answer that he had no more to say.
"It is well," answered the Indian; "and listen now to what I say to you;
but first," he said, turning to his men, "you, my brethren, you, my sons,
who sit around me, if there should be aught in my words from which you
differ, if I say one word that you would not say yourselves, stop me, and
say to this black-robe I speak with a forked tongue." Then, turning again
to the priest, he continued, "You have spoken true, your words come
straight; the Long-knives are too many and too strong for us; their guns
shoot farther than ours, their big guns shoot twice" (alluding to shells
which exploded after they fell); "their numbers are as the buffalo were
in the days of our fathers. But what of all that? do you want us to
starve on the land which is ours? to lie down as slaves to the white man,
to die away one by one in misery and hunger? It is true that the
long-knives must kill us, but I say still, to my children and to my
tribe, fight on, fight on, fight on! go on fighting to the very last man;
and let that last man go on fighting too, for it is better to die thus,
as a brave man should die, than to live a little time and then die like a
coward. So now, my brethren, I tell you, as I have told you before, keep
fighting still. When you see these men coming along the river, digging
holes in the ground and looking for the little bright sand" (gold), "kill
them, for they mean to kill you; fight, and if it must be, die, for you
can only die once, and it is better to die than to starve."
He ceased, and a universal hum of approval running through the dusky
warriors told how truly the chief had spoken the thoughts of his
followers; Again he said, "What does the white man want in our land? You
tell us he is rich and strong, and has plenty of food to eat; for what
then does he come to our land? We have only the buffalo, and he takes
that from us. See the buffalo, how they dwell with us; they care not for
the closeness of our lodges, the smoke of our camp-fires does not fright
them, the shouts of our young men will not drive them away; but behold
how they flee from the sight, the sound, and the smell of the white man!
Why does he take the land from us? who sent him here? He puts up sticks,
and he calls the land his land, the river his river, the trees his trees.
Who gave him the ground, and the water, and the trees? was it the Great
Spirit? No; for the Great Spirit gave to us the beasts and the fish, and
the white man comes to take the waters and the ground where these fishes
and these beasts live--why does he not take the sky as well as the
ground? We who have dwelt on these prairies ever since the stars fell"
(an epoch from which the Blackfeet are fond of dating, their antiquity)
"do not put sticks over the land and say, Between these sticks this land
is mine; you shall not come here or go there."
Fortunate is it for these Blackfeet tribes that their hunting grounds lie
partly on British territory--from where our midday camp was made on the
2nd December to the boundary-line at the 49th parallel, fully 180 miles
of plain knows only the domination of the Blackfeet tribes. Here, around
this midday camp, lies spread a fair and fertile land; but close by,
scarce half a day's journey to the south, the sandy plains begin to
supplant the rich grass-covered hills, and that immense central desert
commences to spread out those ocean-like expanses which find their
southern limits far down by the waters of the Canadian River,1200 miles
due south of the Saskatchewan. This immense central sandy plateau is the
true home of the bison. Here were raised for countless ages these huge
herds whose hollow tramp shook the solid roof of America during the
countless cycles which it remained unknown to man. Here, too, was the
true home of the Indian: the Commanche, the Apache, the Kio-wa, the
Arapahoe, the Shienne, the Crow, the Sioux, the Pawnee, the Omahaw, the
Mandan, the Manatarree, the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the Assineboine
divided between them the immense region, warring and wandering through
the vast expanses until the white race from the East pushed their way
into the land, and carved out states and territories from the Mississippi
to the Rocky Mountains. How it came to pass in the building of the world
that to the north of that great region of sand and waste should spread
out suddenly the fair country of the Saskatchewan, I must leave to the
guess-work of other and more scientific writers; but the fact remains,
that alone, from Texas to the sub-Arctic forest, the Saskatchewan Valley
lays its fair length for 800 miles in mixed fertility.
But we must resume our Western way. The evening of the 3rd December found
us crossing a succession of wooded hills which divide the water system of
the North from that of the South Saskatchewan. These systems come so
close together at this region, that while my midday kettle was filled
with water which finds its way through Battle River into the North
Saskatchewan, that of my evening meal was taken from the ice of the
Pas-co-pee, or Blindman's; River, whose waters seek through Red Deer
River the South Saskatchewan.
It was near sunset when we rode by the lonely shores of the Gull Lake,
whose frozen surface stretched beyond the horizon to the north. Before
us, at a distance of some ten miles, lay the abrupt line of the Three
Medicine Hills, from whose gorges the first view of the great range of
the Rocky Mountains was destined to burst upon my sight; But not on this
day was I to behold that long-looked-for vision. Night came quickly down
upon the silent wilderness; and it was long after dark when we made our
camps by the bank of the Pas-co-pee, or Blindman's River, and turned
adrift the weary horses to graze in a well-grassed meadow lying in one of
the curves of the river. We had ridden more than sixty miles that day.
About midnight a heavy storm of snow burst upon us, and daybreak revealed
the whole camp buried deep in snow. As I threw back the blankets from my
head (one always lies covered up completely), the wet, cold mass struck
chillily upon my face. The snow was wet and sticky, and therefore things
were much more wretched than if the temperature had been lower; but the
hot tea made matters seem brighter, and about breakfast-time the snow
ceased to fall and the clouds began to clear away. Packing our wet
blankets together, we set out for the three Medicine Hills, through whose
defiles our course lay; the snow was deep in the narrow valleys, making
travelling slower and more laborious than before. It was midday when,
having rounded the highest of the three hills, we entered a narrow gorge
fringed with a fire-ravaged forest. This gorge wound through the hills,
preventing a far-reaching view ahead; but at length its western
termination was reached, and there lay before me a sight to be long
remembered. The great chain of the Rocky Mountains rose their snow-clad
sierras in endless succession. Climbing one of the eminences, I gained a
vantage-point on the summit from which some by-gone fire had swept the
trees. Then, looking west, I beheld the great range in unclouded glory.
The snow had cleared the atmosphere, the sky was coldly bright. An
immense plain stretched from my feet to the mountain--a plain so vast
that every object of hill and wood and lake lay dwarfed into one
continuous level, and at the back of this level, beyond the pines and the
lakes and the river-courses, rose the giant range, solid, impassable,
silent--a mighty barrier rising-midst an immense land, standing sentinel
over the plains and prairies of America, over the measureless solitudes
of this Great Lone Land. Here, at last, lay the Rocky Mountains.
Leaving behind the Medicine Hills, we descended into the plain and held
our way until sunset towards the west. It was a calm and beautiful
evening; far away objects stood out sharp and distinct in the pure
atmosphere of these elevated regions. For some hours we had lost sight of
the mountains, but shortly before sunset the summit of a long ridge was
gained, and they burst suddenly into view in greater magnificence than at
midday. Telling my men to go on and make the camp at the Medicine River,
I rode through some fire-wasted forest to a lofty grass-covered height
which the declining sun was bathing in floods of glory. I cannot hope to
put into the compass of words the scene which lay rolled beneath from
this sunset-lighted eminence; for, as I looked over the immense plain and
watched the slow descent of the evening sun upon the frosted crest of
these lone mountains, it seemed as if the varied scenes of my long
journey had woven themselves into the landscape, filling with the music
of memory the earth, the sky, and the mighty panorama of mountains. Here
at length lay the barrier to my onward wanderings, here lay the boundary
to that 4000 miles of unceasing travel which had carried me by so many
varied scenes so far into the lone-land; and other thoughts were not
wanting. The peaks on which I gazed were no pigmies; they stood the
culminating monarchs of the mighty range of the Rocky Mountains. From the
estuary of the Mackenzie to the Lake of Mexico no point of the American
continent reaches higher to the skies. That eternal crust of snow seeks
in summer widely-severed oceans. The Mackenzie, the Columbia, and the
Saskatchewan spring from the peaks whose teeth-like summits lie grouped
from this spot into the compass of a single glance. The clouds that cast
their moisture upon this long line of upheaven rocks seek again the ocean
which gave them birth in its far-separated divisions of Atlantic,
Pacific, and Arctic. The sun sank slowly behind the range and darkness
began to fall on the immense plain, but aloft on the topmost edge the
pure white of the jagged crest-line glowed for an instant in
many-coloured silver, and then the lonely peaks grew dark and dim.
As thus I watched from the silent hill-top this great mountain-chain,
whose summits slept in the glory of the sunset, it seemed no stretch of
fancy which made the red man place his paradise beyond their golden
peaks. The "Mountains of the Setting Sun," the "Bridge of the World,"
Thus he has named them, and beyond them the soul first catches a glimpse
of that mystical land where the tents are pitched midst everlasting
verdure and countless herds and the music of ceaseless streams.
That night there came a frost, the first of real severity that had fallen
upon us. At daybreak next morning, the 5th December, my thermometer
showed 22 degrees below zero, and, in spite of buffalo boots and moose
"mittaines," the saddle proved a freezing affair; many a time I got down
and trotted on in front of my horse until feet and hands, cased as they
were, began to be felt again. But the morning, though piercingly cold,
was bright with sunshine, and the snowy range was lighted up in many a
fair hue, and the contrasts of pine wood and snow and towering wind-swept
cliff showed in rich beauty. As the day wore on we entered the pine
forest which stretches to the base of the mountains, and emerged suddenly
upon the high banks of the Saskatchewan. The river here ran in a deep,
wooded valley, over the western extremity of which rose the Rocky
Mountains; the windings of the river showed distinctly from the height on
which we stood; and in mid-distance the light blue smoke of the Mountain
House curled in fair contrast from amidst a mass of dark green pines.
Leaving my little party to get my baggage across the Clear Water River, I
rode on ahead to the fort. While yet a long way off we had been descried
by the watchful eyes of some Rocky Mountain Assineboines, and our arrival
had been duly telegraphed to the officer in charge. As usual, the
excitement was intense to know what the strange party could mean. The
denizens of the place looked upon themselves as closed up for the
winter, and the arrival of a party with a baggage-cart at such a time
betokened something unusual. Nor was this excitement at all lessened when
in answer to a summons from the opposite bank of the Saskatchewan I
announced my name and place of departure. The river was still open, its
rushing waters had resisted so far the efforts of the winter to cover
them up, but the ice projected a considerable distance from either shore;
the open water in the centre was, however, shallow, and when the rotten
ice had been cut away on each side I was able to force my horse into it.
In he went with a great splash, but he kept his feet nevertheless; then
at the other side the people of the fort had cut away the ice too, and
again the horse scrambled safely up. The long ride to the West was over;
exactly forty-one days earlier I had left Red River, and in twenty-seven
days of actual travel I had ridden 1180 miles.
The Rocky Mountain House of the Hudson Bay Company stands in a level
meadow which is clear of trees, although dense forest lies around it at
some little distance. It is indifferently situated with regard to the
Indian trade, being too far from the Plain Indians, who seek in the
American posts along the Missouri a nearer and more profitable exchange
for their goods; while the wooded district in which it lies produces furs
of a second-class quality, and has for years been deficient in game. The
neighbouring forest, however, supplies a rich store of the white spruce
for boat-building, and several full-sized Hudson Bay boats are built
annually at the fort. Coal of very fair quality is also plentiful along
the river banks, and the forge glows with the ruddy light of a real coal
fire--a friendly sight when one has not seen it during many months. The
Mountain House stands within the limits of the Rocky Mountain
Assineboines, a branch of-the once famous Assineboines of the Plains
whose wars in times not very remote made them the terror of the prairies
which lie between the middle Missouri and the Saskatchewan. The
Assineboines derive their name, which signifies "stone-heaters," from a
custom in vogue among them before the advent of the traders into their
country. Their manner of boiling meat was as follows: a round hole was
scooped in the earth, and into the hole was sunk a piece of raw hide;
this was filled with water, and the buffalo meat placed in it, then a
fire was lighted close by and a number of round stones made red hot; in
this state they were dropped into, or held in, the water, which was thus
raised to boiling temperature and the meat cooked. When the white man
came he sold his kettle to the stone-heaters, and henceforth the practice
disappeared, while the name it had given rise to remained--a name which
long after the final extinction of the tribe will still exist in the
River Assineboine and its surroundings. Nothing testifies more
conclusively to the varied changes and vicissitude's Indian tribes than
the presence of this branch of the Assineboine nation in the pine forests
of the Rocky Mountains. It is not yet a hundred years since the
"Ossinepoilles" were found by one of the earliest traders inhabiting the
country between the head of the Pasquayah or Saskatchewan and the
country of the Sioux, a stretch of territory fully 900 miles in length.
Twenty years later they still were numerous along the whole line of the
North Saskatchewan, and their lodges were at intervals seen along a
river line of 800 miles in length, but even then a great change had come
upon them. In 1780 the first epidemic of small-pox swept over the Western
plains, and almost annihilated the powerful Assineboines. The whole
central portion of the tribe was destroyed, but the outskirting portions
drew together and again made themselves a terror to trapper and trader.
In 1821 they were noted for their desperate forays, and for many years
later a fierce conflict raged between them and the Blackfeet; under the
leadership of a chief still famous in Indian story--Tehatka, or the
"Left-handed;" they for a long time more than held their own against
these redoubtable warriors. Tehatka was a medicine-man of the first
order, and by the exercise of his superior cunning and dream power he was
implicitly relied on by his followers; at length fortune deserted him,
and he fell in a bloody battle with the Gros Ventres near the Knife
River, a branch of the Missouri, in 1837. About the same date small-pox
again swept the tribe, and they almost disappeared from the prairies. The
Crees too pressed down from the North and East, and occupied a
great-portion of their territory; the Blackfeet smote them hard on the
south-west frontier; and thus, between foes and disease, the Assineboines
of to-day have dwindled down into far-scattered remnants of tribes.
Warned by the tradition of the frightful losses of earlier times from the
ravages of small-pox, the Assineboines this year kept far out in the
great central prairie along the coteau, and escaped the infection
altogether, but their cousins, the Rocky Mountain Stonies, were not so
fortunate, they lost some of their bravest men during the pre ceding
summer and autumn. Even under the changed circumstances of their present
lives, dwelling amidst the forests and rocks instead of in the plains and
open country, these Assineboines of the Mountains retain many of the
better characteristics of their race; they are brave and skilful men,
good hunters of red deer, moose, and big horn, and are still held in
dread by the Blackfeet, who rarely venture into their country. They are
well acquainted with the valleys and passes through the mountains, and
will probably take a horse over as rough ground as any men in the
creation.
At the ford on the Clear Water River, half a mile from the Mountain
House, a small clump of old pine-trees stands on the north side of the
stream. A few years ago a large band of Blood Indians camped round this
clump of pines during a trading expedition to the Mountain House. They
were under the leadership of two young chiefs, brothers. One evening a
dispute about some trifling matter arose, words ran high, there was a
flash of a scalping-knife, a plunge, and one brother reeled back with a
fearful gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent, and sat
down silent and impassive. The wounded man loaded his gun, and keeping
the fatal wound closed together with one hand walked steadily to his
brothers tent; pulling back the door-casing, he placed the muzzle of his
gun to the heart of the man who sat immovable all the time, and shot him
dead, then, removing his hand from his own mortal wound, he fell lifeless
beside his brother's body. They buried the two brothers in the same grave
by the shadow of the dark pine-trees. The band to which the chiefs
belonged broke up and moved away into the great plains--the reckoning of
blood had been paid, and the account was closed. Many tales of Indian war
and revenge could I tell--tales gleaned from trader and missionary and
voyageur, and told by camp-fire or distant trading post, but there is no
time to recount them now, a long period of travel lies before me and I
must away to enter upon it; the scattered thread must be gathered up and
tied together too quickly, perhaps, for the success of this wandering
story, but not an hour too soon for the success of another expedition
into a still farther and more friendless region. Eight days passed
pleasantly at the Mountain House; rambles by day into the neighbouring
hills, stories of Indian life and prairie scenes at the evening fire
filled up the time, and it was near mid-December before I thought of
moving my quarters.
The Mountain House is perhaps the most singular specimen of an Indian
trading post to be found in the wide territory of the Hudson Bay Company.
Every precaution known to the traders has been put in force to prevent
the possibility of surprise during "a trade." Bars and bolts and places
to fire down at the Indians who are trading abound in every direction; so
dreaded is the name borne by the Black feet, that it is thus their
trading post has been constructed. Some fifty years ago the Company had
a post far south on the Bow River in the very heart of the Blackfeet
country. Despite of all precautions it was frequently plundered And at
last burnt down by the Blackfeet, and since that date no attempt has ever
been made to erect another fort in their country.
Still, I believe the Blackfeet and their confederates are not nearly so
bad as they have been painted, those among the Hudson Bay Company who are
best acquainted with them are of the same opinion, and, to use the words
of Pe to-pee, or the Perched Eagle, to Dr. Hector in 1857, "We see but
little of the white man," he said, "and our young men do not know how to
behave; but if you come among us, the chiefs will restrain the young men,
for we have power over them. But look at the Crees, they have long lived
in the company of white men, and nevertheless they are just like dogs,
they try to bite when your head is turned--they have no manners; but the
Blackfeet have large hearts and they love to show hospitality." Without
going the length of Pe-to-pee in this estimate of the virtues of his
tribe, I am still of opinion that under proper management these wild
wandering men might be made trusty friends. We have been too much
inclined to believe all the bad things said of them by other tribes, and,
as they are at war with every nation around them, the wickedness of the
Blackfeet'has grown into a proverb among men. But to go back to the
trading house. When the Blackfeet arrive on a trading visit to the
Mountain House they usually come in large numbers, prepared for a brush
with either Crees or Stonies. The camp is formed at some distance from
the fort, and the braves, having piled their robes, leather, and
provisions on the backs of their wives or their horses, approach in long
cavalcade. The officer goes out to meet them, and the gates are closed.
Many speeches are made, and the chief, to show his "big heart," usually
piles on top of a horse a heterogeneous mass of buffalo robes, pemmican,
and dried meat, and hands horse and all he carries over to the trader.
After such a present no man can possibly enter tain for a moment a doubt
upon the subject of the big-heartedness of the donor, but if, in the
trade which ensues: after this present has been made, it should happen
that fifty horses are bought by the Company, not one of all the band will
cost so dear as that which demonstrates the large heartedness of the
brave.
Money-values are entirely unknown in these trades. The values of articles
are computed by "skins;" for instance, a horse will be reckoned at 60
skins; and these 60 skins will be given thus: a gun, 15 skins; a capote,
10 skins; a blanket, 10 skins; ball and powder, 10 skins; tobacco, 15
skins total, 60 skins. The Bull Ermine, or the Four Bears, or the Red
Daybreak, or whatever may be the brave's name, hands over the horse, and
gets in return a blanket, a gun, a capote, ball and powder, and tobacco.
The term "skin" is a very old one in the fur trade; the original
standard, the beaver skin or, as it was called, "the made beaver" was
the medium of exchange, and every other skin and article of trade was
graduated upon the scale of the beaver; thus a beaver, or a skin, was
reckoned equivalent to 1 mink skin, one marten was equal to 2 skins, one
black fox 20 skins, and so on; in the same manner, a blanket, a capote, a
gun, or a kettle had their different values in skins. This being
explained, we will now proceed with the trade.
Sapoomaxica, or the Big Crow's Foot, having demonstrated the bigness of
his heart, and received in return a tangible proof of the corresponding
size of the trader's, addresses his braves, cautioning them against
violence or rough behaviour. The braves, standing ready with their
peltries, are in a high state of excitement to begin the trade. Within
the fort all the preparations have been completed, communication cut off
between the Indian room and the rest of the buildings, guns placed up in
the loft overhead, and men all get ready for any thing that might turn
up; then the outer gate is thrown open, and a large throng enters the
Indian room. Three or four of the first-comers are now admitted through
a narrow passage into the trading-shop, from the shelves of which most
of the blankets, red cloth, and beads have been removed, for the red man
brought into the presence of so much finery would unfortunately behave
very much after the manner of a hungry boy put in immediate
juxtaposition to bath-buns, cream-cakes, and jam-fritters, to the
complete collapse of profit upon the trade to the Hudson Bay Company.
The first Indians admitted hand in their peltries through a wooden
grating, and receive in exchange so many blankets, beads, or strouds.
Out they go to the large hall where their comrades are anxiously
awaiting their turn, and in rush another batch, and the doors are locked
again. The reappearance of the fortunate braves with the much-coveted
articles of finery adds immensely to the excitement. What did they see
inside? "Oh, not much, only a few dozen blankets and a few guns, and a
little tea and sugar;" this is terrible news for the outsiders, and the
crush to get\in increases tenfold, under the belief that the good things
will all be gone. So the trade progresses, until at last all the
peltries and provisions have changed hands, and there is nothing more to
be traded; but some times things do not run quite so smoothly.
Sometimes, when the stock of pemmican or robes is small, the braves
object to see their "pile" go for a little parcel of tea or sugar. The
steelyard and weighing-balance are their especial objects of dislike.
"What for you put on one side tea or sugar, and on the other a little
bit of iron?" they say; "we don't know what that medicine is-but, look
here, put on one side of that thing that swings a bag of pemmican, and
put on the other side blankets and tea and sugar, and then, when the two
sides stop swinging, you take the bag of pemmican and we will take the
blankets and the tea: that would be fair, for one side will be as big as
the other." This is a very bright idea on the part of the Four Bears,
and elicits universal satisfaction all round. Four Bears and his
brethren are, however, a little bit put out of conceit when the trader
observes, "Well, let be as you say. We will make the balance swing
level between the bag of pemmican and the blankets, but we will carry
out the idea still further. You will put your marten skins and your
otter and fisher skins on one side, I will put against them on the other
my blankets, and my gun and ball and powder; then, when both sides are
level, you will take the ball and powder and the blankets, and I will
take the marten and the rest of the fine furs." This proposition throws
a new light upon the question of weighing-machines and steelyards, and,
after some little deliberation, it is resolved to abide by the old plan
of letting the white trader decide the weight himself in his own way,
for it is clear that the steelyard is a great medicine which no brave
can understand, and which can only be manipulated by a white
medicine-man.
This white medicine-man was in olden times a terrible demon in the eyes'
of the Indian. His power reached far into the plains; he possessed three
medicines of the very highest order: his heart could sing, demons sprung
from the light of his candle, and he had a little box stronger than the
strongest Indian. When a large band of the Blackfeet would assemble at
Edmonton, years ago, the Chief Factor would-win-dup his musical box, get
his magic lantern ready, and take out his galvanic battery. Imparting
with the last-named article a terrific shock to the frame of the Indian
chief, he would warn him that far out in the plains he could at will
inflict the same medicine upon him if he ever behaved badly. "Look," he
would say, "now my heart beats for you," then the spring of the little
musical box concealed under his coat would be touched, and lo! the heart
of the white trader would sing with the strength of his love for the
Blackfeet. "To-morrow I start to cross the mountains against the Nez
Perces," a chief would say, "what says my white brother, don't he dream
that my arm will be strong in battle, and that the scalps and horses of
the Nez Perces will be ours?" "I have dreamt that you are to draw one of
these two little sticks which I hold in my hand. If you draw the right
one, your arm will be strong, your eye keen, the horses of the Nez Perces
will be yours; but, listen, the fleetest horse must come to me; you will
have to give me the best steed in the band of the Nez Perces. Woe betide
you if you should draw the wrong stick!" Trembling with fear, the
Blackfoot would approach and draw the bit of wood. "My brother, you are a
great chief, you have drawn the right stick--your fortune is assured,
go." Three weeks later a magnificent horse, the pride of some Nez Perce
chief on the lower Columbia, would be led into the fort on the
Saskatchewan, and when next the Blackfoot chief came to visit the white
medicine-man a couple of freshly taken scalps would dangle from his spear
shaft.
In former times, when rum was used in the trade, the most frightful
scenes were in the habit of occurring in the Indian room. The fire-water,
although freely diluted with water soon reduced the assemblage to a state
of wild hilarity, quickly followed by stupidity and sleep. The fire-water
for the Crees was composed of three parts of water to one of spirit,
that of the Blackfeet, seven of water to one of spirit, but so potent is
the power which alcohol in any shape his well-diluted liquor, was wont to
become helplessly intoxicated. The trade usually began with a present
of-fire water all round--then the business went on apace. 'Horses, robes,
tents, provisions, all would be proffered for one more drink at the
beloved poison. Nothing could exceed the excitement inside the tent,
except it was the excitement outside. There the anxious crowd could only
learn by hearsay what was going on within. Now and then a brave, with an
amount of self-abnegation worthy of a better cause, would issue from the
tent with his cheeks distended and his mouth full of the fire-water, and
going along the ranks of his friends he would squirt a little of the
liquor into the open mouths of his less fortunate brethren.
But things did not always go so smoothly. Knives were wont to flash,
shots to be fired--even-now the walls of the Indian rooms at Fort Pitt
and Edmonton show many traces of bullet marks and knife hacking done in
the wild fury of the intoxicated savage. Some ten years ago this most
baneful distribution was stopped by the Hudson Bay Company in the
Saskatchewan district, but the free traders still continued to employ
alcohol as a means of acquiring the furs belonging to the Indians. I was
the bearer of an Order in Council from the Lieutenant-Governor
prohibiting, under heavy penalties, the sale, distribution, or possession
of alcohol, and this law, if hereafter enforced, will do much to remove
at least one leading source of Indian demoralization.
The universal passion for dress is strangely illustrated in the Western
Indian. His ideal of perfection is the English costume of some forty
years ago. The tall chimney-pot hat with round narrow brim, the coat with
high collar going up over the neck, sleeves tight-fitting, waist narrow.
All this is perfection, and the chief who can array himself in this
ancient garb struts out of the fort the envy and admiration of all
beholders. Sometimes the tall felt chimney-pot is graced by a large
feather which has done duty in the turban of a dowager thirty years ago
in England. The addition of a little gold tinsel to the coat collar is of
considerable consequence, but the presence of a nether garment is not at
all requisite to the completeness of the general get-up. For this most
ridiculous-looking costume a Blackfeet chief will readily exchange his
beautifully-dressed deerskin Indian shirt embroidered with porcupine
quills and ornamented with the raven locks of his enemies--his head-dress
of ermine skins, his flowing buffalo robe: a dress in which he looks
every inch a savage king for one in which he looks every inch a foolish
savage. But the new dress does not long survive--bit by bit it is found
unsuited to the wild work which its: owner has to perform; and although
it never loses the high estimate originally set upon it, it,
nevertheless, is discarded by virtue of the many inconveniences arising
out of running buffalo in'a tall beaver,-or fighting in a tail coat
against Crees.
During the days spent in the Mountain House I enjoyed the society of the
most enterprising and best informed missionary in the Indian countries-M.
la Combe. This gentleman, a native of Lower Canada, has devoted himself
for more than twenty years to the Blackfeet and Crees of the far-West,
sharing their sufferings, their hunts, their summer journeys, and their
winter camps--sharing even, unwillingly, their war forays and night
assaults. The devotion which he has evinced towards these poor wild
warriors has not been thrown away upon them, and Pèere la Combe is the
only man who can pass and repass from Blackfoot camp to Cree camp with
perfect impunity when these long-lasting enemies are at war. On one
occasion he was camped with a small party of Blackfeet south of the. Red
Deer River. It was night, and the lodges were silent and dark, all save
one, the lodge of the chief, who had invited the black-robe to his tent
for the night and was conversing with him as they lay on the buffalo
robes, while the fire in the centre of the lodge burned clear and bright.
Every thing was quiet, and no thought of war-party or lurking enemy was
entertained. Suddenly a small dog put his head into the lodge. A dog is
such an ordinary and inevitable nuisance in the camp of the Indians, that
the missionary never even noticed the partial intrusion. Not so the
Indian; he hissed out, "It is a Cree dog. We are surprised! run!" then,
catching his gun in one hand and dragging his wife by the other, he
darted from his tent into the darkness. Not one second too soon, for
instantly there crashed through the leather lodge some score of bullets,
and the wild war-whoop of the Crees broke forth through the sharp and
rapid detonation of many muskets. The Crees were upon them in force.
Darkness, and the want of a dashing leader on the part of the Crees,
Saved the Blackfeet from total destruction, for nothing could have helped
them had their enemies charged home; but as soon as the priest had
reached the open which he did when he saw how matters stood-he called
loudly to the Blackfeet not to run, but to stand and return the fire of
their attackers. This timely advice checked the onslaught of the Crees,
who were in numbers nmore than sufficient to make an end of the Blackfeet
party in a few minutes. Mean time, the Blackfeet Women delved busily in
the earth with knife and finger, while the men fired at random into the
darkness. The lighted, semi-transparent tent of the chief had given a
mark for the guns of the Crees; but that was quickly overturned, riddled'
with balls and although the Crees continued to fire without intermission,
their shots generally went high. Sometimes the Crees would charge boldly
up to within a few feet of their enemies, then fire and rush back again,
yelling all the time, and taunting their enemies. The père spent the
night in attending to the wounded Blackfeet. When day dawned the Crees
drew off to count their losses; but it was afterwards ascertained that
eighteen of their braves had been killed or wounded, and of the small
party of Blackfeet twenty had fallen--but who cared? Both sides kept
their scalps, and that was every thing.
This battle served not a little to increase the reputation in which the
missionary was held as a "great medicine-man." The Blackfeet ascribed to
his "medicine" what was really due to his pluck; and the Crees, when they
learnt that he had been with their enemies during the fight, at once
found in that fact a satisfactory explanation for the want of courage
they had displayed.
But it is time to quit the Mountain House, for winter has run on into
mid-December, and 1500 miles have yet to be travelled, but not travelled
towards the South. The most trusty guide, Piscan Munro, was away on the
plains; and as day after day passed by, making the snow a little deeper
and the cold a little colder, it was evident that the passage of the 400
miles intervening between the Mountain House and the nearest American
Fort had become almost an impossibility.