Pioneers in Canada

by Harry Johnston

"Just as I came up to him at full speed and prepared to fire, my horse suddenly stopped. The bull had turned about to face my horse, which was naturally afraid of buffaloes, and startled at such a frightful object; he leaped to one side to avoid the bull. As I was not prepared for this I was pitched over his head, and fell within a few yards of the bull's nose; but fortunately for me he paid no more attention to my horse than to me. The grass was long, and I lay quiet until a favourable opportunity offered as he presented his placotte. I discharged both barrels of my double gun at him; he turned and made one plunge toward me, but had not time to repeat it before he fell, with his nose not more than three paces off.... I had to return on foot as my horse had bolted."

At this place—near the Red River (the season September)—the country swarmed with big game such as North America will never see any more: enormous numbers of bison, of wapiti or Canadian red deer, moose or elk, prong-buck, and of grizzly bears and black bears who followed the herds to attack them. The rivers swarmed with otters and beavers. The ground along the banks of the river was worn into a smooth, hard pavement by the hoofs of the thousands of buffaloes. Racoons, red foxes, wolves, and pumas frequented the bush country and the chumps of forest. A large white wolf, prowling rather imprudently, came within a few yards of Henry, and was shot dead. "We observed on the opposite beach no fewer than seven bears drinking all at the same time. Red deer were whistling in every direction, but our minds were not sufficiently at ease to enjoy our situation." Large flocks of swans (Cygnus columbianus) rose out of the Red River apparently in a state of alarm and confusion, possibly caused by the many herds of buffaloes rushing down to the river to drink. At night everything was quiet except the bellowing of buffaloes and the whistling of red deer. "I climbed up a tall oak at the entrance of the plain, from the top of which I had an extensive view of the country. Buffalo and red deer were everywhere in sight passing to and fro."

But the prairie had its nuisances as well as its wonders of animal life. From the end of April to the end of July the woods and grass swarmed with ticks (Ixodes), which covered the clothes of the Europeans and entered their ears and there caused serious inflammations. They would in time get such a firm hold by the insertion of their heads into the skin that they could not be removed without pulling the body from the head, which caused a terrible itching lasting for months. If left alone they adhered to the flesh until they swelled to the size of a musket ball, when they fell off of themselves. In the summertime gadflies were exasperating in their attacks on men and cattle. Mosquitoes were a veritable plague, and midges also, between June and the end of September.

Not the least of the terrors of life in the far north-west in those days was the vermin that collected in the houses or huts built for a winter sojourn. It is frequently mentioned, in the records of the pioneers, how the lodges or tents of the Amerindians swarmed with fleas and lice. Henry notes on the 19th of April, 1803: "The men began to demolish our dwelling houses, which were built of bad wood, and to build new ones of oak. The nests of mice we found, and the swarms of fleas hopping in every direction, were astonishing."

Henry reached the Pacific coast in 1814, by way of the Kootenay, Spokane, and Columbia River route, which had been discovered by David Thompson. He describes well the forests of remarkable trees on this portion of the Pacific coast, opposite the south end of Vancouver Island: the crooked oaks loaded with mistletoe, the tall wild cherry trees, the hazels with trunks thicker than a man's thigh, the evergreen arbutus, the bracken fern, blackberries, and black raspberries; and the game in these glades of trees and fern: small Columbian Mazama deer, large lynxes, bears, gluttons, wolves, foxes, racoons, and squirrels. Overhead soared huge Californian condors (Pseudogryphus).

Henry was drowned in 1812 in the estuary of the Columbia River, through the capsizing of a boat.

The question of the identity of the great river flowing to the Pacific from near the headwaters of the Peace—the river which Mackenzie had discovered and been forced to leave—was finally decided by SIMON FRASER, one of the most celebrated among the North-west Company's pioneers. Like Mackenzie, he believed this stream to be the upper Columbia.

Accompanied by John Stuart and Jules Quesnel, he left the Fraser River at its junction with the Nechaco on May 22, 1807, and, keeping as near as he could to the course of the river, found himself in the country of the Atna tribe, Amerindians of a diminutive size but active appearance, from whom he obtained an invaluable guide and faithful interpreter, Little Fellow, but for whose bravery, wise advice, and clever diplomacy the journey must have ended in disaster or disappointment—a remark which might be made about nearly all the Amerindian guides of the pioneers.

The Atna Indians were dressed in skins with the hair outside, and were armed with bows and arrows. They besmeared their bodies with fish oil and red earth, and painted their faces in different colours. Bison were quite unknown to them, being very seldom found in those latitudes on the western side of the Rocky Mountains. The country of the Atna Indians on the upper Fraser abounded in elk, wapiti, reindeer, bighorn sheep, mountain goats,[2] and beaver.

Here is a description by Fraser of some of the rapids in the upper part of the river named after him.