He could tell
of all the feuds of tribe with tribe, and of the wonderful skill of the
Fur Companies in keeping order among the Indian bands. The Red River had
not, after the departure of the French, been visited by travellers for
well nigh forty years. No doubt bands of Indians had threaded the
waterways, and carried their furs in one year to Pigeon River, on Lake
Superior, or to Fort Churchill, or York Factory on Hudson Bay. It was
only some ten or fifteen years before the coming of the Selkirk
Colonists that the fur traders, though they for forty years had been
ascending the Saskatchewan, had visited Red River at all. No missionary
had up to the coming of the Colonists ever appeared on the banks of the
Red River. Some ten years before the settler's advent, the fur traders
on the upper Red River had most bitter rivalries and for two or three
years the fire water--the Indian's curse--flowed like a flood. The
danger appealed to the traders, and from a policy of mere
self-protection they had decided to give out no strong drink, unless it
might be a slight allowance at Christmas and New Year's time. Red River
was now the central meeting place of four of the great Indian Nations.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26