I had no pukkwi, or mats, for a lodge, and therefore had to build one of poles and long grass. I dressed moose skins, made my own moccasins and leggins, and those for my children; cut wood and cooked for myself and my family, made my snow shoes, etc. etc. All the attention and labour I had to bestow about home, sometimes kept me from hunting, and I was occasionally distressed for want of provisions. I busied myself about my lodge in the night time. When it was sufficiently light, I would bring wood, and attend to other things without; at other times I was repairing my snow shoes, or my own or my children’s clothes. For nearly all the winter, I slept but a very small part of each night.
I was still living in this way in the spring, when a young man called Se-bis-kuk-gu-un-na, (tough legs,) a son of Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-koon, who was now dead, came to me. He was in a starving condition, as were his friends, who were encamped at no great distance from me. My dogs were now so well trained, that they could draw half a moose. I put on a full load of meat, and told him to go with the team, meet his people, and bring them to live with me. In three days they arrived, but though their hunger had been relieved by the supply I sent them, their appearance was extremely miserable, and it is probable they must have perished if they had not found me.
As the spring was approaching, we returned to the Lake of the Woods. Ice was still in the lake when we arrived on the shore of it, and as I, with my companions, was standing on the shore, I saw an otter coming on the ice at a distance. I had often heard the Indians say that the strongest man, without arms of some kind, cannot kill an otter. Pe-shau-ba, and other strong men and good hunters, had told me this, but I still doubted it. I now, therefore, proposed to test the truth of this common opinion. I caught the otter, and for the space of an hour or more, exerted myself, to the extent of my power, to kill him. I beat him, and kicked him, and jumped upon him, but all to no purpose. I tried to strangle him with my hands, but after lying still for a time, he would shorten his neck, and draw his head down between my hands, so that the breath would pass through, and I was at last compelled to acknowledge that I was not able to kill him without arms. There are other small, and apparently not very strong animals which an unarmed man cannot kill. Once while on a war party, in a sort of bravado, I had tried to kill a pole cat with my naked hands, but I had nearly lost my eyes by the means. The liquid which he threw upon my face caused a painful inflammation, and the skin came off. The white crane, also, is dangerous if approached too near; they can, and sometimes do, inflict mortal wounds with their sharp beaks.
After I had killed this otter, I went in pursuit of a bear. I had now three dogs, one of which was not yet fully grown. This dog, which was of a valuable breed, and had been given me by Mr. Tace, escaped from his halter at home, and came after me. When he came up, he passed me and the other dogs, and immediately assailed the bear’s head, but the enraged animal almost instantly killed him, caught him up in his mouth, and carried him more than a mile, until he himself was overcome and killed.
It is usually very late in the spring before the ice is gone from the Lake of the Woods. When I arrived at our village with the son of Wau-zhe-gaw-maish-koon, the Indians who were there had been for a long time suffering from hunger, but I had my canoe loaded with provisions, which I immediately distributed for their relief. On the day after my arrival, came my wife and her mother. She laughed when she saw me, and came to live with me as heretofore. She-gwaw-koo-sink and Ais-kaw-ba-wis were both there, and both unfriendly to me, but I made it my business to seem wholly ignorant of the many attempts they made to injure me. About planting time, the traders of the North West Company sent messengers and presents to all the Indians, to call them to join in an attack on the Hudson’s Bay establishment at Red River. For my own part, I thought these quarrels between relatives unnatural, and I wished to take no share in them, though I had long traded with the people of the North West Company, and considered myself as in some measure belonging to them. Many of the Indians obeyed the call, and many cruelties and murders were committed. On the part of the North West were many half-breeds, among whom, one called Grant, distinguished himself as a leader. Some of the Hudson’s Bay people were killed in open fight, others were murdered after being taken prisoners.
A Mr. M’Donald, or M’Dolland[*], who was called a governor for the Hudson’s Bay, was waylaid and fell into the hands of a Mr. Herschel, or Harshield, a clerk of the North West. This man sent him in a canoe with some Frenchmen and a half-breed with directions to kill him and throw him into the water. When they had gone some distance, the half-breed, whose name was Maveen, wished to have killed him, but the Frenchmen would not consent. They left him on a small rocky island, from which he had no means of escape, and where they thought he must perish, but he was discovered and taken up by some Muskegoe Indians, who set him at liberty. Mr. Harshield beat and abused the Frenchmen for having neglected to kill the governor when he was in their power, and despatched other men in pursuit of him. When again taken, he entrusted him to the half-breed Maveen, and one white man who had been a soldier, but whose well known cruelty of disposition made him fit to be chosen for such business. These two murdered him, in a manner too cruel and shameful to be particularly narrated, and then returned with the account of what they had done to Mr. Harshield[*].
After the settlement at Red River was reduced to ashes, and the Hudson’s Bay people driven out of the country, the Indians and half-breeds in the employ of the North West, stationed themselves at a place called Sah-gi-uk, at the outlet of Lake Winnipeg, to watch for, and destroy, any of the Hudson’s Bay people who should attempt to enter the country in that direction. Ba-po-wash, my brother-in-law, was at length tired of starving there, and started by himself to come to our village, where I remained, refusing to take part with either side. On his way up, he met a Mr. M’Dolland of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who, with Mr. Bruce for his interpreter, was going into the country. This gentleman was slow to listen to the advice of Mr. Bruce, who being better acquainted with the state of affairs in the country, had many fears on his account. On meeting Ba-po-wash, whom he well knew, Mr. Bruce, by pretending to be still in the interest of the North West, was able to gain full intelligence of all that had passed. Being convinced of the truth of this information, Mr. M’Dolland was persuaded to turn back, and probably saved his life by so doing.
He came to me at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung, and I confirming the statement of Ba-po-wash, he hastened back to the Saut De St. Marie, where he met Lord Selkirk, then coming into the country to settle the affairs of the two rival companies.
For my own part, I spent the summer in the usual quiet manner, being occupied with hunting, and the employments about our cornfields, in gathering wild rice and fishing. When we were returning from the rice swamps, I stopped on one of the small islands in the route towards Rainy Lake, to hunt a bear with whose haunt I had long been acquainted. Late at night, after I had killed my bear, and as I was lying quietly in my lodge, I was surprised to hear at the door, a voice, which I knew immediately to be that of the Mr. Harshield I have already mentioned. I soon learned that he was on the look out for some one he had not found. Having discovered my light at a distance, he had supposed it to be that in the camp of Lord Selkirk, and had crept up with the stealth of an Indian warrior, or he could not have approached my lodge without my being aware of it. He did not immediately mention his intention of killing Selkirk, but I knew him and his companions, and was not at a loss to comprehend his purpose. Nor was I ignorant of the design with which he, with much art, endeavoured to get me to accompany him to Rainy Lake. But when he found that insinuations and dubious hints would not effect what he had in view, he openly avowed that it was his intention to kill Lord Selkirk whenever he should meet him, and he then called up his two canoes, and showed them to me, each with ten strong and resolute men, well armed. He tried many methods to induce me to join him, but I would not.
*
Many of the names of white men in the northwest and in other parts of the country, which are mentioned in this narrative, are grossly misspelt; the same principle having been followed in writing both foreign and Indian names, in all instatnces where the name the narrator intended to mention did not immediately recur to the recollection of the writer. Thus Codman is here written for
*
Some of the circumstances of this murder seem to identify it with that of Keveny, for which Charles De Reinhard and Archibald M’Lellan were tried at Quebec, in 1818, and the former condemned to death. De Reinhard, Mainville, and Jose, or Joseph, an Indian, otherwise called the Son of the White Partridge, seem to have been the immediate actors in this affair. It is not surprising that Tanner, who was then, as far as opportunities for particular information on this subject were concerned, on a par with the wildest Indian, should have mistaken foreign names, as well as the comparative rank and importance of foreigners in the country.