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

by John McDougall

Like my father, Mr. Woolsey never presumed on a knowledge of the language, never gave the shortest or simplest kind of an address or sermon without an interpreter, never made the too frequent mistake of attempting to speak of sacred and important matters in an unknown tongue. He was considerable of a medicine man, too, and many a poor Indian was relieved and aided by his hearty help in this way. Among the Hudson's Bay Company's employees he had quite a name as a kind physician.

I have been Mr. Woolsey's interpreter, guide, and general "roust-about," his confidante and friend, for the past two years, and now he has gone into a far country; and as I look upon the valley, the scene of our association under strange and sometimes exciting circumstances, I feel a twinge of melancholy. But here are mother and sisters four, and little brother, and the evening passes quickly as we recount to each other the experiences of the summer.

The next day I started back with some fresh horses, and met our party coming along famously. For picking a road Peter is a genius, and all hands worked willingly in chopping out the road, brushing swamps, and bridging creeks. Late in the evening of the next day we rolled down the hill into the beautiful valley of the Saskatchewan at Victoria, ours the first carts to ascend the north side of that great river so far west as this point. Slowly the star of empire was moving in the line of destiny.

Fifty-six travelling days from Fort Garry—stock all right, carts sound, goods dry, and twenty-five pounds of flour still left in the bag we began on when we left the Red River settlements—such was our record, and father was pleased; and because he was pleased I was happy. I took the flour in to mother, and she and the children and Larsen luxuriated in hot rolls for supper. We unloaded the four sacks I had brought with me, and everybody felt good, for this seemed to us a great quantity at the time; though really, for our large party, taking into consideration, too, the fact that our house was the only one for miles, and that the Hudson's Bay Company officers and men, and brother missionaries, as well as occasional travellers and fur traders, stopped with us as they passed to and fro; that sometimes we had from five hundred to fifteen hundred Indians beside us, and more or less coming and going all the time, with many sick among these,—I say, when one thought of all this, the item of four hundred and nine pounds of flour for twelve months did not seem much. It was, however, the first time in the history of the place and vast surrounding country that so much breadstuff had been stored. Why, when you arithmetically calculated it, there was actually one and one-quarter pounds per day! No wonder mother saw a Christmas pudding, and no end of cake for the many sick folks to whom she so much delighted to minister. No wonder my sisters laughed, and the little baby brother gleefully shouted, "Cake! plenty cake!" If some of the pampered among men in centres of civilization, jaded with the ennui of plenty, had visited that lone mission on the evening of our arrival, they would have learned a lesson in the luxury of happiness that comes from contentment with little.

The cows I had bought were also a great source of comfort to our party. These assured us of milk and butter, and if other resources failed, of beef also. Of those who came with me from Red River, the Scotchman traded his cart and harness to father, and packing his horse went on to Edmonton, thence taking the trail through the Yellowhead Pass for British Columbia, never to be heard of by us since; Mr. Connor and his son concluded to winter beside us, and went to work putting up a shanty to live in. Thus our small English-speaking company was augmented by two more, for which we were very thankful.

One mishap had come upon us during my absence, in the burning of our saw-pit and saws, together with considerable lumber, by a forest and prairie fire which came in from the south "like the wolf on the fold." This was quite a set-back, as the getting out of lumber by hand is slow work.

I found that father and Mr. Steinhauer, with Peter, had made a long trip among the Mountain Stoneys. Our visit of the last fall had resulted in bringing about half of these down country, as far as the upper crossing of Battle River. There father and party met them, and spending a few days with that camp, continued their journey, and found the rest of these "sons of the mountains and foot hills" in a valley some forty miles north of where our mission at Morley now is. Father was full of this visit to the Stoneys. Their hearty reception of the missionaries, their earnest and joyous listening to the teachings of the Gospel, their appearance and demeanor, had won his ardent sympathy. Then the country they lived in—lovely valleys, springs of water, beautiful hills, and in the background immense ranges of majestic mountains—father declared the whole country was one great revelation to him of Canada's rich heritage in this vast North-West. He said he would do what he could to urge upon the Mission Board the need of establishing a mission among these mountain people.

Having more stock necessitated the making of more hay and providing more stable room; then we went to work at replacing the timber and lumber which had been burnt, for our purpose now was to build a church as soon as possible.

The large one-roomed shanty we had lived in the previous winter was our place of worship in the meantime, and when the weather permitted and the Indians were in from the plains, some central spot out on the prairie was chosen for open-air meetings. With the advance of autumn our Indian friends began to gather in to the mission. Maskepetoon's following of Wood Crees, or "mountain men," as they were called by the other Indians, were followed by many of the Plain Crees, and for days the river-banks and crossing in front of the mission-house were alive with humanities, in all stages of growth. Horses there were in many hundreds, of all colors and grades, and dogs, it would seem, by the thousand. Shoutings and neighings and howlings incessant broke the quiet of our valley, while the smoke of myriad lodges hung over the scene.

During the summer a number of skirmishes had taken place between the Crees and the Blackfeet. Scalps had been taken home and rejoiced over by both contending camps. Warriors had gone straight from the field of blood to the "Big Sand Hills," as the Blackfoot would say, or to the "Happier Spirit Land," and many a young fellow who had no horse last spring now rejoices in the ownership of a little band, the successful stealing of which gives him a place among men. These camps have been coming into the mission, while at the same time several parties have left the south to look for horses and scalps. As these return (if they ever do) they will follow straight into the mission, which will in time complicate us, and bring retaliatory measures to our very door; but as this is the condition of the times, we must take our chance, all the while laboring and praying for a better order of things.