The afflictions of the earlier
Selkirk settlers were increased by the arrival of these settlers. With
the Selkirk settlers in their first decade the first consideration was
always food. Till that question is settled no Colony can advance.
Probably the most alarming and hopeless feature of their new colonial
life was the appearance of vast flights of locusts or grasshoppers,
which devoured every blade of wheat and grass in the country. To those
who have never seen this plague it is inconceivable. Some thirty-five
years ago in Manitoba the writer witnessed the utter devastation of the
country by these pests. Some thirteen years before the coming of the
first Colonists this plague prevailed. About the end of July, 1818,
these riders of the air made their attack. In this year the Selkirk
Colonists were greatly discouraged by the capture and removal to Canada,
by the Nor'-Westers, of Mr. James Sutherland, their spiritual guide. But
their labors now seem likely to be rewarded by a good harvest. The oats
and barley were in ear, when suddenly the invasion came. The vast clouds
of grasshoppers sailing northward from the great Utah desert in the
United States, alighted late in the afternoon of one day and in the
morning fields of grain, gardens with their promise, and every herb in
the Settlement were gone, and a waste like a blasted hearth remained
behind.
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