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Through the Mackenzie Basin Charles Mair The Project Gutenberg EBook of Through the Mackenzie Basin, by Charles Mair This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Through the Mackenzie Basin A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 Author: Charles Mair Release Date: June 9, 2004 [EBook #12569] Language: English Character set encoding: Unicode UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN *** Prepared by Arthur Wendover and Andrew Sly. Through the Mackenzie Basin A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 By Charles Mair To the Hon. David Laird Leader of the Treaty Expedition of 1899 This Record is Cordially Inscribed By His Old Friend the Author CONTENTS Introduction Important events of the year 1857--The _Nor'-Wester_ newspaper--The Duke of Newcastle and the Hudson's Bay Co.'s Charter--The "Anglo-International Financial Association"--The New Hudson's Bay Company--Offers of American capitalists to purchase the Company's interests--Bill providing for purchase of the same introduced into the United States Congress--Senator Sumner's memorandum to Secretary Fish--Various efforts to arouse public interest in the Hudson's Bay Territories--Former Treaties with the Indians--Motives for treating with the Indians of Athabasca--Rush of miners and prospectors into the district--The Indian Treaty and Half-breed Commission--The Royal North-West Mounted Police Contingent--Special stipulations with the Indians provided for. Chapter I From Edmonton To Lesser Slave Lake Arrival of Treaty and Half-breed Commissions at Edmonton--Departure for Athabasca Landing--Tawutináow peat beds, etc.--Arrival at the Landing--The gas well there--Boats and trackers--Mr. d'Eschambault and Pierre Cyr--Non-arrival of trackers--Police contingent volunteers to track a boat to Lesser Slave Lake--Nature of country, burnt forests, muskegs, etc.--Tracking; its difficulties--The old Indian tracker Peokus--Forest and river scenery--Placer mining--Absence of life along the river--Fertile soil. Chapter II Lesser Slave River And Lesser Slave Lake Lesser Slave River--Its proper name--Migration of the great Algic race--Bishop Grouard's service in the wilderness--Returning Klondikers--The rapids; poling--Accident to Peokus--Celebration of Père Lacombe's fiftieth year of missionary labors--Arrival of half-breed trackers from Lesser Slave Lake--Great hay meadows on the Lesser Slave River--The island in Lesser Slave Lake--Trackers' gambling games--Swan River--A dangerous squall--Chief Factor Shaw--A free-traders' village. Chapter III Treaty At Lesser Slave Lake The Treaty point at last--Our camp at Lesser Slave Lake--The Treaty ground and assembly--"Civilized" Indians--Keenooshayo and Moostoos--The Treaty proceedings--The Treaty Commissioners separate--Vermilion and Fort Chipewyan treaties--Indian chief asks for a railway--Wahpoośkow Treaty--McKenna and Ross set out for Home--Commission issued to J. A. Macrae--Numbers of Indians treated with. Chapter IV The Half-Breed Scrip Commission The half-breeds collect at Lesser Slave Lake--They decide upon cash, scrip or nothing--Honesty of the half-breeds and Indians--Ease of parturition amongst their women--Cree family names and their significance--Catherine Bisson--Native traits--The mongrel dog--Gambling and dancing--The "Red River jig". Chapter V Resources Of Lesser Slave Lake Region Indian lunatics: The Weeghteko--Treatment of lunatics in old Upper Canada--Lesser Slave Lake fisheries--Stock-raising at the lake--Prairies of the region--The region once a buffalo country--Quality of the soil--Wheat and roots and vegetables--Unwise to settle in large numbers in the country at present--The "blind pig"--A native row. Chapter VI On The Trail To Peace River On the trail to Peace River--The South Heart River--Good farming lands--The Little Prairie--Peace River Crossing--The vast banks of the Peace a country in themselves--Wild fruits--Prospectors from the Selwyn Mountains--The Poker Flat Mining Camp--Buffalo paths and wallows--Magnificent prairies between Peace River Landing and Fort Dunvegan--Fort Dunvegan--Sir George Simpson and Colin Fraser--Some townships blocked here--The Roman Catholic Mission--Baffled miners returning--The natives of Dunvegan--Relics of the old régime--Large families the rule--The Church missions--Back to Peace River Crossing--Tepees, tents and trading stores--Mr. Alexander Mackenzie--The sites of old fur posts--Indian names of the Peace River--Description of the agricultural and other resources of the Upper Peace River--The Chinook winds--Grand Prairie--Rainfall scanty on prairies throughout the River--Lack of waggon roads and trail facilities. Chapter VII Down The Peace River The descent of the Peace River--Wolverine Point--A good farming country--Paddle River and Keg of Rum River prairies--Heavy spruce forests here--Vermilion settlement--The Lawrence family and farm--Extensive wheat fields--Cattle and hog raising--Locusts--Symptoms of volcanic action--Old Lizotte and old King Beaulieu--The Chutes of Peace River--The Red River; its rich soil and prairies--Peace Point--A wild goose chase--The Gargantuan feasts of Peace River--The Quatre Fourches--Athabasca Lake. Chapter VIII Fort Chipewyan To Fort McMurray Fort Chipewyan and Athabasca Lake--Colin Fraser's trading-post--The Barren Ground reindeer--Feathered land game--The Indians of Fond du Lac--Mineral resources--First companies formed to prospect the Great Slave Lake minerals--The Helpman party--The Yukon Valley Prospecting and Mining Company--Assays of copper ore--A great mineral country--A railway required from Chesterfield Inlet to develop it--Moss of the Banner Lands--Lake Athabasca the rallying place of the Déné race--Meaning of Indian generic names--"Mackenzie's country"--Its first traders--The North-West Company--The original Indians--The mastodon believed by the natives to exist--Return of Klondikers from Mackenzie River--Their bad conduct--By steamer _Grahame_ to Fort McMurray--Killing a moose--Fort McMurray. Chapter IX The Athabasca River Region The tar-banks--Characteristic features of the river--The rapids of the Athabasca--The cut-banks--A freshet--A fine camp--The "Indian lop-stick"--The natural gas springs--Grand Rapids--Coal abundant--Good farming country--The Point at House River--The Joli Fou Rapid--Bad tracking--Pelican Portage--Spouting gas well--Matcheese, the Indian runner. Chapter X The Trip To Wahpoośkow The Pelican River--Poling and paddling--Character of the river and country--Great hay meadows--An Indian runner--The Pelican Mountains--Muskegs and rich soil--Pelican Lake the height of land--Abundance of fish--The first Wahpoośkow Lake--The second lake--Mission of Rev. C.R. Weaver--Other missions of the C.M.S.--Mission of the Rev. Father Giroux--Other Roman Catholic missions--Indians and half-breeds--The crows and the fish--A ball at Wahpoośkow--Farming land and muskeg in the district--Superstitions of the Indians--Polygamy and polyandry--The changing woods--The _fœx populi_--A little beauty--Calling River--Another ancient woman and her memories--Our return to Athabasca Landing. Conclusion Introduction The important events of A.D. 1857, and the negotiations which led to the Transfer of the Hudson's Bay Territories--Former Treaties and the Treaty Commission of 1899. The terms upon which Canada obtained her great possessions in the West are generally known, and much has been written regarding the tentative steps by which, after long years of waiting, she acquired them. The distinctively prairie, or southern, portion of the country and its outliers, constituting "Prince Rupert's Land," had been claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company since May, 1670, as an absolute freehold. This and the North-West Territories, in which, under terminable lease from the Crown, the Company exercised, as in British Columbia, exclusive rights to trade only, were, as the reader knows, transferred to Canada by Imperial sanction at the same time. It is not the author's intention, therefore, to cumber his pages with trite or irrelevant matter; yet certain transactions which preceded this primordial and greatest treaty of all not unfittingly may be set forth, though in the briefest way, as a pardonable introduction to the following record. The year 1857 was an eventful one in the annals of "The North-West," the name by which the Territories were generally known in Canada. [An important event in Red River was begot of the stirring incidents of this year, namely, the starting at Fort Garry, in December, 1859, by two gentlemen from Canada, Messrs. Buckingham and Caldwell, of the first newspaper printed in British territory east of British Columbia and west of Lake Superior. It was called the _Nor'-Wester_, but, having few advertisements, and only a limited circulation, the originators sold out to Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Schultz, who, at his own expense, published the paper, almost down to the Transfer, as an advocate of Canadian annexation, immigration and development.] In that year two expeditions were set afoot to explore the country; one in charge of Captain Palliser, [Strange to say, Captain Palliser reported that he considered a line of communication entirely through British territory, connecting the Eastern Provinces and British Columbia, out of the question, as the Astronomical Boundary adopted isolated the prairie country from Canada. Professor Hind, on the other hand, in the same year, standing on an eminence on the Qu'Appelle, beheld in imagination the smoke of the locomotive ascending from the train speeding over the prairies on its way through Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific.] equipped by the Imperial Government, and the other, under Professor Hind, at the expense of the Government of Canada.

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