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It was one o£ these mornings of wonderful beauty with which one gets so familiar here when we started fromBattleford. A mist lay over the valleys of the Battle and the Saskatchewan, out of which the long train of horses emerged coming from the other side. Poor old Mosquito, the Cree chief, was sitting half naked smoking, his pipe, and shivering with cold, waiting to bid Lord Lorne an affectionate good-bye. There were seventy-five Cree tents, the occupants of every one of which were up and out watching the cortege as it swept by,The Eagle Hills, towards which we were making, and which surrounded Battleford at a distance of seven miles, were the highest rising ground which we had yet met ... On ascending these hills, we found ourselves on the level prairie. Although only twelve inches of rain had fallen at Battleford last year, the grass all along was rich and abundant, On reaching the steepe, or plateau, the change in the characterof the country was at once apparent. South and west stretched a great yellow circle, but with no wooded ridge,as formerly, on the horizon . . . Today, for the first time, we came upon a huge boulder about 15 feet high and 25 In circumference, which formed as much a landmark on the prairie as a lonely rock in the midst of the ocean. That plain became known among us afterwards as “boulder plain.We made 33 miles that first day, and had great difficulty in finding water to camp by. All day there were abundant traces of buffalo, the infallible proof of good grass. Round the place where we encamped It was rich and thick In the pile, and reached above the knees of a tall man, Most of the land passed that day was black mould,suitable for agriculture.After a bitterly cold night, we got up next morning at four, and found ice thick on our basins. We made twelve miles before breakfast, when we came quite unexpectedly on a valley 250 feet deep, in which three beautiful lakes lay glancing in the hot morning sunshine. But for its alkaline properties and foul stench, the principal lake might bear a happier name than the Devil’s Lake, regarding which the Indians have many curious traditions. They assert that once every year two pretty children are seen on a little island in the lake, where two young Indian girls, crossing on the ice,—onee cut the red horns of a strange animal that lived there. They were told hot to do it by two old women who also lived on the island; but, as Pound-maker said when he told the story, woman-like, they persisted—the result being that the strange animal in revenge broke the Ice, and all Indians on it were drowned.On ascending the opposite ridge to a height of 300 feet, the character of the country again changed, becoming almost hilly, rolling into high swellingridges covered to their summits with rich thick grass, in colour almost like a wheat field or golden yellow, or, more accurately, a raw sienna. Today and yesterday there has been a striking absence of muskegs and marshes. We crossed only one deep slough, in which one of the wagons stuck fast. Such lakes as we passed were mostly alkaline, and swarmed with ducks and water-fowl of every kind* affording excellent sport. After doing thirty-six miles in 7H hours' travel we encamped in grass as rich and thick asyesterday.The night was again bitterly cold. Next morning we were up at 4:30 and off at 6:00, passing through a country of low grassy hills; a wolf crossed our trail, but too far off for a shot. We had to hunt two hours before finding water for breakfast, and then, as almost always, it was out of a dirty hog. Many a meal had been made and enjoyed out of water taken from muddy and sedgy holes covered thick with green slime, where a farmer at home would never dream of watering his cattle. We have been often thankful to get water anywhere and In any condition, provided it was not alkaline. Today, for instance, the water for washing and for cooking was the same. It was as thick as It could hold of small water worms. The only filtering which time allows for cooking purposes Is straining It through a cloth or towel. If very bad, It is then put In? to a barrel, the spigot of which forms an admirable filter. It is a small metal globe, filled with finely ground quartz, which can be refilled as often as necessary, and Which, while it has no purifying power like charcoal, effectually keeps back filth and Insects.It must not be supposed that either for Lord Lorne or for those who are with him this prairie life is all play and holiday. To have to get up and dress in a tent in a freezing temperature at four in the morning, and after a cup of hot tea, taken standing and shivering round a camp fire; to bo pol-ted for two or three hours before breakfast with your feet half-frozen;to get through thirty or forty miles of this terrible jolting day after day; and to be tortured by mosquitoes morning, noon, and night — is notcrild’s play. Still, it is a life enjoyable in the highest degree. Tho sound sleop due to a mosquito net, a buffalo bag* and a large amount of fatigue is a rich reward for a toilsome day.There is nothing more characteristicof these immense rolling plains than their solitariness, their almost total absence of life, even of bird and Insect life. With such rare exceptions as I have noted, or may note, no herds of deer, or buffalo, or oxen, or wild boar, or wild horse, roam over these fertile and boundless pastures. The tiny gopher or ground squirrel, the muskrat, the badger, the coyote or prairie wolf, are almost the only animals we have seen, and the last two very seldom. More extraordinary still,only twice In 35 days did we come across a hare or a rabbit. Wild-fowl, as I have said, swarm in the lakes. Great flocks of wild geese were sometimes seen on their morning march to the south, but so shy that only one was killed- The tall sand crane was also seen, but never within shot. In all, SO prairie fowl or grouse, 300 ducks, 20 snipe, 1 goose, 2 jackass rabbits—half rabbit half mountain hare—3 buffalo,S gold-eyes, and 55 trout, were killed on the march; there was no time, except at the halts, allowed for sport.At two o'clock, after passing somesand bunkers, not unlike those on the*links at St, Andrews, we came to a sandy ridge, and wooded because sandy. Rs Indian name, Che-pey-mL- _ nas-quy-an, means Dead Man’s Bluff, v because there a few years ago a party of Crees were all but annihilated by 1 the scourge of smallpox. Two Crees, * ambitious of that proudest ornament r of an Indian dress, a human scalp or t two, had entered a Blakfeet lodge a and scalped the men whom smallpox, n and not their tomahawks, had slain; a and this was nature's revenge. vOur camp was pitched at the south- s east corner of Sounding Lake, one of the points of our journey, and so tl named from the sounds of buffalo t which the Indians believe they hear t coming from the water. The soil, a shortly after breakfast today, began \to get thin and poor, with fertile i1 spaces between, and just before reach- f ing camp we passed the only really arid i tract found in the entire journey. It i
Newspaper Details
Wainwright Star Chronicle
Wainwright, Alberta, CA
Wed, Nov 04, 1964
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Kevin S.
CA 23 Mar 2022
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