Hugh O'Lone & The Red Saloon

Hugh O'Lone, 1870

Kootenai Brown,1895

John George "Kootenai" Brown's reference to “Bob O'Lone” in his memoir, "I Remember" ... is interesting, for in the famous portrait of Louis Riel and his Council of 1869-70, early descriptions of the photo identified Bob O’Lone as the man seated in the front row to Riel’s right. This version of the photo was incorporated into the works of many of the early Red River historians such as R. G. MacBeth. This figure was later correctly identified by G. F. G. Stanley as Hugh Francis "Bob" O’Lone. He was in the whisky business; he was “the American who ran a saloon in Winnipeg.” This was apparently the Red Saloon, recalled by A. C. Garrioch: “Three years later when the writer moved to St. John’s he found the Red Saloon contributing very considerably to the business of the little village.” Bob O’Lone had continued in the liquor business and was the proprietor: “No spot in Winnipeg was so often the scene of a drunken row as that occupied by the Red Saloon.”




A common misconception about Hugh Francis O'Lone is that he was the brother of a saloon keeper named Robert O‘Lone. In fact Hugh WAS the saloon keeper - his nickname was "Bob", and he did not have a brother named Robert.

Early Winnipeg; O'Lone's saloon, aka the Red Saloon, in center...

During this time, Brown lived the kind of dangerous life that tended to be his trademark. He was captured by Sitting Bull and only his wits and luck removed him from this delicate situation. He finished his contract with the U.S. Army in the spring of 1869, and then moved to Fort Burfurd, further to the west, in response to the quickly consolidating American frontier. His task was to maintain communications between Fort Burford, Fort Stevenson, and Fort Totten near Devil’s Lake. It was during the course of a parallel scouting assignment for the U.S. Army, headed by Major General W. S. Hancock, that Brown found himself in Pembina on the Red River in the fall of 1869.

Customers in front of the Red Saloon owned by Bob O’Lone, Red River, 1869.
Source: Archives of Manitoba

O'Lone participated in the 16 November 1869 Convention of Twenty-four. He enlisted as a 2nd Lieut. in the Settlement guard under Ambroise-Dydime Lépine. He was an Honourable Member of the Legislative Assembly of Assiniobia in the same capacity. In February of 1871 a notice of Hugh‘s impending demise appeared in the Manitoba News-letter, owned by John C. Schultz, a declared enemy of everything to do with the Provisional Government:

Badly Hurt.—Hugh O‘Lone (better known here as Bob), a General in the rebel force of last winter, got into an altercation with some American half-breeds at Pembina, about a fort-night ago, and got so severely hurt on the head that the U.S. Post-Surgeon at Pembina, declined to perform the Surgical operation necessary to ensure recovery without assistance. There being no medical man nearer than Fort Garry, assistance was sought here, and Dr. Turver went on Monday evening and gave the patient the benefit of his professional skill. 

On 7 March 1871 the Saint Paul Daily Pioneer reported that Hugh F.  "Bob" Olone had been killed by a blow to the head from a revolver in early January. In the opinion of historians such as A.H. de Trémaudan and Ruth Swan, O'Lone‘s death was one of several assassinations meted out not by Métis, but by Canadian troops after their arrival in August of 1870, as retribution for the execution of Thomas Scott.

Bibliography:

 - “Kootenai” Brown in the Red River Valley" by Graham A. MacDonald, Manitoba History, Number 30, Autumn 1995) 

 - Hon. Hugh Francis Olone, Town of Winnipeg; Do Canadian History blog, 7 March 2011.

Frederick A. Bailey: An NWMP 'Original'

Sgt. Fred Bailey
[Source:  RCMP Veterans Association,
Vancouver Division]

Let me introduce you to an ordinary man who happened to make a bit of local history by just doing what many in his day did - living life, making choices, taking risks.  

"This I believe is the diary of Frederick Bagley when he enlisted in the North-West Mounted Police as a trumpeteer at 15 years of age; They left Fort Dufferin in 1874 to secure the Medicine Line!" 

- J. Rempel

I will be sharing portions of that diary here on this blog at a later time. But for now, let us learn a bit about Sub-Constable Fred Bagley, Trumpeteer ...

According to a fascinating online biography (which I quote here in-full since so many such pages seem to disappear):

Fred Bagley’s musical talents and leadership provided a major contribution to the Force and to the communities he served in.

With regarding setting records, he was first in the following areas: 

a) being the youngest member to be sworn into the Force; 

b) first Trumpeteer in the Force; 

c) present to guard and witness the first person to be hung in the North-West Territories at Fort Saskatchewan; and 

d) first member to lead a musical performance before Royalty.

Line of Fire

Back in the day, just as now, lawmen worked together between Canada and America.  There was less red tape then, although that was there, too.  The excerpt below is about one of the early lawmen of our area, this time on the Canadian side of the 49th parallel.  He has been mentioned in passing before, in the story of Sheriff Charley Brown.  You could say he was Charley's counterpart over the line.

It's fun to learn more of his story, and the context.  We're very lucky to have this recounting - I have read that "virtually no documentation was preserved for the MPP"...

The North-West Mounted Police were not the only officers who made life difficult for bad men in the Canadian West. Even before the Mounties arrived on the prairies, the newly formed province of Manitoba organized a small, but effective, police force. The Manitoba Provincial Police began in 1870 with nineteen men. It was operated out of an old Winnipeg post office that was converted to a police station and courthouse. A log house behind the building was used for a jail. The force was poorly funded, so the officers had to provide their own firearms. They had no standard uniform. Within a few years, the department dwindled to a mere eight men. Some constables were dismissed for inappropriate behavior, such as public drunkenness, others resigned to seek better paying employment! 

In 1874, Richard Power, a twenty-three-year-old who had become an original member of the force at the age of nineteen, was made Head Constable - the equivalent of Chief of Police. The rapid decline in the force's number was only a part of the reason for this young man's promotion to such a position. Even before joining the MPP, he had allegedly served as a scout for the United States Cavalry. He was also a lieutenant in the Winnipeg militia. Power's contemporaries described him as "a fine looking man, magnificently proportioned, every inch a soldier with the courage that nothing could daunt. Power wore a Colt .45 with a nine-inch barrel, and a gunbelt that was always full of cartridges. Local newspapers called Power "a terror to evildoers." In A few short years, Power had shown himself to be a courageous and enthusiastic policeman. Some thought he might have been too enthusiastic. He had once been sharply reprimanded for shooting a Native during an arrest. 

By the time Power took command of the Manitoba Provincial Police, Winnipeg had been incorporated as a city and had its own police department. That left the rest of Manitoba under the eyes of Power and his tiny department. Power strategically placed men in the more populous settlements outside Winnipeg; towns like Selkirk and Kildonan. He kept a few men with him at his headquarters in Winnipeg. Most Manitoba communities had to depend on special constables - civilian volunteers - to keep the peace. If there was any real trouble, Power could send one of his constables out to see to the matter. The policing situation in rural Manitoba was not unlike that of rural Ontario and other points east. 

Manitoba, especially the country along the American border, was woefully under-policed, but the situation was same on the other side of the international line in the Dakota Territory. There was a sheriff in Pembina, just over the border, and another many miles away in Fargo. For those lawmen, just looking after their towns was a full-time job. They didn't have the resources, or manpower, to go chasing after the desperadoes who roamed the plains and hills of the Dakota country. Rustlers, gunmen, and other men on the dodge had only to keep out of the Sheriff's way to avoid arrest. With so much open country, that was not a hard thing to do. Moreover, American lawmen were often unwilling to apprehend fugitives wanted in Canada, unless there was a reward involved.

Hill Farms

Co-Workers of my Grandpa Fitzpatrick at
Humboldt Hill Farm:  'Illegal' Canadians?

We often hear about illegal aliens working in America nowadays.  We normally think of them as coming from Mexico, South America, or even refugees that have entered the country illegally.

This problem is nothing new.  About a century ago, Kittson County Sheriffs faced the same problem, except the illegal aliens were coming from the north - Canada.  The irony of it is, manpower was in short supply in the local area, and these Canadian men were more than willing to work, yet the law sought to kick them out back to Canada.

In two cases involving Canadian employees on the Red River Valley estates, Hill tried and failed to leverage support from Minnesota's former governor, Senator Knut Nelson. The first problem began in 1913 when Walter Hill, at his father's insistence, hired a Canadian veterinarian recommended by Thomas Shaw and ran into problems with the Immigration Bureau.  In March 1914 James Hill wrote to Nelson, asking him to intervene, but with no success.  A similar conflict arose in 1915 on Hill's bonanza estate at Humboldt, which had remained primarily a productive wheat farm, raising extensive crops under hired management.  In 1915 problems emerged with the farm's traditional Canadian labor force when the sheriff arrived in the middle of harvest and "took away four...shockers."  They were charged as illegal aliens, but Hill's manager asserted that the men had been working on the farm without trouble for fifteen years. Hill again turned to Senator Nelson for help, but despite his protestations, the men were deported back to Canada.  Hill did not let the matter rest.  He asserted that immigration officials aimed to "make fees" by bothering "a number of poor men who...are trying to earn a living." The acting secretary of labor,  J.B. Densmore, corrected Hill, pointing out that the agents did not profit from arrests; he then closed the case and refused to make further inquiries.  Thus, by 1915 Hill's political influence had virtually vanished. Without the muscle of the railroad and with few federal connections, Hill found himself in the uncomfortable role of a private citizen...

From Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway By Claire Strom

Gypsies Visit Humboldt

Gypsy Musicians

From Pat Miller Herzog via Mike Rustad:

Dad was at Letellier for something or other regarding Customs and heard this strange language that he had not heard before and it was a bunch of Romanian gypsies that had just moved there. Dad spoke 5 languages and this was not one of them so he was really intrigued. Thru various interpreters they had a interesting dialogue and Dad was invited back to their home for lunch. He went. He spent the rest of the day with them. They are a colorful people and I mean that in the nicest of ways. Their home was bright and cheerful and their mode of dress was the same. All of them were polite and he enjoyed the lunch and almost all of them came for lunch which were about 35 people.

So, Dad, being Dad invited them to Humboldt and issued a written invitation as they would need that to cross the border. Then he asked them if they would go to the school to talk to the children and explain where they came from, what they did for a living and their culture. They were delighted and thus we got the benefits of that conversation that began it all. That was a day trip but they came back several times. A couple of the men brought their huge guitars and none of us had ever seen that before and oh-how they could play them and sing and we were enthralled. I have had tremendous respect for Gypsies ever since.

Port-of-Entry: Emerson 1947

An image I found online for sale, of the Emerson port-of-entry, circa 1947

Locals would be waved through without stopping back then.  Even when I was growing up, they still did.

It's a different world now.  Technology has given and it hath taken away.  It has provided ways for very bad people to potentially do even worse things to innocent others.  In return it has given us countermeasures to fight against those ways.  In the meantime, we become prisoners of supposed safety...and there is less open and easy opportunities for neighborliness - at least of the frequent, in-person variety that deep and lasting bonds are made of.

Oh, Canada!

There are many humorous stories circulating online, but only a few that I find truly amusing. I received such a one this morning from my friend James McClelland from Emerson, Manitoba, entitled "Oh, Canada!"

While humor is not the normal domain of this blog, I am making an exception in this case and sharing some of the piece with you since it's geographically-related and specific. Anyone from my hometown area, or further north, will appreciate it, and those that are not, will learn a thing or two...

TOP REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA

1. You wake up one morning to find that you suddenly have a beachfront property.
2. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes.
3. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter.
4. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood.
5. You can pass the time watching trucks and barns float by.

The Official Canadian Temperature Conversion Chart

50° Fahrenheit (10° C)
• Californians shiver uncontrollably.
• Canadians plant gardens.

35° Fahrenheit (1.6° C)
• Italian Cars won't start
• Canadians drive with the windows down

32° Fahrenheit (0° C)
• American water freezes
• Canadian water gets thicker.

0° Fahrenheit (-17.9° C)
• New York City landlords finally turn on the heat.
• Canadians have the last cookout of the season.

-60° Fahrenheit (-51° C)
• Santa Claus abandons the North Pole.
• Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door.

-109.9° Fahrenheit (-78.5° C)
• Carbon dioxide freezes makes dry ice.
• Canadians pull down their earflaps.

-173° Fahrenheit (-114° C)
• Ethyl alcohol freezes.
• Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg

-459.67° Fahrenheit (-273.15° C)
• Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops.
• Canadians start saying "cold, eh?"

-500° Fahrenheit (-295° C)
• Hell freezes over.
• The Ottawa Senators win the Stanley Cup

The Other Side of the Ledger

I discovered this film on the National Film Board of Canada website today, which I was not aware of before. I think it has a lot to say, things that needed to be said, and I want to share them with my readers. Some of the white traders the indigenous peoples worked with, knew the natives were being exploited and refused to participate. Others knew it was wrong but just looked the other way. But far too many knowingly and willingly participated, using dishonest and immoral business practices with them.

It is described as a documentary about...

The Hudson's Bay Company's 300th anniversary celebration was no occasion for joy among the people whose lives were tied to the trading stores. This film, narrated by George Manuel, president of the National Indian Brotherhood, presents the view of spokesmen for Canadian Indian and Métis groups. There is a sharp contrast between the official celebrations, with Queen Elizabeth II among the guests, and what Indians have to say about their lot in the Company's operations.

It was one of the first NFB films made by a [Canadian] First Nations filmmaker. George Manuel, then president of the National Indian Brotherhood, narrated the film; he presents the views of spokesmen from First Nations and Métis groups, including Métis historian and activist Howard Adams. They discuss the unscrupulous economic control the Hudson’s Bay Company held over First Nations and Métis peoples.

Major Hatch: Pembina & the Indian Wars

I started this post to be about Major E. A. C. Hatch¹ (sometimes referred to as Edward Hatch, or Edwin Hatch...) But a much more interesting story emerged about the bigger picture.

What is the bigger picture? I'll tell you. It's about a young Minnesota frontier just opening up to settlement, and citizenry panicking due to rumours, skirmishes, and some actual attacks from native populations. It's about how a bad situation became worse through panic, misunderstandings/miscommunication, and violence - horrific violence on both sides. A lot of what happened was caused by stresses (starvation/famine) brought about by over-hunting of the buffalo and loss of land due to white settlement. The resulting uprising was sadly inevitable.

It was 1863, and the uprisings of 1862 were still very fresh on peoples' minds.

Convinced now that static garrisons and even patrolling soldiers were not sufficient to protect the frontier, civilian authorities took a series of measures to boost the defense of the line of settlement. On July 4, 1863, Adjutant-General Oscar Malmors issued a general order for the establishment of a mounted corps of "volunteer scouts," consisting of experienced hunters and trappers, to patrol the Big Woods from Sauk Center to the northern edge of Sibley County. The scouts were to serve a two-month tour of duty and provide their own arms, equipment, and provisions. In return, the volunteers were to be paid two dollars a day each, with a greater incentive of twenty-five dollars offered for the scalp of each hostile Sioux Indian collected. The general order did not bother to explain the process by which any particular scalp could demonstrate the degree of "hostility" or even the tribal identity of the Indian from whom it was taken.

To bolster the enlisted scouts and the number of dead Indians a reward of seventy-five dollars was offered to any person not in military service who could produce "satisfactory proof" of the killing of a hostile Sioux warrior. This inducement to "independent scouts" was increased to two hundred dollars a head on September 22. This open season on "hostile Indians" enjoyed little success. In more than three months, bounty was paid for only five scalps. The volunteer scouts were mustered out of service on September 20.

To supplement the forces protecting Minnesota, a gaggle of high-powered state leaders, including Senator Henry Rice and Senator Morton Wilkinson, convinced the secretary of war to authorize, on June 12, the formation of a battalion of two infantry and two cavalry companies (the two infantry companies were quickly converted to cavalry.) Recruited in Minnesota and supported by Chippewa auxiliaries, the battalion was to be independent of both Pope's and Sibley's command. Placed in charge of the maverick outfit was Major Edwin A. C. Hatch, a resident of Minnesota since 1843 and a former agent to the Blackfeet Sioux; however, he lacked military experience.

Pope and Sibley were both outraged at this seeming usurpation of their military authority and control. Pope protested to both Halleck and Stanton, particularly about the part of the plan calling for Chippewa auxiliaries. In a letter to Stanton he claimed that "Hatch is but an instrument of Rice." Sibley felt that the raising of the independent battalion was a direct slap at his competence and capability. In his diary entry for July 8 he wrote, "Learned of the order granting authority to Major Hatch to raise two companies of infantry and two of cavalry to serve against the Indians during the existence of this war. The whole thing I regard as a miserable scheme got up by Rice and others, who hate General Pope and do not love me and who wish to annoy and humiliate us both. I have a contempt for the whole humbug inventor and all."

Sibley's and Pope's protestations did lead to a narrowing of the autonomy of "Hatch's Battalion," and it was placed under Sibley's command. At Sibley's suggestion the battalion was posted to the north at what later became the town of Pembina, primarily to guard against possible incursion by those Sante who had fled across the Canadian border after the 1862 uprising and also as a form of exile to this stepchild military formation. A northward march of four hundred miles from October 5 to November 13, during which many of the battalion's oxen and mules perished, brought it to its posting as winter began its usual early siege of the northern woods. High winds, deep snow, and freezing temperatures plagued Hatch's men on the march and as they constructed their cantonment. The mercury fell to forty degrees below zerio as 1863 ended, and on the first day of the new year it fell to sixty degrees below.

The abominable weather and the requirements of construction did not prevent Hatch from aggressive patrolling. For all its efforts, however, the battalion fought only one engagement with hostile Indians. News of a party of Sioux encamped near the old British trading post of St. Joseph, forty miles west of Pembina, sent a dismounted detachment of twenty out on the trail to the trading post on December 15. After a forced march, the white platoon located and closed in, undetected, around the sleeping Indian camp at 3:00AM. As the Indians awakened and began to emerge from their tepees, Hatch's men commenced firing. The fight was completely one-sided. Six Sioux were killed even before they were able to return fire, and the rest fled. Two or three soldiers were slightly wounded.

Aside from that incident, Hatch's Battalion passed a largely uneventful, if arduous winter at Pembina. From that post on the Red River in the northeast corner of Dakota seventy miles below Fort Garry, Hatch devoted much of his military activities to luring hungry and haggard Sioux refugees away from Canada. Ninety-one Sioux did recross the Canadian border during the winter to surrender themselves to the garrison. Among the Indians hoodwinked into captivity by agents of the coattail-riding crony of Senator Rice were Shakopee and Medicine Bottle, both of whom were subsequently hanged.

At the end of the long, hard winter, during which three-quarters of the post's stock died of starvation and cold, the battalion was transferred to Fort Abercrombie to garrison that post and patrol the Red River Valley...The battalion claimed a total of 28 Indians killed and 300 taken prisoner. Although hardly the elite strike force that could deal a mortal blow to whatever hostile Indians remained on the Minnesota frontier, Hatch's Battalion did perform a useful defensive and patrolling mission for the northern half of the state and saved the government the trouble and expense of detaching troops for that purpose from the battlefronts of the Civil War. (From The Dakota War: The United States Army Versus the Sioux, 1862-1865 by Michael Clodfelter)
_______________________

...The independent Battalion of Minnesota Volunteers, raised and commanded by Major E.A.C. Hatch, having been ordered to report to me for assignment to duty, was dispatched on 10th of October to Pembina, to hold in check the hostile Sioux who had retreated for safety into Her Majesty's coterminous possessions, where they could not be followed by our troops, as I had received stringent ordered from General Halleck, through department headquarters, in no case to cross the boundary line with a military force. About ninety Sioux men, women, and children came across the boundary and surrendered to Major Hatch, commanding at Pembina. The battalion, with one section of mountain howitzers of Third Minnesota mixed battery, went into winter quarters at Pembina, and remained until about the 1st of May of the present year, when I ordered Major Hatch with his command to relieve the detachments of the Eighth Regiment Minnesota Volunteers at Fort Abercrombie, and at the stations of Pomme de Terre and Alexandria, that regiment having been designated as part of the expeditionary force to join Brigadier-General Sully on the Missouri. The other three sections of the mixed gun and howitzer battery (Third Minnesota) were stationed respectively at Forts Ridgely, Snelling, and Ripley. (From Report of Operations against Indians in the District of Minnesota, written by Brigadier-General Henry H. Sibley, U.S. Army, commanding District of Minnesota, including operations from October 1, 1863 to October 1, 1864; contained in The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, published by Government Printing Office 1893)
_______________________

Letters to S. D. Dept. of History, from Col. Samuel J. Brown dated Feb. 28 and March 5, 1921: in the latter he says: "My father's "letters to me [from Ft. Pembina] as well as his communications to Gen. Sibley are on file in the library of the Minnesota Historical Society." In one of those letters dated March 23, 1864, Gen. Sibley says to Gen. Pope: "Major J. R. Brown, special military agent, arrived some days ago at Fort Abercrombie from Pembina, having in charge ninety men, women, and children of the Sioux tribe, who surrendered themselves to Major Hatch at Ft. Pembina during the winter. There were originally twenty-one men, 31 women and 39 children, but one man died suddenly on the way. I have ordered all the prisoners to Fort Snelling under guard; and as among the men there are several who were deeply engaged in the outrages perpetrated on this frontier in 1862, I propose, with your sanction, to try the men by a military commission Among these captives are two half brothers and the four wives of the defunct chief, Little Crow." (Rebellion Records, Series I, vol. 34, part 2, pp. 712-13; pp. 539-40 give facts and plans of the government which show the importance of Major Brown's services at Pembina as a judicious negotiator and friend of the Indians. "Minnesota In Three Centuries," vol. III. pp. 422-3—Major Hatch.)

Major Brown came into Dakota Territory in 1863 in General Sibley's army that pursued the Sioux Indians guilty of the Minnesota Massacre of 1862. He was "Chief of Scouts and Chief Guide," in command of a large number of Indian scouts (Dakotas).6 In October, 1863, he was sent "by the Government (with Father Andre) to make peace with the Minnesota Sioux who fled to the North after the Outbreak of 1862,"7 his headquarters' being at Pembina, North Dakota. (From South Dakota Historical Collections)
_______________________

E.A.C. Hatch had Civilian experience prior to his military experience, working with the native populations - "In 1856, the year following the Stevens treaty with the Blackfoot nation, E. A. C. Hatch was a pointed agent to these tribes..." (From Bancroft Works, Volume 31, History Of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1845-1889, Hubert H. Bancroft, 1890. The History Company, Publishers, San Francisco) Also, in 1863, he helped broker the "Treaty with the Chippewa of the Mississippi and the Pillager and Lake Winniobigoshish Bands."


An interesting piece of trivia about the 1862 uprising is that E.A.C. Hatch was the one to break the news: "The first news of the event, the massacre in the Minnesota Valley, which touched off the flame, reached Stearns county on the evening of August 20th in a letter from E.A.C. Hatch, at Fort Ridgley, addressed to Superintendent Thompson of St. Cloud..." (From One Hundred Years Jacob's Prairie)

¹ - Hatch has been mentioned in this blog before, when I quoted an article in an anniversary edition of a local newspaper. However, that version was most definitely from a particular point of view.

Profile: Major George Seton

Men's Barracks, Lower Fort Garry - Winter of 1857-1858

The Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment men's barracks as seen from the officer’s mess room window at Lower Fort Garry during the Winter of 1857-1858. Following incursions into Canadian territory by American troops, a company of this regiment was sent from Montreal in July 1857 via York Factory. It was at Fort Garry by early October and remained in garrison until 1861. Watercolour by Major George Seton the detachment's commander. (Library and Archives Canada, C-001066)

Seton was one of many military personnel that passed through our area during the 19th century. When researching him in response to a print I recently acquired, I came across a research project being done on his family line by a descendant of his, Nancy Anderson. She has kindly been corresponding with me and has shared a bit of information on Seton, which is hard to come by as you might suspect. Although Seton does surface peripherally in the historic record in several documents, it was mostly in records that mention him in passing - i.e., listing rank/position/location, or he participated in such and such event, etc.

On her website, she states:

...Seton [of the 93rd Highlanders and Royal Canadian Rifles] came to Lower Fort Garry (Red River) in advance of his troops and, in July 1857, met John Palliser of the Palliser Expedition there.

Blackfoot parfleche¹, around AD 1860
From the Canadian Plains, North America collection

She later wrote me with more specific information as regards the intersection of Major Seton with our area, stating:

...from The Palliser Expedition, an account of John Palliser's British North American Exploring Expedition 1857-1860, by Irene M. Spry comes this - "John Palliser and his men set out south, on horseback, from Upper Fort Garry [Winnipeg] to Pembina² Fort in the United States, along the banks of the Red River in July 1857. There was the usual scurry and bustle, swearing and shouting, attendant on a large party setting off from the fort...[I've omitted some description]...The civilized society in question included not only Mr. Swanston of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had received them so hospitably and helped them greatly with their preparations, but also Major Seton, who had come overland to Red River in advance of the troops then on their way from Canada by the Hudson's Bay route, and Mr. Johnson, the Recorder of Assiniboia..... These two gentlemen saw Palliser and his colleagues ten miles on their way next morning. Nine miles farther on, the explorers caught up with the slower carts, just as the men were pitching camp for the night..."

She also said, "The Hudson's Bay Archives information on Sixth Reg of Foot Records is on Reel 4M145, E.67/2-5. I haven't read it yet and don't know what's in it. Probably you can request it through your library or local archives...and there's a Beaver Magazine article, A Soldier at Fort Garry, by George F. G. Stanley, Autumn 1957 that talks about the troops coming to Fort Garry. They made Fort Garry (from Hudson's Bay) on Oct. 13, It says, 'One Major Seton of our Corps had been sent in advance via U.S. Route in order to see preparations made for our accommodation, and right nobly he had done it. Several of the large Stores Houses had been fitted up for the comfort and convenience of the men, and a Separate apartment for each married man.' I know that George Seton later formed part of the government of Assiniboia, but I can't remember what that government was called. That's about all on Seton [as regards our area...]"

¹ - Parfleches are rectangular rawhide containers that fold over like envelopes. They were used in the nineteenth century particularly for holding pemmican, ground dried buffalo meat mixed with fat and berries. This food was vital in the fur trade, where a high calorie diet was required by canoe men.

On the northern Plains, moccasin soles were sometimes made from sections of painted rawhide, re-used either from an older pair or from parfleches made as gifts.

This parfleche forms part of the earliest documented collection of material from the Canadian Plains in The British Museum. It was acquired from a soldier, Major George Seton (1819-1905). Seton was also an artist, trained in creating panoramas for military purposes. He served in the Royal Canadian Rifles from 1853-58, the last two years stationed at Fort Garry, Manitoba (Rupert's Land), at the behest of the Hudson's Bay Company who had requested protection from supposed American and native threats. At the end of his posting he participated in two expeditions, one British and one Canadian, sent out to report on the Canadian Plains. He collected this parfleche while on the British expedition, which reported that the plains of Saskatchewan and Alberta were suitable for farming.

J.C.H. King, First peoples, first contacts: (London, The British Museum Press, 1999)

From British Museum collection: North America (Room 26)

² - "...On 21 July the expedition started on its journey across the plains, heading south up Red River to the American boundary, where they made careful observations in conjunction with a chance-met American land surveyor, Charles W. Iddings. From Pembina (N. Dak.) the party travelled west via St Joseph’s (Walhalla)..." - From Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on John Palliser. FYI - Charles W. Iddings was a surveyor living over the post office in St. Paul in 1856. He eventually became associated with Joseph S. Sewall of St. Paul, the engineer who built the Wabasha Street bridge. During this connection the two men published a map of Minnesota which is known as the Sewall and Iddings map of 1860.

Map from Muskets to Missiles: A Military History of Minnesota by Virginia Brainard Kunz

Ferry Command Revisited II

A film was made about the Ferry Command operations...
I have written about Ferry Command several other times here on this blog. There is an important update on the books being written about it, and our area's important role within the operation.

As Ted Beaudoin - the author of an upcoming book on the subject - states below, we owe a LOT to the men and women who were part of this effort 70 years ago. My own mother witnessed the events that happened in Pembina/Emerson, two of the locations involved in this massive and critical operation during a dark time for the world. Our communities were two links in a very large and long chain that meant the difference. Ted does not overstate the importance of what this meant. I urge you to read this synopsis of what his book will be about - it's truly awe-inspiring!

Lewthwaite's Drugstore

There are many places that are etched in my memory that will never leave me. They were imprinted there when I was a very little girl...those kinds of memories are the strongest there are. Today, I can forget where I put my keys or cell phone at a moment's notice, but these memories not only remain, but often come unbidden to the forefront of my mind.

But I don't mind at all, because they are like old friends. I enjoy revisiting them over and over. One group of such memories are those of place. And one of them, is of the Lewthwaite¹ Drugstore in Emerson...

One of the things I remember about the drugstore wasn't in the store itself but in the back behind it. The pharmacy was located on the corner of two streets. One side of the building butted up against its neighbor to the north (which I think was the Sawatzky Brothers grocery store), while the south side faced the adjacent street. Behind it to the east was the back yard with a high wall between it and the sidewalk. The druggist and his family lived over the store, so that was their private back yard. Despite the high wall, I could see they had something very intriguing to my young eyes - a tree house. And not just any tree house, but an amazing tree house. A tree house worthy of the Swizz Family Robinson. It was built up in the branches of an old large oak or elm tree.

¹ - (Origin Anglo-Saxon) From thwaite, a piece of ground cleared of wood, and lowe, a hill, law, a hill or eminence; in Saxon, Hlewe.

Dave Thompson Revisited

I recently posted about an amazing artist from my region named Don McMaster. I posted about Don because he had created a series of paintings about explorer David Thompson.

Now the Canadian National History Society's magazine (formerly known as The Beaver), has published a cover story about this series...

McMaster... [created] a series of paintings that depict the travels of the explorer David Thompson through northwestern Ontario and the prairies.

Thompson mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of western North America for the North West Company, beginning in 1797. He traversed the Canadian prairies and the Rocky Mountains several times and was the first European to navigate the length of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. Thompson is widely considered to be one of the greatest land geographers to ever live.

Fur Trade Stories

I discovered a site today that appears to have been around since 2005 but somehow I didn't discover it until recently (shame on me!) It concentrates on the Fur Trade era, which is pretty exciting to come across that history so comprehensively online.For instance, I found several references featuring 'Pembina' in them, including journals and diaries of very specific and personal histories, histories that concerned the individual writing them, but more importantly crossing into the wider history of the area representing many others who went through very similar situations.Such records are rare and as such are precious when I come across them, so I definitely wanted to share with you, whoever you are, my readers...

Ferry Command Revisited

I was contacted again by Ted Beaudoin about his latest book, EARTH ANGELS RISING, which will be the second book in his aviation trilogy, Walking on Air. If you remember, this subject was covered in previous posts including this one. Ted wrote to share the latest on his book because he's heading into the homestretch on completing the manuscript, and is about to write up some details on Pembina's part in the story...

Colloquium 2010

The Centre for Rupert’s Land¹ Studies at The University of Winnipeg will be hosting its 2010 Colloquium from the 19th to the 22nd of May, 2010. The Colloquium will be held in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

During the Colloquium, Aboriginal and fur trade researchers from many disciplines will meet in Winnipeg to share their research and interests, and take advantage of the rich history that is still being made at the Forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.

¹ - Pembina/St. Vincent was once part of Rupert's Land, part of a small portion of a territory that is now Canada...

Iron Road

A great film about the story of how the railroad was built that crossed Canada...

Surveillance Bush

OK, so I'm slow to the party. I only now discovered a Canadian sitcom called Corner Gas (and ironically the show's series finale was in April...) It is SO Canadian I'm not sure some Canadians would get half the jokes. But I love it! I have been laughing myself silly...I especially loved the 'surveillance bush' in the first episode...!

Wullerton (SPIT) (gee, sounds familiar...)

Pembina Island

Welcome to Pembina Island!

I received this image of the current flood from Chuck Walker yesterday. I don't know who took it, but it's taken from the west looking east. I-29 is at bottom, then Pembina, the Red River of the North, and St. Vincent. You can see the Junction if you know where to look above St. Vincent, and then you hit the farm land which finally fades into the horizon. Somewhere in that patchwork of farm fields, the United States gives way to Canada. In other words, the photo shows parts of one continent, two countries, and three states/provinces. Whoever took this photo, it's a great shot!

Profile: H.L. Hime, Expedition Photographer

Encampment on the Red River - Hind Expedition, 1857

Born in Ireland, H. L. Hime came to Canada in 1854 and joined the Hind Expedition as official photographer. His photographs are probably the first ever taken of the Canadian prairies.

As so often happens, due to the geographic proximity, he is connected to our area in that he passed through it, and made observations of the land and the people living here...

The Palliser and Hind Expeditions, 1857 -1860

By 1855, the last remaining piece of wild land in Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) was sold for settlement. This allowed politicians to look to the prairies as a possible region to open up for immigrants. Starting in 1857, two explorers named John Palliser and Henry Youle Hind would set out on a "scientific expedition" to discover if this land was suitable for mass settlement.

However, Palliser's expedition had another purpose. It was to survey the 49th parallel as a possible western border between the U.S. and Canada. This was crucial as America created massive east-west Intercolonial railways during the 1860s, a move that some in British North America viewed as an attempt by the Americans to expand their territory into what was to become Canada.

- From Intercolonial Railway, The Canadian Encyclopedia

On Wednesday we reached Fort Pembina, and stayed the night with Mr. Mackenzie, the officer in charge of the Post, whose sad fate last December (described further on) is a melancholy proof of the danger attending traveling alone during the winters of this climate. The woods and prairies are then perfect deserts, Indians being at their winter quarters, birds far in the sunny south, and wild animals hibernating, or seeking food and shelter in the thickest parts of the swamps and forests. So complete is this desolation in the interior of many parts of Rupert's Land during the winter, that Mr. Christie, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, when traveling from Athabasca to Red River in December 1859, did not meet with a single Indian throughout a long and dreary journey of 1400 miles. (of that I can believe!!)

The thermometer at Pembina Fort indicated 22 below zero on the morning of December 2nd, when we left the Post. Having procured another train of two dogs at the small village of Pembina, two miles from the Hudson's Bay Post of that name, we struck across the prairie to the "first of the Two Creeks," where we camped...

Pine River crossing is the spot from which Mr. Mackenzie, who had so hospitably treated us at Fort Pembina, started on the morning of the 29th December 1859, on his ill-fated journey in search of assistance. He and some companions were escorting an engineer from Georgetown to Fort Garry, who was traveling thither to make alterations and repairs in the steamer Anson Northrup, then laid up for the winter near the Indian settlement. The party fell short of provisions, and Mr. Mackenzie pushed on in the hope of being able to send supplies from Pembina. After leaving his companions, he appears to have followed the trail for some distance, and at the approach of night to have lost his way. His beaten track showed that in order to keep himself from freezing, he had spent the night in running round in a circle. At the break of day he started again across the trackless waste, but in a direction considerably to the eastward of his proper course. A second day of fruitless wandering was followed by a night more dreary than the first. The third day's journey brought him near the Roseau Lake, far to the east of his destination; here his strength appears to have failed him, for having hung some shreds of his coat on a tree, to mark his last resting-place, he lay down beneath it, where his frozen body was found, with one hand on his heart and the other grasping a compass.*

* An account of this melancholy journey is given in the Red River Nor'Wester, [Issue January 14, 1860] 

From Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 by Henry Youle Hind