The Great Lone Land / A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America

by Sir William Francis Butler

On the night of the 19th of February we made our last camp on the ridge to the south of Lake Manitoba, fifty miles from Fort Garry. Not without a feeling of regret was the old work gone through for the last time--the old work of tree-cutting, and fire-making, and supper-frying, and dog-feeding. Once more I had reached those confines of civilization on whose limits four months earlier I had made my first camp on the shivering Prairie of the Lonely Grave; then the long journey lay before me, now the unnumbered scenes of nigh 3000 miles of travel were spread out in that picture which memory sees in the embers of slow-burning fires, when the night-wind speaks in dreamy tones to the willow branches and waving grasses. And if there be those among my readers who can il comprehend such feelings, seeing only in this return the escape from savagery to civilization--from the wild Indian to the Anglo-American, from the life of toil and hardship to that of rest and comfort-then words would be useless to throw light upon the matter, or to better enable such men to understand that it was possible to look back with keen regret to the wild days of the forest and the prairie. Natures, no matter how we may mould them beneath the uniform pressure of the great machine called civilization, are not all alike, and many men's minds echo in some shape or other the voice of the Kirghis woman, which says, "Man must keep moving; for, behold, sun, moon, stars, water, beast, bird, fish, all are in movement: it is but the dead and the earth that remain in one place."

There are many who have seen a prisoned lark sitting on its perch, looking listlessly through the bars, from some brick wall against which its cage was hung; but at times, when the spring comes round, and a bit of grassy earth is put into the narrow cage, and, in spite of smoke and mist, the blue sky looks a moment on the foul face of the city, the little prisoner dreams himself free, and, with eyes fixed on the blue sky and feet clasping the tiny turf of green sod, he pours forth into the dirty street those notes which nature taught him in the never-to-be-forgotten days of boundless freedom. So I have seen an Indian, far down in Canada, listlessly watching the vista of a broad river whose waters and whose shores once owned the dominion of his race; and when I told him of regions where his brothers still built their lodges midst the wandering herds of the stupendous wilds, far away towards that setting sun upon 'which his eyes were fixed, there came a change over his listless look, and when he spoke in answer there was in his voice an echo from that bygone time when the Five Nations were a mighty power on the shores of the Great Lakes. Nor are such as these the only prisoners of our civilization. He who has once tasted the unworded freedom of the Western wilds must ever feel a sense of constraint within the boundaries of civilized life. The Russian is not the only man who has the Tartar close underneath his skin. That Indian idea of the earth being free to all men catches quick and lasting hold of the imagination--the mind widens out to grasp the reality of the lone space and cannot shrink again to suit the requirements of fenced divisions. There is a strange fascination in the idea, "Wheresoever my horse wanders there is my home;" stronger perhaps is that thought than any allurement of wealth, or power, or possession given us by life. Nor can after-time ever wholly remove it; midst the smoke and hum of cities, midst the prayer of churches, in street or salon, it needs but little cause to recall again to the wanderer the image of the immense meadows where, far away at the portals of the setting sun, lies the Great Lone Land.

It is time to close. It was my lot to shift the scene of life with curious rapidity. In a shorter space of time than it had taken to traverse the length of the Saskatchewan, I stood by the banks of that river whose proud city had just paid the price of conquest in blood and ruin--yet I witnessed a still heavier ransom than that paid to German robbers. I saw the blank windows of the Tuileries red with the light of flames fed from five hundred years of history, and the flagged courtyard of La Roquette running deep in the blood of Frenchmen spilt by France, while the common enemy smoked and laughed, leaning on the ramparts of St. Denis.

APPENDIX.

GOVERNOR ARCHIBALD'S INSTRUCTIONS.

Fort Garry, 10th October, 1870.

W. F. Butler, Esq., 69th Regiment.

SIR,--Adverting to the interviews between his honour the Lieutenant-Governor and yourself on the subject of the proposed mission to the Saskatchewan, I have it now in command to acquaint you with the objects his honour has in view in asking you to undertake the mission, and also to define the duties he desires you to perform.

In the first place, I am to say that representations have been made from various quarters that within the last two years much disorder has prevailed in the settlements along the line of the Saskatchewan, and that the local authorities are utterly powerless for the protection of life and property within that region. It is asserted to be absolutely necessary for the protection, not only of the Hudson Bay Company's Forts, but for the safety of the settlements along the river, that a small body of troops should be sent to some of the forts of the Hudson Bay Company, to assist the local authorities in the maintenance of peace and order.