Day and night, with change of men, our scow kept on down this slow-currented and tortuous stream. The only stop was to take on wood for our cooking stove. Here I learned to like pemmican.
CHAPTER VII.
From Georgetown on the Red to Norway House on the Nelson—Old Fort Garry—Governor MacTavish—York boats—Indian gamblers—Welcome by H. B. Co. people.
I think it was the sixth day out from Georgetown that we again entered Canada. Late in the evening of the eighth day we rounded the point at the mouth of the Assiniboine, and landed at Fort Garry.
It was raining hard, and mud was plentiful.
I climbed the banks and saw the walls and bastions of the fort, and looked out northward on the plains and saw one house.
Where that house stood, now stands the city of Winnipeg.
Fortunately for us a brigade of York boats was then loading to descend the rivers and lakes, and cross the many portages to York Factory on Hudson's Bay.
Father lost no time in securing a passage in one of these, which was to start the next morning. In the meantime, Governor MacTavish invited father and mother and sisters to quarters in his own home for the night.