The Public Archives of Canada at Ottawa contain the following
characteristic description of a Red River Caravan from the old Selkirk
Settlement, as printed in the _Wisconsin Herald_ of September 15th,
1847:
"On the 10th of July, there appeared at the village of St. Paul, on the
Upper Mississippi, the most novel and original caravan that has ever
appeared since Noah's ark was evacuated. Our readers are aware that
there is an isolated settlement of several thousand inhabitants in a
high latitude of British North America, known as the 'Selkirk
Settlement.' Cut off from the commerce of the world, they rely entirely
upon their own resources, their farms, their flocks and fishing for
support--being a community, so to speak, of Robinson Crusoes. Their
crops having failed the last two seasons, they have been forced to
break out of the wilds again and seek food in the markets of the great
brawling world. Formerly their chief point of contact with commerce was
Toronto; but now, owing to the increase of supplies on the Upper
Mississippi, and the abundance of game and forage on that route, they
trade at St. Paul, and the head of steamboat navigation on the
Mississippi River.
"Into St. Paul they came, on the 10th of July, a caravan of one hundred
and twenty carts, in a single file, wearily moving along by moonlight.
Long after the head of the caravan had reached the village, the
lengthened train of followers could be seen moving over the undulating
prairie, partly visible and partly hidden between the billowy ridges of
the extended plain, crawling onward like some huge serpent, the extreme
rear still invisible and partly hidden in the dimness of the distance.
They had travelled southward over the prairie six hundred miles, having
been nineteen days on their way, through a region abounding in
buffaloes--encamping at night in a tent, around which the carts were
drawn in a circle, to fence in the cattle.... They brought along a large
elk, a bear, and some other animals they had captured on their way--and
many packages of furs. They had a very choice lot of buffalo robes, well
dressed, which they sold at St. Paul by the lot at $3.50 each.
"They had with them also an abundance of specie, and waited a few days
at St. Paul for the arrival of a steamboat load of flour and groceries.
The caravan was made up of men and boys of all ages, kindreds, tongues
and complexions.... Their dresses were as various as could be imagined,
being uniform in only a single article of apparel--all wore moccasins.
The carts were made wholly of wood and hides, the hubs being covered
with bandages of green hide, drawn on while soft and then shrinking
until they became nearly as tight as bands of iron. Some of these odd
two-wheeled vehicles were drawn by little horses, and others by oxen,
each animal--horse or ox--being geared in a harness of green hide. They
are now again on their way back to the frozen wilds of the North, many
of them probably never again to commune with the great world."