Saddle, Sled and Snowshoe: Pioneering on the Saskatchewan in the Sixties

by John McDougall

This was my second run after buffalo. My first shot was a miss, and loading again I fired, only to miss again. I blamed badger-holes and brush and dust, but lack of experience was what did it. I had killed in my first race, but did not in my second. My horse was good, my gun, though single shot, was sure. It was my fault, and I felt it keenly. Peter also did not kill in that race—indeed, he was thankful, as was I, that he was not killed; but Joseph and Jack made up for it, and we were busy all the rest of the evening butchering and hauling in to where we camped for the night.

We were now in the short day and long night season, which in these northern latitudes is especially marked. Moreover the nights were cold, and we must have a big camp-fire. So we got well down between the bluffs, in order that the glare of our fire would be hidden as much as possible, and arranged our carts around the camp so that these would act as a kind of barricade in case of attack. Tying our oxen up to ruminate on the grass they had eaten this day, and fall back on the fat they had made during the summer, we tethered our horses close, and alternating on guard over them, the balance busied themselves around the camp, putting away the meat and cooking supper.

This latter process took hours to get through with, for everybody had his choice bit to roast. The cook for the evening would have a whole side of ribs swinging before the fire, and when these were cooked the ribs were parted along the whole length, and each man took one. When he had picked it clean he either turned his attention to his own independent roast, or took another rib. One had brought the head in, though generally when you took the tongue out you left the head for the wolves. Another had two or three fathoms of entrails, which he cleaned with fire, and then roasted, and cutting them up in lengths, passed these around to his friends. Another had a large piece of the stomach or tripe, which he also cleaned with fire, and relished as a favorite morsel. Still another was cracking marrow bones, and eating the marrow. Thus supper was prolonged far beyond the usual time. When those whose turn it was to sleep felt it was bed-time, we would sing a hymn, and father lead in prayer, then the bed-making began. With old hands this commenced by piling saddles and camp equipment, or logs of wood, behind the head and on each side of where you were going to sleep, for experience had taught these wary fellows that many a bullet and arrow had been stopped, or made to glance off, by such simple precautions. Fresh guards set, the rest lay down with clothes and moccasins on, so as to be ready to jump at any time, having carefully looked to arms before doing so.

The next day we finished loading up and started homewards, but had not gone far when one of the oxen, with his heavily loaded cart, ran foul of our waggon and broke one of its axles. Fortunately there were some birch trees about a couple of miles from us, and father and one of the Indians rode over, and brought two sticks capable of being made into axles. An accident of this kind under ordinary circumstances would be a small thing, but with our lack of tools it meant something to fit a waggon axle. However, Peter and father fixed it up, and on we went, travelling early and late, which, by the way, is no light work, but sometimes exceedingly hard on flesh and blood. To start out from your camp-fire long before daylight on a cold, frosty morning, and perhaps have to break the new-made ice on some creek by jumping into it yourself in order to lead your carts safely across, and then to go on wet as well as cold—I say again, that this was felt to be very hard work by some of our party. Nevertheless, doing it, and keeping at it, we were back at the Saskatchewan on the thirteenth day from the start. Then we had to unload and take everything over in a small skiff, reload again and haul up to our staging, which at this season was a better place to keep the meat than in a store-house.

A great change had come over the place since we left. Hundreds of lodges now dotted the valley, and Mr. Woolsey and Maskepetoon had been very busy keeping the camp in order. A great many Plain Crees were here mixed up with our quieter Wood Crees, and war parties were coming and going all the time. Mother and my sisters, though among Indians for many years—in fact, the girls had spent all their lives among them—had never seen anything like this before. Men and women would crowd around the little temporary mission house, and in full savage costume, and with faces painted in divers colors, peer into the windows, and darken the door, and look with the greatest curiosity on the white woman and her children.

Paganism was rife. Conjuring and gambling were going on night and day. Dance feasts, and dog feasts, and wolf feasts, and new lodge dedication feasts were everyday occurrences. I was invited to join in one of the latter, by a Plain Cree, a warrior and a polygamist, and a dandy of the first circle, who had taken a fancy for me. His name was peculiar, and he, being a sleek and fine-looking fellow, most certainly belied it. "The Starving Young Bull" was the gentleman who honored me with an invitation to be present at the dedication feast of his new lodge, now about finished; and these new lodges were gorgeous things in their way. The twenty or more buffalo skins had been dressed soft and white as possible and then cut into shape by some pattern carried in the brain of one of the older women; then at a bee of women, where also a feast was provided, the skins were sewn together with the sinews of the buffalo, and when the new tent, tasseled with the tail of the same animal, was fully set, then the artist friends, or the proprietor himself, went to work to paint upon its outside walls the achievements of the warrior and hunter—scenes of plunder, blood, etc., military prowess, medicinal lore—so that in approaching a tent you could read the degree and dignity of the man you were about to visit.

I accepted Mr. Starving Young Bull's kind invitation, and was on hand at the time he had indicated. "Just as the day is departing," was the hour he fixed. There may have been forty or more guests. We sat in a ring around the tent. Each man had before him his own dish, which he had brought with him, and when these had been heaped up with buffalo dainties and dried berries, four old conjurers, who sat at the head of the tent, each dressed in accord with the instructions of the "spirit of his dream," now began the dedication service. First the oldest conjurer took the big medicine pipe, with the long stem. This had been previously filled, and as he solemnly held it in both hands, another with his knife placed a live coal on the contents of the pipe. This done, the old man pulled at it until it was fairly alight, and then held the stem heavenwards, at the same time muttering what to us were unintelligible sounds. Next he pointed the stem to the earth, then slowly moved it around with the sun, and taking another whiff or two, passed it to his fellow-conjurers, who each in turn took long pulls at the big pipe. After this the four took their sacred rattles and began to sing and incant, keeping time with the rattles. Then they all began to speak in an unknown language, or as it is literally translated, "using a different language." When through with this, the old man in the language of the people (which I could understand) offered up a prayer—or rather expressed a wish—

"that this tent might be blessed; that its occupants might be prospered; that the owner, in his going out and coming in, whether for hunting or war, might be successful; that the kettles of the women of this tent might always boil with plenty; that the pipe of the owner might always be full;"

all of which was responded to by the guests. Then we devoted ourselves to the feast, eating much or little as we chose, and taking home with us what we did not eat.

In the midst of all these old institutions and rites, which these people had been bred in for centuries, our missionaries were hard at work, sowing the seeds of a brighter and better faith. Meetings and councils followed each other in quick succession, and early and late father and Mr. Woolsey were busy preaching the Gospel of Christianity and civilization to these men to whom they had been sent. In all this they were nobly backed by Maskepetoon, and such men as Stephen, and his son Joseph, Thomas Woolsey—a fine fellow, to whom Mr. Woolsey had given his name—and others who had already experienced the religion of the Lord Jesus, and were going on to know more of it.