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.