Module Two - Explorers, Fur Traders, the Métis Peoples, Early Immigrants, and Treaties

• history, explorers, traders, immigrants, push/pull factors

Students will know that:

• explorers, fur traders, and early immigrants came to this province for a variety of reasons.
• immigrants brought with them their own cultures.
• interactions of Aboriginal and immigrants resulted in new identities .
• immigrants adapted and/or created technology within a new environment.

Students will:

• access, organize and present information.
• identify various changes that took place during this time period.

Students will:

• appreciate and value the cultures and traditions of various peoples.

Students may:

• plan and participate in simulation activities.

• Involve students in planning learning experiences about explorers, fur traders, early immigrants, the Métis peoples, and treaties. Compose questions related to these topics. Use a web to record information and to demonstrate interdependencie s. Identify human and other resources in and out of school. Make plans for accessing, organizing, and presenting information.
• Planned experiences may include: museum visits, collection of real or simulated artifacts, hosting guests, simulation activities, role playing, cooking, or a multicultural event such as a meal or concert. Literature, biographies, and oral histories should be a major source of information.
• Information may be organized and shared in some of the following ways: webs, maps, mobiles, graphs, charts, posters, calendars, pictures, diagrams, dioramas, models, displays, interviews, stories, poems, songs, ballads, and dance.
• Develop a timeline while discussing briefly what was happening in Europe and the rest of North America during the years of exploration, fur trade, and early immigration.
• Using literature and other resources, conduct research to develop understandings about the "push/pull" factors that brought these groups of people to Canada*.
• Use drama in context to develop understandings about experiences of that time*.
• Learn about the appealing (and often misleading) advertising used by the Government of Canada to attract people to the west. Make a travel brochure or advertisement attracting immigrants to the new land.
• Learn about ways Indian and Métis peoples helped the explorers, fur traders, and early immigrants.
• Create a chart identifying differences in cultures that evolved as a result of different world views.
• Learn about adapting technology to the environment. Learn how different groups shared their technologies and make connections with more recent inventions.

Module 2: Activity Guide

Teacher Background

When Europeans came to this region, they brought with them their own technologies, for example:

• tools, weapons, and utensils made of various metals;
• fabric for blankets and clothes;
• methods of constructing buildings; and
• written language, books, education system.

The Indian peoples believed that the resources in the environment had to be used carefully and that human beings had to live in harmony with the environment.

This unit of study can be integrated with a science unit focusing on fur bearing animals. Students might study the life cycle, diet, and habitat of the fur bearing animals found in northern Saskatchewan. See "How are Animals and People Dependent Upon Each Other?", Language Arts for Indian and Métis Students: Adapting the Elementary Level Curriculum, Saskatchewan Education, Training, and Employment, 1994.

Some pertinent information that may be incorporated in this study includes the following:

• Explorers, fur traders, and early immigrants left their homes and came to Saskatchewan for a variety of reasons that may be identified as `push' and `pull' factors.
• These groups brought with them their own beliefs, languages, traditions, values, and lifestyles that were quite different from those held by the Indian peoples.
• Explorers, fur traders, and early immigrants depended on Indian and Métis peoples in various ways such as:
  • to act as guides,
  • for regular supply of furs, and
  • for information regarding travel routes, medicine, food supply, food preparation.
• Indian women were often translators and guides to the newcomers.
• Europeans and Indians married and the children of these marriages came to be known as the Métis peoples.
• The Métis developed their way of life from both European and Indian traditions that they further developed.
• They were deeply religious.
• They accepted Christianity as part of their heritage, and maintained values and beliefs of their Indian ancestors.
• Their languages included French, English, and Indian languages.
• Many of them worked directly in the fur trade while others took up farming.
• In the fall, many would leave for the forests to hunt and trap.
• Some of the children attended schools run by the Catholic church and some Métis children were denied an education.
• Métis people used technologies learned from their dual heritage that they further developed.
• Interaction with other groups of people caused changes in the culture of Métis people.
• The treaties were signed by the Indian nations and the British Crown.
• Both parties agreed to the terms of the treaties.

Using oral history format, explain briefly to students what was happening in Europe and the rest of North America during the years of exploration, fur trade, and early immigration. As you tell the story, sketch a timeline to be added to as your research continues.

Using literature and other resources conduct research to develop understandings about the "push/pull" factors that brought these groups of people to Canada. Push factors that may become evident in a literature study include: war, poverty, religious problems, crowding, and government decisions. Pull factors that may become evident in a literature study include: opportunity for employment, profits, adventure, free/cheap land, religious freedom, gold rush, join families already here, and spread Christianity. Use drama in context to explore "push-pull" factors and experiences of these people.

Make the learning experience more concrete by learning about the technologies of these groups of people. Record information on the timeline using pictures and words.

Create and share a composite picture of each group's culture using: print material including stories, audio and visual tapes, people from the school or community, museum reproduced artifacts, and news clippings.

Explorers and fur traders

View the filmstrip "In Search of Furs" in the Saskatchewan Past and Present kit. List the reasons why the early explorers came to Western Canada.

Explorers and fur traders may include:

• Henry Kelsey
• LaVerendrye
• Anthony Henday
• Peter Pond
• Philip Turner
• Peter Fidler
• David Thompson
• John Palliser
• Samuel Hearne

List physical difficulties explorers, fur traders, and Indian peoples encountered while travelling through the different land formations and waterways of Saskatchewan. Some might include rapids, waterfalls, and wild animals. Think of others. How would these difficulties be overcome?

Imagine that you are an explorer or fur trader. Make a list of all of the food, clothing, and other goods that you would bring from Europe or eastern Canada for use during your trip. Remember to bring only what you can carry. Give a reason for each item. Make another list of the things that you would obtain from the Indian peoples or from nature.

Draw a diagram showing the differences between the food eaten by a party of explorers or fur traders and the food we eat today. Label each item in the picture.

You are an explorer writing a letter to your family in Europe. Describe your impressions of the first buffalo herd you saw. Use the filmstrip "The Buffalo" in the Saskatchewan Past and Present kit.

Dip writing paper into tea to yellow it and make it look old. Pretend you are an explorer. Write a diary page describing a day in the life of the explorer. Copy this onto the yellowed paper. Use real feather quills and India ink. Students may wish to have an adult help them burn the edges of the paper.

Before the fur trade began, the Indian peoples made all of their tools, equipment, and clothing from materials found in nature. Make a list of these skills. Conduct an interview to find out how these skills are used or adapted today.

Trapping is an important source of income today in Saskatchewan. Make a mural showing how the life of a fur trapper today compares to the life of a fur trapper in the 18th or 19th century. This activity could be completed in Unit 3 when learning about wildlife as a resource. Use Saskatchewan Trapper Training Manual.

Take a field trip to Fort Carlton, Fort Pitt, or Cumberland House. These early fur trading posts are provincial historic parks today. Brochures describing these historic sites can be obtained by writing to these sites. See the list of historic sites at the end of this unit.

Beaver pelts were used extensively in Europe in the 18th and early 19th century for the manufacture of hats. Research and write a report on the beaver hat. Include descriptions of the different styles of hats and techniques used to process the furs into finished hats.

Explore Saskatchewan names and events that feature or honour explorers and fur traders.

Draw a picture representing one important aspect or moment in an explorer's or fur trader's journey. Write a paragraph explaining the picture. Mount the pictures and paragraphs together.

Do a research project about explorers and fur traders. The following suggests one procedure for such a research project.

• Model procedures for research by doing a class research project.
• With the class access information about one of the explorers or fur traders. Make notes about the explorer.
• Create a drama in context to represent some significant events in the life of the explorer. Make this activity more concrete by focusing on technology used by the explorer such as tools, transportation, clothing. Ask each person in the drama about her/his role. Explorers may show their route on a wall map.

• Where did the explorer come from?
• For whom was the explorer working?
• What was his main goal?
• Through what areas did he travel?
• How far did he travel?
• What kind of relationship did he have with the Indian peoples encountered?
• What were some of the major hardships he encountered?

Divide the class into groups. Assign an explorer or fur trader to each group. Each group will research the explorer, making a short list of the significant points about the explorer then create a tableau to share with the class. Focus on technologies. The teacher will tap in on each person in the tableau and ask them about their role. Ask one person in each group to use a wall map to explain their route.

Or each group will prepare a page for a class book. Each page could contain pictures of tools, transportation, and clothing used by the explorer. A short caption could explain main accomplishments. Record routes on a map at the end.

Or prepare a large mural-type map of Canada. Each group could record the route of the explorer they researched on this map. Make a key so explorers can be matched up with their route. The groups could also prepare a cut-out picture of the explorer and the technologies used to display on the map.

It is not intended that students complete a formal `report' about an explorer. In many situations there are not suitable resources available for students to do extensive `reports' about explorers. Also, completing a `report' on an explorer may not be developmentally appropriate for most grade four students.

Integrate with art education by learning about the art forms of the explorers and fur traders. Identify reasons why art forms evolved.

The Métis peoples

Teacher Background

The Métis are the descendants of European fathers and Indian mothers. In present day Canada, the reverse is also true. These people have evolved into a distinct group with a unique culture. The Métis, as a distinct cultural group, are also unique in a legal sense. The Indian Act states that some people may not be registered as Indians, the M‚tis are a major group treated as such. Rather than signing treaties with the M‚tis and setting up reserves for them, the Federal Government allotted scrip. This occurred only on the prairie provinces, the Yukon, and parts of the Northwest Territories. Some were regarded as Indian either as whole communities or as individuals .

Most Indian and Métis people believe that it is the people themselves who should define who they are. Being something is how you feel about yourself. It is something that is inside of you. This feeling does not always agree with the law or what other people say you are. It is generally accepted that people of Indian and/or Métis ancestry have the right to define who they are, themselves.

From:

Saskatchewan Education. (1994). Indian and Métis Staff Development. Regina: Saskatchewan Education.

In the 1860s Métis peoples had established communities along the Red River in Manitoba. Many lived in "river lots" - long, narrow sections of land that backed onto river banks. In 1870, the Métis peoples won certain concessions from the Canadian government regarding land claims and the right to run their own communities. However, these laws proved to be useless as more and more settlers crowded into Manitoba's Red River area. The Métis decided to move further west, and established communities in the valleys of the North and South Saskatchewan rivers in the Northwest (now Saskatchewan). But again, the arrival of immigrants with the building of the Trans-Canada Railway put more pressure on the Métis, until they were forced to rise up against the Canadian government.

Learn about historical and contemporary Mé;tis heroes including Cuthbert Grant, Captain William Kennedy, Gabriel Dumont, Madeleine Welkey Dumont, Louis Riel, and Pauline Johnson. Students could pretend they are the hero, and make a presentation to the class using appropriate props.

Using a variety of materials , make a model of a river with river long lots. Situate buildings and identify activities and the technologies used. After completing the model make a map of the scene. Introduce the concept of contour by demonstrating how to show a hill in the model on the map using colouring or contour lines.

Create a river lot scene for the bulletin board.

• start with a piece of paper large enough to cover the bulletin board;
• sketch a river winding through the middle of the paper;
• draw in river lots on each side of the river;
• cut out the river lots and distribute them to students;
• create a river lot scene based on research about Métis farmsteads; and
• mount these on the bulletin board in their original positions along the river so they take on the appearance on a river lot community.

Use the Student Information Page: Marie and the Buffalo Hunt . Have the students explain what the story tells about each of the topics below:

• The origins of the Métis people.
• The clothing worn by Métis men and women.
• The ways that the Métis people helped the men who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company.
• The way that the Métis people prepared for the buffalo hunt.
• How pemmican was made.

Make a Métis sash. Real Métis sashes are woven but you can use burlap to make a sash similar to that worn by the Métis. cut a piece of burlap about two metres long and 16 centimetres wide. Cut fringes on each end of the sash. Use a large needle to thread brightly coloured wool through the sash lengthwise. Let the ends of the wool extend into the fringe. Double the sash around your waist and tie a knot to hold it firmly in place.

Write and perform a radio play on the Métis buffalo hunt. First, do research on the topic of the buffalo hunt, then write the script. Record the play on a tape recorder. Include the following points in the script:

• Three or four Métis are planning the buffalo hunt. They talk about the equipment and helpers needed.
• Dialogue to indicate that the Métis are leaving on the buffalo hunt.
• Sounds of Red River carts leaving the Métis community (what will you use to reproduce the noise made by Red River carts?)
• Dialogue that indicates that several weeks of travel have taken place.
• Scouts gallop into camp and report the sighting of a buffalo herd. (How will you make the sound of galloping horses?)
• The Métis mount their horses and move quietly toward the buffalo herd. (Conversations must be whispered.)
• The order to fire is given. The Métis charge into the herd and begin shooting. (Be sure to include sounds of excitement in your script. How will you make the sounds of guns shooting, horses and buffalo running?)
• The sounds of the stampeding buffalo slowly fade away. There are many dead buffalo on the prairie.
• The hunters and women begin to butcher the buffalo; then they will prepare the meat and take it back to camp.

Make an illustrated booklet to accompany the radio play. Make sketches illustrating the different stages of the buffalo hunt. Desk top publish your book.

The Métis had strict rules that all people participating in the buffalo hunt were required to follow. These rules appear below:

• No buffalo could be killed on Sunday.
• No group of hunters could go ahead of or fall behind the rest of the hunters.
• No group of hunters could go after the buffalo without all the rest of the hunters.
• Every group of hunters had to take their turn in guarding the camp against attack.
• The first time anybody broke one of these rules, their saddle and bridle were to be cut up.
• The second time anybody broke one of these rules, their coats were to be cut up.
• The third time anybody broke one of these rules, they were to be whipped.
• Anybody who was caught stealing, even if the thing stolen was of no value, was to be brought to the centre of the camp where their name was to be called out loudly three times. Each time their name was called out, the word "thief" was to be added to it.

• Why were these rules necessary?
• What would happen to the buffalo hunt if many people disobeyed the rules?

The Gabriel Dumont Institute
121 Broadway Ave. E.
Regina, Sask.
Tel: 522-5691

Have students work individually or in groups to research Métis heroes. Prepare a first person account retelling highlights from the person's life. Research clothing, tools, weapons, and other technologies and artifacts of the M‚tis people. Set aside a day to honour famous M‚tis people. Have students dress up as the M‚tis person they studied and share their first hand account with the rest of the class.

If this research is done by groups, have the groups create a tableau depicting the events in the lives of the people.

Create a pictures depicting events in the lives of the famous Métis people. Place these pictures on the appropriate place on the classroom timeline.

Collect poems by Pauline Johnson. Read and discuss the poems, paying particular attention to any mention of Saskatchewan, or the prairies.

Locate materials about the Franklin Expedition (National Geographic has covered the story). Using maps, ask students to determine and draw the various routes that may have been available to the Métis hero Captain William Kennedy who set out to find the Franklin expedition.

Have students find information on Duck Lake and Batoche. Draw or construct the settlements.

Integrate with arts education by learning about art forms of the Métis peoples. Use the resource Flower Beadwork People. Use the visual arts unit on Sense of Order.

Immigration

Use drama in context. What it would be like to leave homes in Europe and travel to this new land? Remember, the only technology for contacting those left behind was land and water transportation of the time. Many people were illiterate and could not rely on letter writing. How would they cope with and adapt to the change?

Experiences and reflections were recorded on maps and in journals and diaries. These records form a source of information for researchers. Examine copies of early records and guide students in gleaning information. Develop understandings about point of view.

Government advertising

Learn about the appealing advertising used by the Government of Canada to attract people to the west. Make a travel brochure or advertisement attracting immigrants to the new land. Mention "push/pull" factors involved in immigration.

Cross-cultural understandings

Develop understandings about cross-cultural contact. Learn about adaptation, beliefs, values, sharing, and technology. Learn how the Métis peoples developed their way of life from both European and Indian traditions. Use visual art to display understandings.

Create a chart identifying differences in cultures that evolved as a result of different world views. Consider differences in concrete objects such as tools and more abstract areas such as beliefs, traditions, values, and lifestyles.

While learning about the heritage of Saskatchewan develop understandings about stereotype, assumptions, bias, point of view, and prejudice. Use resources that present different perspectives. Have students think about the perspective being presented in each case. Develop skills and attitudes necessary to counter bias when accessing information about historic experiences.

Technology

Learn about adapting technology to the environment. Learn how different groups shared their technologies. After dealing with the early adaptations, have students study more recent inventions. In both cases, have them identify the following:

• historical origins of the various inventions;
• probable causes of change (human needs, wants); and
• possible social as well as environmental effects of change.

Using a web, explore the impact of each group contributing to Saskatchewan's heritage. Explore:

• contributions of the Indian and Métis peoples;
• impact of each new group on the Indian peoples and on each other;
• impact of trading companies like the Hudson Bay Company; and
• impact on the environment.

Many people did not have much money, so they relied on a barter system where they exchanged goods and services. Set up a barter system in the classroom. Have students identify goods and services they could make available for exchange for other goods and services.

Indian Peoples assisted immigrants Use the Student Information Page: Ways the Indian Peoples assisted immigrants.

Discuss with students some of the difficulties the immigrant people had adjusting to the climate, landscape, work, and available food on the prairies. Have students read about the ways immigrants were helped.

Compile a list of crops and animals domesticated by Indian peoples of the Americas. Use a picture web to categorize researched information.

Incorporate some or all of the following points into a drama in context:

• Indian peoples helped immigrants adapt to and settle into their new land;
• immigrants learned many things from the Indian peoples;
• immigrants and Indian peoples cooperated to establish farms;
• in the early days Indian peoples and immigrants helped each other with farm activities such as threshing;
• threshing crews travelled from one farm to another;
• at each farm women prepared the meals for the threshing crew;
• children carried baskets of food to the fields;
• Indian peoples and immigrants were each able to obtain greater variety in their diet by bartering for goods;
• immigrants would trade produce such as milk, butter, and eggs for the wild meat;
• Indian peoples gathered berries and hunted wild meat for barter; and
• during the war years Indians peoples brought wagon loads of wood to town as part of their contribution to the war effort.

Explore the role, contributions, and experiences of Indian women.

Simulation activity

Take on the role of a "European Journalist", travelling to Saskatchewan to interview an explorer/trader/immigrant on the "highs and lows" of frontier life. The story could be written as a newspaper article and used in a current events exercise.

Divide into groups and travel back to a time when the province had no people living in it. They are first explorers. Student groups form "communities". Choose a destination and five items to take. Use maps of Saskatchewan showing climate, vegetation, and resources. The community must decide:

• What role will each member play - hunter, gatherer, cook?
• Where in the province they will go?
• What five items they will take with them?
• How they will use the environment and how they will meet basic needs.
• What they will need to do during the first year.
• What is there in the natural environment that they could use to help them survive? Could they use the environment to develop new technologies? Remind them that they will have only the five items of technology to assist them.
• How will they view interdependence of people and the rest of nature?
• What impact will their technology have on the environment? Environmental impact must be minimal.

Present the information to the rest of the class.

• Have a class discussion recording similarities. Was there a common opinion on what was considered essential?
• Use drama in context to explore the community experience.

Create an "environment" that has to adapt to society. Set it up so that the environment sees the society as a pest that must be tolerated. Student groups can represent various plants, animals, and other resources in a "natural community meeting" to discuss what to do about the "newcomers" - the people. What things are in the environment (the natural community) to allow it to adapt? What changes will it have to make to accommodate the people? Do all community members agree that the people should be allowed to stay?

Suggested Resources

(listed in other bibliographies and catalogues)

The Fiddlers of James Bay (Arts Ed) (MHP, V2911)
The Flower Beadwork People (Arts Ed)
Métis Dances Kit: Kindergarten to Grade 9 (Arts Ed)
Steps in Time: Métis Dances Gabriel Dumont Institute (Arts Ed)
Métis Dances Kit: Kindergarten to Grade 9 (Arts Ed)
Métis: Our New Nation People (MHP, V7406)
Saskatchewan Trapper Training Manual Saskatchewan Education, Training, and Employment, Northern Division, 1990

Student Information Page: Ways the Indian Peoples assisted immigrants

When immigrants first came to the prairies, Indian peoples taught them how to live off the land. They shared their knowledge of what plants to use as medicines, and what parts of plants and animals were best to eat in order to stay healthy. For example, spruce and juniper trees could be used to make a tea that was rich in Vitamin C and helped to prevent scurvy. During the spring, the inner bark of the poplar tree could be used to make a healthy tonic. Indian peoples showed immigrant women how to use fish broth as a substitute for milk for children. They taught the use of buffalo grease as a substitute for butter and buffalo chips as an environmentally friendly fuel for fires.

Indian peoples shared their knowledge with immigrants.

• They taught them to use birch bark canoes in the warmer months and snowshoes, toboggans, and dogsleds in the winter.
• They taught them which wild plants and berries were safe to eat and those that could be used for various medicines.
• They taught them how to grow some crops such as corn.
• They showed them how to preserve meat for the winter by making pemmican.

Student Information Page: Marie and The Buffalo Hunt

Marie Appelle watched her father cross the room and pick up her grandfather's fiddle. He played the Red River Jig and the Duck Dance. These were Marie's favourites. She put her mouth harp into her mouth and kept in tune with her father. They both laughed when the music was finished. Her father wore deerskin trousers and a bright red, cotton shirt. Beside him was his capote or parka made from a Hudson's Bay Blanket. When her father wore his capote he tied around his waist a bright sash called a Red River sash Her mother had made her father's sash from wool and it was ten metres long. Her father had used the sash for hauling canoes over portages, carts through mud, and the cariole when it got stuck in the snow.

"You promised," Marie said to her father. Giscard lit his pipe and grinned. "So I did," he said. "Come and sit on the buffalo rug on the floor and I will explain. Many years before you were born, your grandfather came from a place called Montreal. He was a French voyageur and his name was Gabriel. He came west to Red River to trap furs for the fur company. Here he met your grandmother who was an Assiniboine Indian. Her name was Words on Water. They were married and your grandfather never returned to Montreal, but remained to trap beaver on the northern prairie. I am their oldest son and I am neither French nor Indian. I am Métis. Your mother is Métis. You and your brother are Métis. We are what some have called bois brule, or scorched wood, because we are not completely white and we are not completely Indian. We, the M‚tis, are a people all of our own. We live to the North West of a country called Canada. We are a people who are apart from the Indians and the whites. And that makes us special We are part white and part Indian."

Marie listened intently. Sometimes her father spoke French; at other times he spoke Assiniboine. Marie understood both languages. She spoke French better. "If grandfather were a trapper," she asked, "Why are you a trader and a buffalo hunter, father? Do you want to be a trapper someday?"

Giscard answered, "Your grandfather worked for the Hudson's Bay Company and lived beside Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan River. He was a trapper, a translator, and a guide for the English-speaking fur traders from Canada. Later, he and your grandmother moved to Fort Gary. It was there I was born. As a young boy I worked as a trapper and guide for the fur trading company. My understanding of the forests, taught to me by my Indian uncles, made me a good guide for the fur traders. Then I discovered that the traders needed clothing and meat to aid them on their long journeys, so I began to hunt the buffalo and sell the hides and pemmican to the Hudson's Bay Company. Without the Métis buffalo hunters, the Hudson's Bay Company men might freeze, get lost, or starve to death."

Marie's mother, Madeline, left the table and the warmth of the fire. She had been decorating a tea cosy with beads from the Hudson's Bay store. The clothes she wore were a combination of Indian and European styles.

Her colourful blouse was tucked into her skirt that was decorated with ribbons. She wore a sash, similar to her husband's, at her waist. She crossed the floor, treading soundlessly in her beaded moccasins. Under her arm she carried little Nicole in a moss-filled leather bag. Marie's baby sister was very warm and contented.

Madeline joined the conversation. "Giscard, remember your brother Maurice?" Marie's mother asked. "He went to Swan River and lived for many years with the Cree as a trapper. He does not hunt the buffalo and does not sell hides and pemmican to the white traders. Yet, still he is a Métis."

"Oui, ma chere," Marie's father said, "We are all Métis! Even little Nicole, who doesn't know it yet, will be proud to discover she is Métis! But, it is late and we must be up early. Let us go to bed."

The next morning Marie watched the Bishop of St. Boniface bless the caravan that was ready to leave the settlement at Red River. Suddenly, after all the preparations, they were off. Hundreds of Red River carts, over two thousand people, and about three hundred or more dogs started the trip south to Pembina to hunt the buffalo. It was September and this was the second buffalo hunt of the year. Marie's mind raced to remember the excitement and challenges of the June hunt. She hoped it wouldn't be as hot as it had been in June - the blistering heat; the endless sun; the choking dust; the screaming of the carts from their wooden wheel hubs turning on ungreased oak axles; the continuous yelping of the dogs; the yelling of the men; the crying of the babies. So much to remember from any buffalo hunt - sounds, smells, tastes, and sights.

Marie looked south. She hoped they would find the great herds of buffalo soon. Seventy five miles to go before they reached Pembina. Marie closed her eyes and listened to her brother Claude yell at the oxen.

His voice was so deep. Claude was fifteen and a good hunter. She prayed that he would kill many cows for their family and their friends. Claude was four years older than Marie and already a foot taller. He was lean and strong and one of the best horsemen she knew. Marie was very proud of her brother.

At Pembina, Marie, her mother, father, and brother helped set up a town of tipis. The men circled the tipis with their carts. For the next month, as they followed the buffalo, they would make a new tent town each night.

Claude was very excited because his uncle, Jacques Trudel, was elected to be one of the ten captains who shared the command of the buffalo hunt. Claude hoped that he would be chosen as one of his uncle's soldiers to help protect the camp. Each captain had to choose ten good and strong men to be soldiers and one superior hunter to act as guide. During each day's hunt each guide took turns leading the hunt. Jacques Trudel smiled gently at Claude, but did not select him to be a soldier. "Maybe next year Claude, when you are older," he said. Claude tried to hide the disappointment in his eyes.

After ten days of searching, the buffalo were finally sighted. The men prepared their horses and their muskets. They mounted and were off in a cloud of dust. The dogs chased closely behind the racing horses.

Marie saw the great herd, about a kilometre in the distance, begin to move. She looked anxiously at her mother. It was time for them to wait and pray for their men to return safely.

To pass the time, Marie and her mother picked blueberries and stored them in skin containers. Marie peeled one of the wild turnips she had gathered the day before and set it in the sun to dry. Once it was dried she would pound it into flour. Turnip flour was excellent for soup. Her mother mixed some gellette from flour, lard, and water, and fried it in her skillet over the fire. Marie poured her mother some hot tea. They waited for the sound of returning men. Some of the dogs were already back in camp, either begging for food or chasing rabbits.

The first to return from the hunt was Claude. He was exhausted, but not too tired to tell his story. He spoke of how he had plunged through the stampeding buffalo, skilfully guiding his horse with his knees. With his hands free of the reins he had been able to fire, reload, and fire again. He had carried spare musket balls in his mouth. He told of how, after each firing, he had quickly shaken fresh powder from his powder flask into the muzzle of his gun, spat a ball down the barrel, cocked the hammer and fired. He had downed three cows and one bull. Many horses and riders had fallen, but no one was seriously hurt. All were very fortunate. There would be enough meat to fill many carts.

Marie and her mother were led by Claude to the buffalo he had shot. It was their task to make pemmican. First, they skinned the animals. The hides would make very warm coats and blankets. Then, they began to prepare the pemmican. They cut the meat into long, thin slices that were hung on willow racks in the sun to dry.

Once the sun went down, Marie's mother burned a small fire under the rack to complete the drying process. When the meat had dried, it would be put into skin bags and pounded by Claude and her father until it was powder. Then, it would be mixed with buffalo fat and berries, cooled, and packed in airtight skin bags. Marie knew that her father had brought pemmican on this hunt that was made by her mother two years ago! She hoped that she would be able to make pemmican that would last that long. Marie knew that it was her father's most valuable trade good with the fur traders. Soon it would be winter and the Hudson's Bay Company traders would be returning to Red River and to the vast land beyond.

But now, it was time for Marie to go to bed. She had worked very hard and was so, so tired. And there was so much to do tomorrow.

Reprinted courtesy of
Commons, Diane L. (n.d). "Marie and the Buffalo Hunt", Marie of the Métis. Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications. Manitoba. p. 9 - 20.