High Level (2019), Fort McMurray (2016), Slave Lake (2011), Alberta, Canada! On fire, or nearly so. Fires so hot, I’m told by first-hand witnesses, that the flames jumped across the Athabasca River at Fort McMurray. A distance of more than 200 metres. A scenario which repeats itself in many parts of Canada.
And also in other parts of the world. In 2019 we witnessed horrendous fires in New South Wales, Australia. The Blue Mountains turned grey.
Katoomba, New South Wales, Blue Mountains on fire, December 2019. A few new fires broke out in less than one hour while we were there.
Yes, granted. Climate change is partially responsible for more intense, frequent fires. But, not totally. It’s way more complex than that. It’s also a result of precedence – in this case, economics over ecology. Canada’s policy of fire suppression, for well over a century, is one of the worst mistakes made in managing our forests.
Whenever I drive through Slave Lake, up to Fort Vermilion on Highway 88, I go by the burned-out area of trees on the east side of the highway. And there on the west side sit the houses of the City. The City starts where the forest stops. How can that be a good idea?
How could this happen? The answer to that question requires a lesson in Canadian history. Yes, as you will see, history can teach us important lessons to apply to the future. There’s no doubt about that. But first to learn from history, we have to read it. Too little of that in Canada.
And then, the people reading it have to be empowered to turn what they learned into policy. Too little of that too from our policymakers in Canada.
Fire, Fire: The Warning Cries
In the early 1970s, I attended lectures by Henry Lewis, Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Lewis was studying the use of fire by the Dene and Cree of northern Alberta, Canada. He just finished researching the use of fire by Indigenous people in California.
Lewis’s message was clear. The northern Dene and Cree used fire regularly to clear areas in the boreal forest to create meadows and other habitat more suitable for a diversity of game animals. And they had likely done this for centuries. The boreal forest we see today was nothing like it was centuries ago before White settlement.
And by doing so, Indigenous people, not only in Canada but throughout the world, lessened the intensity of natural forest fires. Controlled burning decreased the amount of dead vegetation, or fuel, and opened up the forests, reducing large-scale spread.
In 1976 I studied Boreal Ecology under the late Professor William Pruitt, University of Manitoba. Pruitt was a quiet man with the looks and demeanour more like Santa Claus than some ‘political shit-disturber’ which he was labelled as at the University of Alaska (for standing up against the US government’s nuclear policies). The good Dr. Pruitt repeatedly told us that government fire prevention policies in the boreal forests of North America would lead to disaster. Unfortunately, Dr. Pruitt’s words turned out to be prophetic.
High Prairie, Grande Prairie, Prairie Point, Jon D’Or Prairie, Buffalo Head Prairie, Clear Prairie, Meadow Lake. These are the names of a few settlements in today’s northern boreal forest in Alberta and Saskatchewan. There are more prairie names of settlements in the boreal forest than on the Northern Great Plains. Where did these names come from? Surely not because some nostalgic folks living in the woods, yearning for the prairies, named them.
No. These areas in the northern boreal forest, at the beginning of White settlement, contained vast prairies, kept open and maintained by First Nations people using fire.
Let’s go back and look at some of the evidence for deliberate burning practices by Indigenous peoples throughout the world.
Indigenous Use of Fire, Australia
“The “virgin lands” first observed by Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not an untouched wilderness. As several writers have noted, the “forest primeval” was a later, romanticized creation of the Euro-American imagination.” (Henry Lewis and Theresa Ferguson, 1988)
Historic painting of Australian Aborigines hunting in a park-like landscape. http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201205/r949404_10117814.jpg
The Australian Aborigines used fires to create a park-like vista on the Australian landscape at the time of contact with Whites. Their activities were misunderstood and regarded with suspicion by early settlers. This created considerable strife between settlers and aborigines, as documented in a series of letters between the governor and settlers:
“I fear His Excellency will find it a very difficult subject to deal with, and impossible wholly to prevent, it has always been the custom of the Natives to fire the country during the summer season for a variety of purposes, first to assist them in hunting, it also clears the country of underwood, which if not occasionally burnt, would become an impenetrable jungle, infested with snakes and reptiles. “ (Letter to Peter Broun, Secretary to the Governor, New South Wales from Revett Henry Bland, Protector of Natives at York, 1846)
“If so – they burn for their food, whereas the existence of our Flocks and Herds depends on what to us is thus annually irretrievably destroyed and the whole district is now groaning under the ruinous spoliation…” (Richard G. Meares, Resident, 1846)
The outcome eventually favoured the settlers. As it would in many other parts of the world. Indigenous peoples were banned from burning and the dense bush began to encroach eventually creating the situations we saw last year in the Blue Mountains. Over the years fire suppression created more problems than it solved.
While driving through the outback of New South Wales of Australia in 2019, I noticed many goats along the roadsides. Feral goats are everywhere. Eating up the shrubbery and weeds. Keeping them at bay. Turns out in some communities goats are Australia’s new ‘fire’ to control bush and prevent major fires.
Goats, in some parts of Australia, are now the new ‘fire’, keeping dense vegetation and undergrowth under control. “On the edge of Daylesford, a town on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Victoria, Australia prone to massive bushfires, a small group of community-minded folk have pulled together to work towards restoring the ecology of their commons forest – in order to stop the future need for controlled burn-offs by the local fire authority.” Goats, it seems are the new fire. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_goats_in_Australia#/media/File:Goats_-_Wilpena_Pound.JPG)
Indigenous Use of Fire, California
Virtually the same circumstances took place in what was to become California when the Spanish arrived. They tried to suppress the use of fire by the Indigenous people, calling it “primitive” and wasteful. In 1850, the US government passed the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, which outlawed intentional burning. According to fire historian Stephen Pyne:
“They said if we suppress all these fires, we end light burning, we will have great new forests. And we did – we had so much great new forest that we created a problem.”
In the late 1960s, the US government rethought its fire policies but is still paying the price today. Indigenous groups, such as the Yurok are again beginning to actively use fire, as they had traditionally for many centuries, to open up the forests:
Indigenous Use of Fire, Boreal Forest, Northern Alberta
In Alberta, northern Canada, at the time of contact Dene used fire to manage the forest and keep it from clogging up. According to surveyor George M. Dawson in 1879, when in northern Alberta:
“…the origin of the prairies of the Peace River is sufficiently obvious. There can be no doubt that they have been produced and are maintained by fires. The country is naturally a wooded one, and where fires have not run for a few years, young trees begin rapidly to spring up.” (Macoun 1882:125)
In the early 1970s, Dr. Henry Lewis argued that places in northern Alberta:
“…prescribed fires were once part of the Indian’s own pattern of ‘landscape management’.….their selective employment of modern fire for boreal forest adaptations indicated an understanding of both the general principles and the local specific environmental relationships that are the subject of modern fire ecology….They understood and practiced controlled burning as a part of hunting-gathering subsistence activities.” (from Lewis 1982)
By the use of fire, the people kept meadows and other areas open and refurbished:
“Why the bushes so thick is because…they stop burning—the Indians stopped burning…Did you ever see them prairies? My goodness, I even remember. It was really prairie…just prairie, you know, (and) here and there you see little specks of woods….” (Beaver woman, 69, High Level, Alberta area; from Lewis 1982:24)
Such open meadows would have attracted many large game animals, including the once-abundant woodland bison:
“Until the mid-eighteenth century bison ranged throughout much of the boreal forest, as far north as Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories….it seems unlikely that either the Athapaskans or later Algonkians would have overlooked the possibilities of providing and maintaining better habitat for woodland buffalo [through use of fire].” (from Lewis 1982; brackets mine)
“People know where to hunt. Our people have a name for those burned places in the forest called go-ley-day. They tell one another about those places and when to hunt there.” (Slavey, 69, Meander River area; from Lewis, 1982)
When asked why this practice stopped, the responses were consistent and similar to other areas of the world:
“But it is years ago they did that. Nowadays you can’t burn on the trap line because it’s against the law, and it’s not so good as before.” (Slavey 73, Meander River area; from Lewis, 1982)
Indigenous people also knew that camping and living among the trees was dangerous:
“What is that name? Maskuta? Muskotaw! Yea, that’s a prairie like place. There used to be lots of places around here. Nobody built their house in the woods like they do now. If we get a forest fire now it could be really bad. All the houses would get burned up. It’s a lot safer if you got open places…you just your teepee up there.” (Cree, 78, Trout Lake [Alberta] area; from Lewis 1982)
Obviously, that lesson, learned long ago, has yet to trickle down to today’s generation.
Anthropogenic Burning and the Historic Record, Alberta
Both Indigenous people and academics have voiced these ideas for years now. But, still not enough people are listening. Recently, however, more action has been taken to better manage the world’s forests. Including Canada’s forests.
For example, ecologists working in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains demonstrated that restoring forest areas to a pre-European landscape “resulted in dramatically lower mean probability… [of high-intensity fires] …and a smaller reduction in the mean fire size” (from Poletto 2019)
My interest in anthropogenic burning lies in how long it was used. The Fort Vermilion region contained ‘prairies’ at contact and was an important place for the acquisition of meat in the fur trade. In 1987 we found one of the largest prehistoric sites in the region, which we think might have been used intermittently for the last 9,000 years. Was this place always important historically and a prairie?
Throughout northern Alberta, archaeologists and paleo-ecologists are looking at these relationships more closely. Did these historically documented prairies have a long history of human use?
During the late 18th – early 19th centuries, traders and explorers noted several places where large game, especially wood bison, were plentiful in areas with prairies or more open parkland. Here are a few of the areas shown in the map below:
These are a few of the places, circled in yellow, described by traders and explorers as containing ‘prairies’ and abundant large game animals, including wood bison. 1. Fort McKay area; 2. Lake Athabasca delta; 3. Salt Plains, NWT; 4) Fort Vermilion -High Level area; 5) Whitemud River near Peace River; and, 6) the Grande Prairie.The Salt Plains, NWT, west of Fort Smith. An open parkland area with natural salt outcroppings. Important wood bison grounds historically and today’s herds.Buffalo Head Prairie, just south of La Crete, Alberta, looking south towards the Buffalo Head Hills in the distance. Historically a vast, flat, wide open prairie, likely maintained by burning. Today it has some of the best farmland in the region. In some parts of northern Alberta, early settlers stated that they would not have cleared the land so easily had it not been for the already open prairie areas such as these south of La Crete.Our large, ancient archaeological site near Fort Vermilion, Alberta, Canada, is now mostly in a cultivated field. One of the still-standing Metis log houses was built at the turn of the 20th century.
These places contain both a high frequency and some very large archaeological sites, thousands of years old. Unfortunately we do not have sufficient evidence to connect the long Indigenous land use directly to deliberate burning and the formation of prairies and parkland in the forest.
It will take years of research to better understand this association. However, it has already begun. Paleo-ecologists are examining lake sediments in some areas of the province. They reveal a long history of deliberate burning before contact. The task is difficult as one researcher recently noted:
“Although anthropogenic fires cannot be distinguished in Sharkbite Lake’s record, the charcoal record indicates that on average, every 155 years there was a major fire episode close to Sharkbite Lake. More recent regional fire studies indicate that some areas are prone to burn every 10 years.” (Christina Potello, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta)
With the incorporation of the Dominion Lands Act in 1872, Canada engaged in a war against fire. Good or bad. Elizabeth Ramsey’s (2015) article on the history of forest fire management in Alberta documents the views and policies that have led to today’s crisis. As one fire expert succinctly put it, by the second half of the 19th century conflicting interests about Alberta’s resources collided, “…a new logic of economics smashed against an older logic of ecology.” (Stephen J. Pyne, 2007).
While our perceptions and actions are slowly changing toward fire, in the words of one Indigenous informant, back in the 1970s:
“It would take a long time to make the country like it was before we stopped burning…maybe fifty years to get the country back (to what it was). It would take a lot of work.” (Slavey, 73, High Level [Alberta] area; from Lewis 1982)
While it’s never too late to change course, it would take a herculean effort to take our forests back to the pre-contact days. And, does it conflict with today’s economics? Perhaps. But surely our current forest policies are not the answer.
Today’s northern boreal forests are often choked with dense underbrush making travel through them almost impossible. And also finding archaeological sites. Boyer River, 2018. Somewhere in there is a late 18th-century fur trade post.
As I walked across the ancient prehistoric site near Fort Vermilion and gazed towards the Caribou Mountains in the distance I envisioned a vast prairie – parkland centuries ago, with grazing herds of wood bison and elk, stretching for miles in either direction, in what is now Canada’s northern boreal forest.
Now only open fields or dense forests appear before me. But no flocks of feral goats. We haven’t got that desperate yet.
……………………….
References
Lewis, H.T., 1982. A Time for burning. Boreal Institute for Northern Studies. Edmonton, Alberta.
Lewis, Henry T., and Theresa A. Ferguson, 1988. Yards, Corridors, and Mosaics: How to Burn a Boreal Forest. Human Ecology 16:57-77.
Macoun, John, 1882. Manitoba and the great North-West. Guelph, Ontario. World Publishing Company.
Poletto, Christina Livia, 2019. Postglacial Human and Environment Landscapes of Northeastern Alberta: An Analysis of Late Holocene Sediment Record from Sharkbite Lake, Alberta. M. A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta.
Pyne, Stephen J., 2007. Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada. University of British Columbia Press.
Ramsey, Elizabeth, 2015. Ecology or Economy. A History of Forest Fire Management in Alberta. Alberta History:16-20.
Much of Canadian human history is written in stone. Stone tools, and detritus from making those tools, are often the only remaining physical evidence of the presence of the New World by First Nations peoples for thousands of years. That record goes back well over ten thousand years in some parts of the Americas.
I’m just analyzing the stone tools we found in 2018 at a prehistoric site in the Fort Vermilion region, northern Canada. I always marvel at the level of craftsmanship (or craftswomanship) these tools display.
This prehistoric biface, likely a stone knife, found in northern Alberta, Canada, was an important type of cutting tool for First Nations people for thousands of years.
Take for example this beautiful bifacially flaked quartzite knife. It still retains its edge, even though possibly made thousands of years ago. The reason is that quartzite, on the Mohs hardness scale, is about a seven (diamond being a 10), equivalent in hardness to a good steel knife blade.
Years ago, at Simon Fraser University, we learned how to make stone tools. We smashed our fingers, we bled, we cursed… Soon I began to appreciate just how hard it was to make even a simple stone tool. Such as this knife.
There’s a lot of thought, effort, and skill involved when making a stone knife. Let’s consider a few of the necessary steps.
First you need to know something about the characteristics of stone. And where to find the best ones. When it comes to stone tool making not all rocks are created equal.
Many stone tools are made by a method called direct percussion where the knapper (stone tool maker) drives flakes off a cobble or spall to thin and shape it. The best rocks for making stone tools have a cryptocrystalline (or having a microscopic crystalline) structure. These rocks fracture in predictable ways because the force created by the blow dissipates through them evenly. Quartzite, a metamorphosed sandstone, is such a rock.
Stone flakes from a northern Alberta prehistoric site, driven off a larger piece of rock. The dark rock on the left is chert (a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of cryptocrystalline crystals of quartz); in the middle is orthoquartzite (similar to quartzite) and on the far right, quartzite. These three types of rocks are found in northern Alberta. Prehistoric First Nations people made most of their stone tools from them.
I have wandered the North Saskatchewan River Valley looking looking for just the right quartzite cobble to flake. Because not all quartzites are equal either. I have yet to find quartzites of the quality of some of the prehistoric quartzite stone tools in the region.
For example, below are some average quality local quartzites. Notice how much coarser and grainy they are compared to the ones above. With these materials it is much harder to flake, thin and shape a tool. Over the years I have learned what cobbles to look for before splitting them. Those that have chatter marks (made from hitting other rocks or scoured by ice) on the cortex (outer oxidized layer) are usually better quality. And, when you strike another rock against them, the good ones ring a bit; the poor quality ones ‘clank’.
A quartzite flake (left) and a quartzite biface (right). These quartzites are coarser and grainier than the quartzite above. And therefore do not flake as well.
Once you have found good raw material, you then have to strike the piece you are working on just right to remove a flake. Again, easier said than done. If you don’t strike the piece at the proper angle with your hammer (often simply another stone), you either crush the striking platform or nothing happens because you did not create enough force to move through the rock to remove a flake.
Or, you could break and ruin the piece. That’s where more cursing and smashing of fingers usually comes in.
We refer to stone tool making as a ‘reductive’ technology. One major mistake and you have to start over. Unlike pottery-making which is an ‘additive’ technology and more forgiving if you make a mistake.
I started flintknaping obsidian (volcanic glass). Although dangerous it is relatively easy to work. After a few months I made some decent tools.
I made this small obsidian point by another flintknapping technique, known as pressure flaking. In this technique you push off the flakes to shape and thin the artifact with an antler tine. It takes special platform preparation, and proper angle to ‘push’ off the flakes. One slip and you could either drive your hand into the edge or drive the tine into your thigh. Done both.
This obsidian knife snapped in half when I tried to remove a thinning flake from the left end. Later my professor told me this is referred to as ‘end-shock’, where the force of the blow stops at some point in the object and then travels up. Snapping it in half. There was a lot of moaning after that incident. Obsidian is easier to work than quartzite, and achieves a very sharp edge. But it is more brittle and does not maintain an edge as well as quartzite. There is always a trade-off.
Then, while excavating a prehistoric site in Edmonton, Alberta, in the early 1980s, I decided to work with local quartzite. Well, it was as if I had never flintknapped before. Quartzite, when compared to obsidian, is much harder. You really had to whack those edges (and occasionally fingers) to get anything off. And often you couldn’t control what came off.
After months of practice I made some passable tools, like the quartzite biface below. But that took tremendous effort and many attempts. And, when you compare the thinness (a sign of quality workmanship) of my biface to the one we found in northern Alberta, it shows what an amateur I still was after all that practice.
This quartzite biface made by the author pales in comparison in workmanship to prehistoric bifaces, such as the one below. And I have seen even thinner examples in Alberta assemblages.
The northern biface on edge, showing the thin cutting edge and overall thinness of this stone tool.
My quartzite biface on edge. Not nearly as thin as the northern biface. The thicker cutting edge on my biface would not cut as well as that northern biface. And, hafting this piece onto a wood or bone handle, would have been difficult because of its thickness.
And that folks is what it takes to just make a stone knife. There are other more sophisticated stone tool making techniques that take even greater skill and are more time-consuming. Such as pecking or grinding stones to make tools.
The Viking Ribstones, near Viking, Alberta, Canada. An example of grinding or pecking stone technology. It took either many years, or many First Nations people, or both, to patiently grind away on these granite boulders to create these incised lines, which some people believe depict the ribs of a buffalo. https://hermis.alberta.ca/ARHP/GetImageDetails.aspx?ObjectID=4665-0111&MediaID=127160
Today We Occasionally Use Stone Tools
Humans and their ancestors, throughout the world, made a variety of stone tools. Some of the earliest stone tools date back to over 2.58 million years ago, and were nothing more than fist-sized cobbles with some flakes removed to create a cutting edge.
In some parts of the world, people still made and used stone tools during the 20th century. Even today we are not totally out of the stone age. Nothing, not even the best steel, compares to this obsidian surgical scalpel blade (left), with an edge thickness of approximately one micron.
When I see these Mayan artifacts, or the stone workmanship below, I only sigh with envy. And, as a Canadian, I refer to that often-used hockey analogy when viewing this piece. ‘Hell, I could have been that good (to make the NHL) if only I’d practiced more.’ Ya, right!
This begs the question, of course, why Indigenous people around the world eventually abandoned these techniques and traded for similar European tools? Answers to that question of Canadian history, are complex and often hotly debated.
Maybe, in a future post, I will elaborate further on that question with a work of historical fiction!
The Plains Bison. Once numbering in the millions on the Great Plains of North America, this animal furnished prehistoric peoples with food, clothing, and shelters. Trying to capture these animals took a great deal of effort and ingenuity on the part of their human pursuers.
Over the centuries humans invented many ways to capture and slaughter animals on a mass scale. In Canada the most well known methods include netting or trapping thousands of fish (fish weir) at a time, or driving the Plains bison over cliffs. In his renowned book Imagining Head-Smashed-In (University of Athabasca Press), archaeologist Jack Brink talks about the methods the Blackfoot of southern Alberta used to drive hundreds of bison over steep cliffs to their deaths.
The cliffs at Head-Smashed-In buffalo jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, west of Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. Prehistoric peoples drove the bison off this ten metre high cliff located at the southern edge of the Porcupine Hills. The animals would then be butchered in the nearby camp which also had a source of water close by. The site may have been used as early as six-thousand years ago leaving a twelve metre thick bone bed beneath the cliffs.
The Bison Pound
One of the few historic images of a bison pound. In this drawing, by George Back, horsemen chased bison into a wooden circular corral. In prehistoric times runners would have pursued them on foot. Hunters hid around the pound fence ready to dispatch the animals with spears, bows and arrows, or firearms. The camp was usually nearby, hidden and downwind from these nearsighted animals with an incredible sense of smell. (Library and Archives of Canada, C-33615)
The bison or antelope pound is another, lesser known method of mass killing that First Nations peoples used on the Northern Great Plains and park lands in western Canada. In her monograph, Communal Buffalo Hunting Among the Plains Indians, Eleanor Verbicky-Todd, describes a number of ingenious ways people captured these animals and disposed of them. One of those ways was the pound, or surround.
Aside from Brink’s book, this is one of the best sources written about communal bison hunting. Published by the Archaeological Survey of Alberta, it describes the various methods of communal bison hunting and other ingenious ways prehistoric peoples devised to capture this animal.
What is a Bison Pound?
Bison pounds are large corrals or surrounds, between five and six feet high, made from cut trees with an opening at one end to chase bison into. Once inside the animals couldn’t escape (because of a ramp or drop into the corral at the gate) and were then disposed of with the bow and arrow, or later with firearms. Of all the methods First Nations peoples devised to capture these enormous animals, pounding was the most difficult of all.
This drawing of an Assiniboine buffalo park or surround by Edwin Thomas Denig (from Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri. 1930:532. Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology). The pound requires some key components to work. A long drive lane is spread out to funnel the animals in. A set of hills, dunes, or trees are present in front of the corral to hide it from the animals. An elevated ramp near the entrance prevents the animals from escaping. In the center of the corral there is a medicine mast (usually a striped tree) with charms attached to it by the grand-master of ceremonies. The buffalo caller.
“Success depended upon too many circumstances. The ground had to lie correctly; timber should be available; the game has to be fairly plentiful and within easy reach. Also, someone able to guide the animals in the right direction was indispensable. Under the most favourable conditions, too, the herd often escaped.” (from Robert Jefferson, 1929. “Fifty Years on the Saskatchewan.” In Canadian Northwest Historical Society Publications 1:1-160)Diagram of the Plains Cree buffalo pound (by David Mandelbaum 1979:53. In The Plains Cree). The bottom two sketches show the gate or entrance which is a raised wood platform or earthen ramp. Once the bison jump in they can’t get back out again.
Where Does Bison Pounding Occur?
In Canada bison pounds are found on the Northern Great Plains and the park lands of the prairie provinces. But, in these areas certain key elements were required: Bison, trees (to make the corrals), suitable terrain, a large gathering basin, and lots of people (to build the pound and drive lanes, drive the animals in, dispose of them, and then butcher and process the meat).
For many years known locations of bison pounds were relatively rare in Alberta. Today most pounds occur in the park lands and northern Great Plains where there are trees and proper terrain. Such as river valleys or foothills. Without trees you can’t build the corrals and drive lanes.
In 2010 there were sixteen known pounds recorded in Alberta. Most of them occur in areas with trees and hilly terrain. Early explorers, such as David Thompson, Peter Fidler and Alexander Henry, remarked that bison pounding was a major industry in the park lands of the prairie provinces. As the demand for meat and pemmican rose during the fur trade, this industry likely became more common than during prehistoric times.
Now after hundreds or even thousands of years these features leave no mark on the surface of the land. You’ve probably driven by some pounds without even knowing it.
Suitable Terrain and Trees – Bodo, Alberta
Terrain and trees were key factors to build and operate a successful pound. Hills or barriers (e.g., trees) were required to hide the pound from the bison. Sometimes the pound was placed on a slope, helping to drive the animals down into it. On a flat surface the drive lanes were sometimes curved and a ramp was built at the entrance to hide the corral. A successful pound also required a large prairie or gathering basin for bison to graze, and then to move the animals toward the pound.
The Bodo area of east-central Alberta is just such a place. Bodo, you ask? Where is that? Well, I’ll let you look it up on a map. If you visit the area when their interpretive center is open in the summer months, you can even tour the site and occasionally partake in excavations.
This is Bodo, Alberta, southeast of Provost, near the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. The area contains all the key elements to make a good pound. Treed sand hills (above left) to build and hide the pound. And a large gathering basin where bison would come to graze and drink water from the nearby creek. The photograph at the bottom shows the treed Bodo sand dunes, surrounded by vast grasslands. A perfect spot for an ambush.
Surprise and Ambush – Hardisty, Alberta
The Hardisty bison pound site is a short distance east of the Battle River and would have provided people with wood, water and the terrain necessary to drive bison successfully into a well concealed pound.
When you drive east on Highway 13 and arrive at Hardisty, Alberta and then cross the Battle River, you will see a series of oil bunkers on the right side of the highway. In the Battle River Valley below them lies the Hardisty bison pound. The site was found when the oil companies wanted to construct their pipelines through the valley corridor. What was uncovered and hidden for so many years, surprised many people.
The Hardisty site is remarkable in many ways. It wasn’t discovered until relatively recently, although it was near a major central Alberta highway and the community of Hardisty. It contains a very thick bone bed which represents use between 900 – 1,100 years ago, and then approximately 7,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest known pound sites in western Canada. It also contained an adjoining camping and processing area.
Archaeological deposits and artifacts from the Hardisty site. Top left: a bone pit. Right: prehistoric projectile points. Bottom left: pottery shards. (Photograph courtesy of FMA Consultants)
Paskapoo Slopes, Calgary, Alberta
North facing Paskapoo Slopes, looking south from the north side of the Bow River. The numbered sites represent prehistoric campsites, kill sites, and one major pound (EgPn-362). (Photograph courtesy of Lifeways of Canada)
Nestled on the Paskapoo slopes, in the heart of Calgary, Alberta, are a series of prehistoric campsites, kill sites, and a major buffalo pound site, hidden for thousands of years in plain view.
Bone bed of bison pound being excavated by archaeologists, Lifeways of Canada. Archaeologists collect all the bones and artifacts and then reconstruct what portions of the animals were used and what was left behind. (Photographs courtesy of Lifeways of Canada).Illustrations of the Hardisty pound site (above left) and the Paskapoo pound site (below right), redrawn from Lifeways of Canada and FMA Consultants, showing the shape of the drive lanes, the pound and the slope of the land. Note in both sites the drive lanes may have curved somewhat near the gate and corral. Possibly to better conceal the gate and the pound from the bison.
A Time for Ceremony, Cooperation and Feasting
Communal large game hunting, such as the operation and construction of a bison pound, took a great deal of skill, organization, cooperation of many people, and sound execution to successfully lure the animals into the corrals. Pounding was accompanied by ceremonies to bring in the animals, and feasting when the animals were caught. Often the pounds did not work and then the process started over again.
What the Paskapoo Slopes pound and processing area might have looked like. (Drawing, courtesy of Lifeways of Canada).
Bison pounds in Alberta date back as far as seven-thousand years, and possibly earlier. These are only a few of many pounds that likely occur in Alberta. Others have yet to be found. Numerous pounds are also present in southern Saskatchewan (near Estuary and Gull Lake) where I grew up. As a young boy I used to roam the river hills where Miry Creek flowed into the South Saskatchewan River. There might have been a pound near there as well.
I’ll leave you with one last perhaps more realistic description of an Assiniboine bison pound near Fort George, Alberta, described by North West Company trader, Duncan M’Gillivray, in 1794. Not a pretty picture:
“On arriving at the camp our noses were assailed by an offensive smell which would have proved fatal to more delicate organs: It proceeded from the Carcases in the Pound and the mangled limbs of Buffaloes scattered among the Lodges, but another substance which shall be nameless contributed the most considerable part of this diabolical odour. In the afternoon were were gratified by the seeing the Buffalo enter the Pound; they were conducted thither by two small fences beginning on each side of the door and extending wider the farther they advance in the Plain: from behind these the Indians Waved their robes as the Buffaloes were passing to direct their course straight towards the Pound, which was so well constructed on the declivity of a small hill that it was invisible till you arrived at the gate. The poor animals were scarce enclosed, when showers of arrows were discharged at them as they rushed round the Pound making furious attempts to revenge themselves on their foes, till at length being overcome with wounds & loss of blood they were compelled to yield to their oppressors and many of them were cut to pieces before the last remainder of life had forsook them. Of all the methods which the Indians have devised for the destruction of this useful animal, – the Pound is the most successful.” (from the diary of Duncan M’Gillivray, November 23, 1794, near the Vermilion River, Alberta.
The bison pound, when full of large, frightened, stampeding animals, would have been a chaotic, dangerous place to be near. This drawing by Robert Frankowiak is on the cover of Verbicky-Todd’s monograph published by the Archaeological Survey of Alberta. It was originally in Thomas F. Kehoe’s publication, The Gull Lake Site: A Prehistoric Bison Drive in Southwestern Saskatchewan. 1973. Milwaukee Public Museum Publications in Anthropology and History 1.
In Western Canada, early fur trade fort inhabitants relied mostly on large amounts of wild game meat for their food. By the 1840’s, the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton grew enough grain to make flour. Occasionally, when the crops and the game failed, times got real tough at many of these forts. Especially in the north. Photograph of reconstructed Fort Edmonton with the grist mill in the background (courtesy of the City of Edmonton Archives, EA-207-325).
Fort Wedderburn, Lake Athabasca, Athabasca District, Spring, 1821
George Simpson sat at his rough, crudely made wooden table carefully composing his letter to the shareholders of the Hudson’s Bay Company in London. Also, carefully balancing himself on his rickety chair with the one leg shorter than the others. His breath came out in short puffs, it was so cold in the little log cabin facing the large expanse of frozen lake. The fire was roaring in the hearth, barely keeping the little room warm. He wrote quickly so the ink wouldn’t freeze on the tip of his goose quill pen.
He glanced up at his clerk, William, who was patiently waiting for his new governor to finish the letter, so he could pack it with the other dispatches on the canoe brigades to York Factory. And then off to London by ship. William usually wrote the dispatches for Simpson, but not this time. This matter was much too important for a mere clerk to undertake.
William already recognized that look on the new governor’s face. Simpson was in a foul mood, shaking his head and writing furiously. “This nonsense must stop William. The Native women are important to the trade, both in their knowledge of the country, their work, and the alliances they form when they enter marriages with the men of the trade.”
“But those morons in London don’t seem to understand this simple fact. They insist we not support women at our inland posts. Imbeciles. All of them.”
He leaned over his letter and wrote some more. “How does this sound William?”:
“Connubial alliances are the best security we can have of the good will of the natives. I have therefore recommended the Gentlemen to form connections with the principal families immediately on their arrival, which is no difficult matter, as the offer of their Wives and Daughters is the first token of their friendship and hospitality.” (Parts of a letter sent by George Simpson to the London Committee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, May 15, 1821)
He looked up at William, as if waiting for approval of his work. Then he smiled. Somehow it always felt good when you could vent by writing. “Anyway, what can they do in London to stop us if we dearly need the help of women to be successful in the trade? How will they ever find out?”
William wasn’t about to argue with his new master. Even if he had a contrary opinion. Which he didn’t. Simpson had a long memory when someone crossed him.
“It sounds fine, Sir. I’ll make sure it’s sent out with the spring brigades once the ice goes out.”
“That’ll be all then, William. I need some rest. This business with the women saps the energy out of me.”
As William left and closed the governor’s door behind him, he thought to himself. If you didn’t stay up all night entertaining those ‘bits of brown’, as you call them, perhaps you wouldn’t feel so tired. He shook his head and went to his quarters. He would send an additional note along with Simpson’s letter to one of Simpson’s staunchest supporters among the shareholders. A Sir Arthur Meddlock. Chairman of the board. All hell would break loose when this issue came up at the London Committee meeting.
………………………
“…we have it in contemplation to make up the Clothes principally at this place and at the English Establishments which….would reduce the Expense very materially as the labour would actually cost nothing it being the duty of the Women at the different Posts to do all that is necessary in regard to Needle Work.” (HBC, Minutes of Council Northern Department of Rupert Land, 1821-22)
London, England, December, 1821
The shareholders met in the enormous hall, in London, England to discuss the Honorable Company’s business in the Colonies. They were some of the most powerful men of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and England, which was now preparing to monopolize the Canadian fur trade in North America. After just recently amalgamating with their Canadian rival, the North West Company.
But tonight, instead of celebrating their achievement, there was strife and tension in the air. Not everyone was happy. In fact, a few were livid.
One of the Company shareholders, a Sir Jeremy Jacobs, was shouting at Sir Arthur Meddlock. Jacobs was young, opinionated and often quite brazen at these meetings. In short, mostly full of himself.
“Why, in the name of the King of bloody England, Mr. Meddlock, must we feed and support these women at our inland posts? They’re a burden to us and only reduce our bloody profits. Yet, you sit there nonchalantly as if it really doesn’t matter.” He waited for Meddlock to respond. There was only silence.
So, he continued. “The Company men were strictly forbidden to support the Indian population at the inland forts. But, from what I hear, they ignore these instructions at every turn. How could that Simpson recommend such a thing? He, of all people, should know better. Perhaps we should look for another Governor to run this most honorable enterprise.” Jacobs spat out these last words in Meddlock’s face. A face which was becoming increasingly crimson by the second.
Meddlock, as Chair of these sometimes rowdy meetings, always the diplomat and man of control, was beginning to lose his patience with the young, brash Jacobs.
“It can’t be stopped Sir Jacobs. I’ve been informed by the Governor that the women are necessary to carry out the Company’s business and comfort the men. Without them our operations simply wouldn’t work.”
Another shareholder piped up. ” Necessary? Necessary to warm their beds, you mean. And I hear Simpson is the worst of the lot. They’re beginning to call him the ‘father’ of the fur trade. And, for good reason. He’s lost count of the number of children he’s sired from so many different Native women.”
“These women cost us an arm and a leg and then produce offspring who then cost us even more. And what are we going to do with all these people? We can’t employ them all. This must stop Mr. Chairman. Before it really gets out of hand.”
“With all due respect Sir Franklin, it can’t be stopped. If we stopped it, we would never recruit another man to work in the Colonies. And our fort operations would suffer considerably. Instead, I propose we formally indenture the women and officially put them to work, which they already do, to help our operations.”
As soon as Meddlock uttered these words, all hell broke out again in the great hall. Most were opposed. Some were convinced that Simpson was right. “Stop. Enough. Order, or I’ll adjourn this meeting.” Finally, the Chair managed to regain order.
Franklin however, was not finished. “Sir, let me get this right. Are you suggesting we put these women and children on the books?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. That’s what Simpson wants. In that way we can better manage the trade and the costs instead of simply ignoring them. That’s Simpson’s plan.”
Again there was an uproar. Jacobs was now standing. Approaching Meddlock and pointing accusingly at him. Becoming more threatening and menacing every moment.
“This is sheer lunacy, Meddlock. It must be stopped. I demand it be stopped. I think you’re in league with that scoundrel Simpson.”
“Sir Jacobs. Keep your confounded wig on man,” the chairman shouted out. “Enough already. It seems we are divided on this topic. Any suggestions as to how to proceed?” No one answered. Most were too busy fuming, not thinking.
Meddlock, now having regained his composure looked around the room and then calmly spoke. The room fell silent. “Then I have one. One or two of you go to the Colonies and spend a year in the interior to observe the situation. Then report back to this committee so we can make an informed decision. It seems Mr. Simpson’s opinion alone is insufficient on this matter.”
Suddenly, heads dropped, eyes turned to the floor, and human bodies shrank, no longer puffed up, but becoming smaller. Trying their best to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. No one volunteered.
Meddlock looked into the eyes of Jacobs, still standing, a finger pointing, frozen like a statue in front of him. Jacobs felt suddenly exposed, realizing too many eyes were looking at him.
“Jacobs! You seem to be most opposed in this matter. What say you? Want to join Simpson in the Colonies for a year? It would do you some good. Give you a whole new perspective.”
Jacobs only sputtered. Thinking of how this could possibly do him any good. He really didn’t want a new perspective. “Sir, I couldn’t leave my family, my business and spend my time with those savages out there. Impossible, Sir. Quite impossible.” With that Jacobs turned and looked around for other volunteers. Hoping, almost pleading that someone else would raise their hand. No one did. A few members had already quietly slipped out of the room.
“Well Jacobs since you only wish to argue and shout, but not gain new information, maybe we should just put the matter to a vote, and stop all this nonsense.” Meddlock again watched as the hall turned into an uproar. Only now a number of shareholders were in Jacobs’ face telling him, imploring him, even threatening him, to go to Canada and gather information.
Jacobs’ pride, now at stake, looking quite defeated, finally succumbed. After all, he was the most vocal one in the group. He gathered his courage, and then looked defiantly into Meddlock’s eyes. “Alright Sir. I’ll bloody go and see why we need these people at our posts.” With those words a loud cheer went up in the hall. From the usually very ‘proper and reserved’ English gentlemen. Many came by to pat Jacobs on the back and congratulate him on his decision. Mostly glad that they weren’t the ones going. Jacobs simply nodded. Wondering what the hell he had just gotten himself into.
Arthur Meddlock looked calmly on, thinking. This one has more guts than I thought. Young. Rich. Independent. But still willing to go on a journey that most men of his stature would shy away from. Well, we’ll see Sir Jeremy Jacobs, what it is you’re really made of.
“Well, the matter’s settled then. We’ll postpone a vote on this issue until we hear back from Sir Jacobs.” With that the Chairman pounded his gavel hard on the table. The meeting was officially adjourned. And the dining and wining soon began.
…………………………..
Fort Vermilion, Athabasca District, Canada, Fall, 1822
“…a petty post erected on the north bank of the river, and so completely embossomed in the woods, that we did not catch a glimpse of it until we were among huts, and surrounded by howling dogs and screeching children. At this sylvan retreat there were but three rude houses…and there was not a picket or palisade to guard them from either savage or bear. This mean abode was dignified with the name of fort.” (HBC Fort Assiniboine, 1825, Alexander Ross)
The Hudson’s Bay Company’s McLeod Fort (c.1879), constructed in the interior of British Columbia. The words, ‘Fort Misery’ was clearly written over the front door of this fort building (bottom right photograph). Many of these forts were not exactly what people today envision a fort should look like.
They landed their canoes on the banks of the Peace River in front of Fort Vermilion. Jacobs looked up the bank searching for any signs of a fort. His back was killing him. His ass was numb from sitting endless hours in the large freight canoe.
“Well Lafleur, where is it? The fort?”
“Just up the bank, Sir.” Again Jacobs looked frantically for the fort. He stood to get a better look and then tried to get out of the freight canoe. He almost fell face first into the Peace River, only to be rescued just in time by one of the French Canadians. Someone smacked him on the back as he scrambled up the muddy, steeply sloped bank.
“Welcome to Fort Vermilion, Sir. One of the mightiest forts on the Peace River. Actually, one of the few forts on the river. Isn’t she a sight to behold.”
Jacobs, now standing on the top of the bank, simply stared. There before him stood a few crude log shanties, surrounded by a solid wood picket fence of some sort. About the height of a man. These were certainly not fort walls. With no bastions or blockhouses. No galleries. No cannons. Suddenly a pack of barking dogs and screaming children ran by nearly knocking him over. Going where? He didn’t know.
“You call this a fort, LaFleur? Christ, you’re joking? This is the servants’ quarters, right? Where’s the real fort?” He looked imploringly at LaFleur. Hoping that the man was only pulling his leg.
“No Sir. This is it. This is where you’ll be living until next spring. Isn’t it lovely. Cozy even. Wouldn’t you think. I’m sure a little below a man of your stature, Sir Jacobs. But it works well, when the temperatures drop to minus forty below Fahrenheit.”
Jacobs looked at LaFleur incredulously. “Forty below Fahrenheit? You’re kidding me my friend, right?”
“No. No joke. The temperature, she drop low in this country, in the winter. Keeps everything frozen and fresh. I saw once where the mercury, she disappear in the bottom of the thermometer.” He chuckled as if this was some kind of joke.
Jacobs simply stared at the French Canadian. This entire trip had been one big nightmare since he left England. First he puked his guts out coming over the Atlantic Ocean to York Factory, in that rolling Company tub called a ‘ship’. Then, sitting in a canoe for endless miles. Traveling up the rivers and lakes, swatting swarms of mosquitoes so thick you could hit them with a paddle, and knock hundreds out of the air with one stroke. What the fuck was he doing out here anyway? In this god-forsaken wilderness.
“Come. I show you to your living quarters. Only about five below zero in there in the winter. Cozy. Near the fire, it’s much better. Your feet thaw, and you’re ass freezes. But if you turn often enough, it’s quite nice. Don’t fall asleep though. Either your ass or mouth will freeze shut.” At this bit of humor, after he looked at the expression on Jacobs’ face, he broke out in fits of laughter.
“Hé, Henry, ce nouveau est sur le point de vivre le temps de sa vie. (Heh, Henry, this new one is about to experience the time of his life.)” The two men roared with laughter, leaving a poor Sir Jacobs perplexed, scared and clearly shaken. Then they grabbed his belongings and took him to his quarters. After seeing them he was even more shaken.
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April 6th, 1822. “The advantages of this place are very few over any other except it is that ground is tilled for our gardens and being a critical place for the Natives to bring their find.” (HBCA B.224/e/1)
April 7th, 1822. “The disadvantages rise from the exhausted state of the country in larger animals which renders it very difficult to procure fresh meat upon which the people of the establishments have been hitherto chiefly fed.” (Report of the establishment of For Vermilion (Peace River) Athabasca Department, 1822/23 by Colin Campbell) (HBCA B.224/e/1)
Trader, Colin Campbell and his family sat around the supper table and watched their new guest as he stared at the food on his plate. Sir Jacobs, it seemed, was somewhat reluctant to tuck in and eat his meal.
“If you don’t mind me asking Mr. Campbell, what exactly is this on my plate?” Jacobs kept eyeing his meat. Poking it with his fork but not quite ready to give it a go. Wondering if it might jump off his plate.
“Well, you’re in for a treat tonight, Jacobs. Potatoes and turnips from the gardens. And one of the hunters brought in a lynx. That’s lynx meat. The finest there ever was.” Campbell waited expectantly as Jacobs took a fork full. Finally, putting it slowly in his mouth. Wincing as he did so.
Suddenly he beamed. Surprised. “Why it’s quite good, Campbell. Very delicate and a fine flavor. I never would have thought a member of the cat family could taste this good. How did you come upon it, if I may ask?” He looked expectantly at his host for an answer.
“Natives, Sir Jacobs. They know what’s good to eat and what’s not. If we didn’t have them around, we’d be lost.” Jacobs simply nodded making a mental note.
Jacobs, quite intrigued by his host’s last comment, wanted to know more. “Surely Campbell, you and your men can hunt. No need to hire these savages to hunt for you? Is there?”
Campbell, after stuffing another potato in his mouth, looked at his guest. Thinking. Well can’t blame him for thinking like that. I was no better when I first came out. Wait. Until it gets really tough. Then he’ll realize what I’m talking about.
Campbell responded with a more leveled answer to Jacobs’ question. “Hunting in this land is very hard, especially in the winter. The wild game has been almost decimated over the many years from feeding our people. If you don’t know what you’re doing out there, you could die hunting.”
“And that lynx, Sir Jacob. That you’re eating. I’ll bet you won’t even see one, let alone get a shot at it, before you leave next spring. They’re extremely cagey and hard to trap, let alone shoot.”
Campbell’s Metis wife, Elizabeth, looked up at at her husband, then at Jacobs, wondering why this man was even here. Elizabeth recognized arrogance when she saw it. And this man, Jacobs, absolutely dripped of it. But she didn’t say anything, keeping her peace. It was not what you said about the north to convince someone. It’s what the land did to you when you lived in it, that did the talking. It touched your very soul. Your very being. Occasionally letting you know that your life hung on a thread. He would soon come to realize these things.
…………………….
Hard Times Ahead, November, 1822
“So, Roy, how’s the harvest looking? How are our meat supplies holding up?”
Roy stirred and fidgeted not wanting to really answer his superior’s question. Because he might not like what he was about to hear. Finally, after Colin Campbell wouldn’t stop gazing at him, he reluctantly spoke up.
“We’ve had a bad harvest, Sir. The potatoes got an early frost and yielded little. The wheat, oats and barely were almost totally destroyed by locusts. We have little grist to feed our mill, to make flour for bannock. The game animals, what’s left of them, this year are poor, because of a hard winter last year. Sir, I don’t know if we’ll make it to spring. Unless the wild game picks up or we send our hunters further out. If the fisheries work this winter, maybe there’s a chance.”
“Then trade for more meat with the Natives.”
“Sir. They’re no better off than we are. Just barely able to make it themselves. I’m afraid this winter could be a bad one. We must ration carefully, and with any luck, we might survive until spring.”
Campbell looked concerned. By now he knew this country well enough. And when it decided to treat you cruelly, you more often then not, paid a high price. It was sometimes like this. The perfect storm. Both the crops and wild game populations failed. And then you prayed. For a miracle. But he realized those, like food, were in also in short supply in northern Canada. It seemed as if God wasn’t listening too well up here. No matter how loud and hard they prayed.
“Is there anything else we can do before winter sets in, Roy?”
Roy only shook his head. Then he hesitated before going on. “The women, Sir. They might be able to help. And a strange thing, Sir. They all left.”
Campbell looked at Roy, a little alarmed, waiting for more information. “Where to Roy? Where in the hell did they go this time of the year? Everything is nearly frozen up.”
“Out to the lakes and marshes behind us, Sir. They set up a camp there. My woman says they will stay there for at least two weeks. Or, until everything freezes up.”
At Roy’s words, Campbell became really alarmed. The women sensed this was going to be a tough winter. Disaster awaited them unless they acted. Now. He didn’t ask Roy any further questions. The women knew what to do when times got tough. If the game animals failed, their flour wouldn’t last until spring. The women knew this too. Maybe that’s why they left.
……………………
It was snowing hard. Campbell came into Jacob’s quarters, quickly slamming the door behind him, trying to keep the freezing cold out, and dusting off the fresh snow from his coat. A fire was blazing in the fireplace and there sat Jacobs with his boots almost in it. Trying to thaw out his frozen toes. He had been out at the hunter’s tents and had just come back. He was exhausted and incredibly cold. It was one of those stormy late December evenings. Everything outside snapped and crackled it was so cold.
Campbell looked at Jacobs’ feet. “Christ, Jacobs. You can’t be wearing those stupid leather boots this time of year. You’ll freeze your toes off, man.”
“I think it’s too late Colin. They might fall off any second now. How can you stand it out in this cold?” Finally the shivering Jacobs got his boots off, but it took some time before he could feel his toes again.
Mary, one of the young Chipewyan women who was looking after Jacobs looked at his toes and then his boots. Bad. Very bad. What a foolish Englishman. They all were when they first came to this country. Trying to look the ‘proper gentlemen’ in those foolish clothes. Who were they trying to impress anyway? The moose?
She looked at Jacobs with concern. “Here Sir. Put these on.” She produced a beautiful pair of moose hide moccasins that nearly reached his knees. They were lined with fur and wool blanket, and double-soled. “These will keep your feet from freezing.”
Jacobs took the moccasins from her and pulled them on. He sighed in relief. Ah, yes. Oh, that felt so good. “Mary, these are wonderful. You made them?”
“Yes, Sir. We make all the clothing for the men and children. Or they would freeze to death in the winter.” Jacobs simply stared at her and then at his new footwear. At the intricate stitching, the beautiful bead work. And, slowly it dawned on him why the women were so necessary at these god-forsaken, ‘colder than anything he ever experienced’, so-called forts.
“And you’ll need these too.” She handed Jacobs a fine wool capote, colorful wool sash, and large fur-lined mittens. And a large fur hat. The next day he walked around outside in his new footwear and clothing feeling quite relieved and a little bit more in control of his northern surroundings.
Later that evening Jacobs dined with trader Colin Campbell and Elizabeth. Now, contented enough with his new, warm clothing.
But the meager amount of food on his plate in front of him worried him.
“Not for me to interfere, Colin, but we seem to be eating less and less as the winter wears on. I think I’ve already lost ten pounds. Is there a problem?”
Campbell, at first reluctant to confide in this English nobleman and Company shareholder, decided he should know what was going on.
“We’re near January Jacobs and already running out of food. The hunters are having a hard time finding game. I haven’t heard any news from the men at the fishery. Our grain and potato supplies are down to almost nothing. Mainly because of the bad harvest. There could be a lot of trouble ahead. Unless we find some wild game soon. As you now know, our hunters are miles away from the fort, but find little.”
When they finished their meal, both men sat in silence, sipping their brandy, letting those rather somber facts slip into reality. The fort’s inhabitants were in deep trouble.
Jacobs looked at Campbell, clearly alarmed. He liked this man. He did everything possible to keep his people safe, healthy and happy. But, a lack of food put everyone on edge. And Jacobs had found out the hard way, while at the hunters’ camp, what hunting was like in the back country. Snow up to your waist in places. Dense forests. And the eternal bitter, bitter cold. It froze your hands instantly when you removed your mittens. The equipment froze up and malfunctioned. And even sometimes the more fragile metal pieces on the muskets broke. The nearest gunsmith was over a thousand miles away.
“Well, can’t you just ask for help, Campbell? Surely others are better off than we are?”
Campbell gazed at Jacobs with only a look that someone drinking would look at a friend, who had just said something foolish. “Jeremy. What help? We are in the middle of fucking-nowhere. The nearest forts are no better off than we are. You can’t just wave your magic wand and make this all better. We could die.”
Jacobs, as only a pompous, pampered nobleman could, responded. “But that’s not possible, Colin. Surely we can buy some help.”
Campbell was about to slap his newly made friend on the side of the head, but stopped short when one his children came into the room, crying.
“Daddy, I’m hungry. Is there something to eat? Please daddy. I need something to eat.” Before she could utter another word Elizabeth swept into the room and scooped her up, carrying her away still screaming about wanting something to eat.
Jacobs looked at Campbell. “Jesus, Colin. What are we going to do? Campbell simply took another sip of his brandy. Hope, he thought. Pray. Maybe there would be some luck with the hunt. Or, maybe just wait for a slow, agonizing death.
Chipewyan moccasins. Lined with fur or Hudson’s Bay Company wool blankets, to keep the cold out. Often beautifully embroidered with colorful glass bead work: “…the only tailors and washer women in the country, and make all the mittens, moccasins, fur caps, deer skin coats, etc., etc., worn in the land. (Explorer Robert Ballantyne, talking about the role of Metis women at the Hudson’s Bay Company forts, 1840)The Hudson’s Bay Company blanket became much more than just a blanket used for sleeping. It furnished First Nations and Metis with a strong, dense, warm material for making the winter clothing needed to survive in Northern Canada. The Canadian Capote became an essential piece of winter clothing. A truly Canadian invention and adaptation. Leggings were also made from wool blankets. Even moccasins were lined with them. The image on the left shows a Chipewyan hunter shooting a wood buffalo (painted by American, Frederick Remington). The image on the right shows a Cree hunter with his winter clothing (painted by Canadian novelist and painter, Arthur Heming).
………………………
Late March, 1823
It was a bright sunny day. Trying to make up for the temperature dropping to minus thirty degrees the night before. Most of the fort people had barely made it this far through the winter. But some of the children and a few adults got sick with the ‘chin cough’ (Whooping Cough) and died. The fort was not a happy place.
The hunters brought in just enough game to keep everyone going. The boys set snares in the forests hoping to catch some of the white hares. Potatoes, grain and dried meat were all expended. Animal fat seemed only like a far-away dream – a long-forgotten commodity. The fishery had failed.
Early spring in the northern forests was the worst time of all. What animals remained were lean and in poor condition. The hunters were sometimes too weak to even hunt them. This was the time of year when everyone suffered the most. Or died.
Times like these called for desperate measures. Colin Campbell gathered his people around him. “Break out the rough hides. Scrape the hair off them and boil them. That’s all we have to eat for a bit.” Before he said any more, Elizabeth and most of the fort women stepped up.
Jacobs, now down to skin and bones, looked on. He feared for his life. He might never see England again. But he was curious. What were the women up to?
Elizabeth spoke up. “Bring some men and follow us to the marshes. We made food supplies there last fall, in case we ran into trouble this spring. It’s time to gather them.”
Jacobs, almost too weak to walk, got up rather wobbly and followed. “I’m coming along Colin. I have to see this. What did they collect?”
“I don’t know Jeremy. We’ll see soon enough.” They followed the women up the river terraces, and into the back country. Trails led in every direction, but the women seemed to know which ones to take to get to their destination.
They finally arrived at a small, shallow lake surrounded by marsh and cattails as far as the eye could see. There beside the shore stood many low tent-like structures made out of poles, covered with bark and snow. Inside hanging on thin poles were rows and rows of cattail rhizomes. Thousands of them. Collected by the women last fall, as the ice set in.
Campbell looked at his wife questionably. “What is this Elizabeth? What are these plants?”
“They’re cattail roots, Colin. They’re well dried and frozen now. When we thaw them, we’ll pound them into flour and make Native bannock.”
Jacobs looked on having a hard time believing what he was seeing. “Elizabeth, you can eat these? They don’t look that good to me. Probably poisonous.”
“Jeremy, don’t be so foolish.” Elizabeth poked him the ribs, almost knocking him over he was so weak.
“These roots are as filling and as nutritious as potatoes. It just takes a lot more work to gather and prepare them. That’s what the women spent two weeks last fall doing up here. Up to their knees in the freezing water pulling cattails. They make a great cake over the fire. Much like bannock.”
“But how do you know this, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth looked at Jacobs as if he were the biggest fool around. Which of course he was when it came to surviving in northern Canada. The other women giggled and broke out babbling in languages he didn’t understand. And then she softened. Like all the Whites in this country, how would he know. A pampered English nobleman would never think of eating cattails.
“We know Jeremy. What to do when times are tough. The women saw this coming last fall. That’s why the Native side of my people survived in this country for thousands of years. Because we learned and we know.”
Jacobs was suddenly jolted into a new reality and only nodded in agreement. Now, after living at this fort, with these people, it all seemed so obvious. Now that he actually lived in the country. Felt its wrath and unforgiving harshness. These women and men, possessing thousands of years of knowledge about the land, were indispensable to the Company.
He also realized, in the great fur trading halls of London, no one really knew what was needed out here. In the future they would have to listen more carefully to Simpson’s recommendations.
That evening, after hauling the cattail rhizomes back to the fort and pounding them into flour, everyone got a few mouthfuls of nutritious food. At least to make it through tomorrow and many more days.
After their meal, Campbell and Jacobs sat, sipping their brandy and smoking their pipes. Both men were somewhat contemplative. No longer so fretful. They would get through the harsh spring. And when the cattails grew again, if there was no other game, there was more food awaiting them if they needed it.
“So, Sir Jacobs. You’re ready to take the spring ice out with the brigades. And eventually back to England. What are your thoughts about the trade and this life?” Campbell had been briefed on why Jacobs had been sent inland.
“My thoughts, my friend, and my memories, will forever linger on this place and their peoples. Especially the women.” Campbell probed no more on the subject. He just knowingly smiled. With that the two men toasted with a another glass of brandy, and talked long into the night about the affairs of the Company.
Canada possesses a wealth of wild edible plants. Some of them growing right under our very noses. Bulrush, or cattail, is one of them.
Hudson’s Bay Headquarters, London, England, 1823
“Let the meeting come to order. I would like to welcome back Sir Jeremy Jacobs from the Colonies. Sir, you have something you want to share with us?”
Sir Jacobs stood, walked over to the Chairman’s table and plopped down a rather hefty report which he had written while on the ship back to England.
“It’s all in there gentlemen. Together with my recommendations regarding the Natives and the women.”
He gazed around the room and looked at the round, plump, well fed faces. And bodies. Some so portly they barely fit into their chairs. He was just beginning to regain some of the weight he had lost in Canada.
Then he picked up a large platter loaded with little flat cakes off the enormous wooden table. They were still steaming, hot off the griddle. “Before I brief you on what’s in the report, gentlemen, help yourselves to my special cakes. What I’m about to tell you will be more meaningful once you’ve tasted these.
End Notes
If you’re ever lost in our vast Canadian wilderness, with nothing to eat, there are many wild plants out there to survive on. If you know what to look for. According to Outdoor Canada, there are over 350 wild edible plants in Canada. Northern Bushcraft lists eight-four edible wild plants in Alberta. And nearly as many in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the other Canadian provinces.
When I was at Simon Fraser University, we went on a survival field trip, trying our best to live off the land for a few days along the Pacific Coast. Not easy believe me. One of the first books I read before going was by renowned ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner. In it she listed the edible British Columbia plants that First Nations gathered. An excellent source. Cattail rhizomes were on that list. So, of course, I tried them.
First I pulled the cattails out of the muck. Then I picked off the rhizomes, washed and baked them on low heat to dry them. I pounded, ground them into a kind of flour, added water and made a dough or paste. Once I flattened them out into little cakes, I fried them like bannock. They were quite good. And, I’m still alive. Quite nutritious actually. Very high in carbohydrates. For more information about their nutrient content, go to this page.
Cattail rhizomes (above left) contain a lot of carbohydrates. Cattail pollen (below right) can also be used as a flour and eaten. According to ethnohistoric sources, both the Slave and Chipewyan gathered these plants for food. Be sure to collect them from non-polluted waters.
The role Indigenous women played in the Canadian fur trade cannot be overestimated. Without their work and support, fur trade forts would not have been operational. But the presence and support of First Nations and Metis women, and their children, was a real sore spot with the Hudson’s Bay Company shareholders for many years. Most traders however, just ignored what was considered official Company policy – not to allow women to live at the Company forts. This continued until 1821 when the Company finally officially recognized that the trade couldn’t operate without the help of women.
The cattail bannock story underlines just how important Native traditional knowledge was for the men at these remote inland forts. Many were fresh off the boats from Britain and knew nothing about the Canadian wilderness. It also underlines the sometimes extreme conditions that prevailed at these inland posts. Hunger and starvation in the north, sometimes was just around the corner. Especially as wild game animal populations declined in a region.
While George Simpson was a great organizer and administrator, he was also a notorious womanizer. His numerous liaisons are well documented in the annals of Canadian fur trade history. But he immediately recognized that women played a very critical, important role in the trade and operation of the forts. His bluntness about such matters would have occasionally ruffled some feathers in the London halls among the Hudson’s Bay Company’s shareholders.
Wild rose found throughout Canada. The rose hips were an important source of vitamin C. An essential vitamin to stave off scurvy in the Canadian wilderness.
The grave of John Rowand (1787 – 1854), renowned fur trader and Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton.
In 1854, John Rowand, Chief Factor, Fort Edmonton, while trying to break up a fight among the men at Fort Pitt, suddenly clutched his chest and fell over, dead. Probably from a heart attack. But, we’ll never know for certain.
John Rowand, Chief Factor of the HBC Fort Edmonton, was sixty-seven when he died. Only a few years younger than the average life of a fur trader.
The Things That Eventually Kill Us
Researchers currently list nine major factors that affect human longevity: Gender, genetics, prenatal and childhood conditions, education, socio-economic status, marital status, ethnicity, lifestyle (diet, exercise, tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, etc.), and medical technology.
In my last post, I examined the dietary habits of 18th and 19th century fur trade employees in western Canada. Many Company men and women ate a heavy meat protein and fat diet. I ended my post asking: How did a diet rich in animal protein and fat affect the health and well-being of Company employees? Without detailed medical records, there really is only one way to investigate this question. I examined how long these people lived compared to the rest of Canadians. Or, among their peers who might have eaten a different diet.
Many of the above factors also dictated how long people lived in the fur trade. But it is not possible to research all of them. Among the easiest to investigate are: 1) socio-economic status (Company officers versus laborers); 2) ethnicity (English/Scottish, French Canadians, Metis/Native); and, 3) other lifestyle factors (diet, alcohol and tobacco consumption, degree of physical labor, etc.). I examine a few of these factors here with the available fur trade records.
Fur trade company employees differed in many ways, including their status (officers versus laborers), ethnicity (Indigenous, French Canadian, Orkney, etc.), degree and type of physical labor, and other lifestyle differences (including diet). The above painting and sketch depicts many of these differences. Officers were mostly of English/Scottish descent, were the best educated, ate the best and most foods, and did the least physical labor. Fort laborers were poorly educated, of mixed ethnic descent (French Canadian, Indigenous, Orkney, etc.) and did the hardest physical labor. (Upper left image, painting by Rex Woods for the Hudson’s Bay Company; lower right image, National Archives of Canada, C-2771)
The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA): Employee Records
We face many problems when researching immediate cause of death, or its more remote, major underlying causes, in 18th and 19th century Canada. First, there is the unreliability and absence of records and diagnosis of patients. So, for example, when I ask how a meat fat-protein rich diet in the fur trade may have affected human health, there are few ways to answer this question. It’s hard enough to answer in present-day society, let alone two-hundred years ago.
However, if lifestyle, inequality, ethnicity, or even place of work, were detrimental to the health of fur trade employees they may show up in their mortality rates, or age of death. But, where do we find these types of data?
Fortunately, the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, Manitoba contain a list of former employees. It often includes their ethnic background, birth and death dates, dates and years of service, position, post and fur trade district they worked in.
Example of Hudson’s Bay Company Archives lists of former employees, often (but not always) including their dates of birth and death. Example of my HBCA data base. I selected employees with last names starting with A, B, and C. In some cases, when I needed a larger sample of certain type of data, I continued investigating the records further, beyond the letter C.
From the HBCA data base, I compiled a list of ninety-one men, with known birth and death dates, who worked in various regions and time periods. Sometimes the list also described their positions (e.g., officer, clerk, laborer), ethnic origins (English, Scottish, French Canadian, Metis, and Native, etc.) and years of service.
Unfortunately these data have their limitations. Many records don’t contain birth or death dates. Occasionally place of birth or ethnic background is not recorded. I included the Columbia District employees, although they likely had a different lifestyle than employees living further inland. I also included employees working at York Factory/Eastmain and Red River. Both areas and their forts would have been regularly supplied by ships from England or had well established agriculture by the early 19th century (Red River).
I only have data for men. While many women lived and worked at the Company posts, they were not officially recognized as Company employees. However, in almost every human population where statistics are available, women on average live longer than men. Finally, most of the HBCA records list no cause of death. So, I really can’t directly connect death to diet (heart disease leading to a heart attack) or tobacco consumption (lung cancer).
And until recently I didn’t have any basis for comparison of these mean ages of death to people in eastern Canada, or populations from other parts of the world. But that changed when I found a great data base on human mortality and life expectancy. It’s called Our World In Data. Check it out. I will use it here to compare to our fur trade mortality rates to Canada and the rest of the world.
What was the Average Age of Death of Fur Trade Employees?
The average age of death of the employees I sampled is an incredible seventy years (ranging between 1705 – 1963). The youngest man died at age thirty-five; the oldest at age ninety-nine. Let’s put that into a global perspective. Life expectancy at birth at the beginning of the 19th century in the Americas, was approximately thirty-five years. In the rest of the world it was less than thirty years. The chart below shows life expectancy of various countries and the world through time.
This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. First, some definitions. Life expectancy means the length of time that a human being is expected to live (based on statistics). For those of you interested in knowing how life expectancy is calculated, go to this page. Mortality refers to the death of large numbers of people. Mean age of death refers to the average age of death of a population (or sub-group) at any given time or place.
However, this chart gives the life expectancy of people at birth. So, these data are really not directly comparable to our fur trade data. Instead, we have to make a comparison of life expectancy at a certain age. All the statistics show that as you get older your life expectancy increases. For example, in 1850 life expectancy in Wales and England was around forty years at birth. If you reached the age of twenty, then your life expectancy was sixty. And at forty, you would be expected to live to sixty-seven years. Through time these figures all increase, as the chart below shows.
Unfortunately these data aren’t available for Canada. At least that I’m aware of. But they probably follow the English and Welsh data relatively closely. In the fur trade most Company employees were approximately the age of twenty or older when they entered the Company’s service. In Wales or England, during the 1840s, a person reaching twenty years of age could expect to live to age sixty. Our fur trade employees are living an average of seventy years.
Let’s look at the data another way. The chart below shows the percent of people who reach successive ages through time. So, for example, in 1850 approximately forty percent of the Welsh or English population reached the age of sixty. And only ten percent reached the age of eighty.
This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. Keep in mind that these estimates include men and women. They would be somewhat lower for men only.
The men in the Canadian fur trade far surpassed these figures. Below is a breakdown of the percent of men reaching certain percentages.
This chart comes from courtesy of Our World in Data. The yellow line represents my fur trade data.
In the Canadian fur trade sample there is one death (drowning) listed under forty years of age recorded. (Remember, this is a sample. If I examined every record, more men likely died under the age of forty; but the sample data suggests, very few.) Over seventy percent of the men reached an age of sixty years. Twenty-four percent reach eighty, while nine percent reach the age of ninety or over. Quite remarkable, considering the living and working conditions and the somewhat high protein and fat diets of many of these people.
Is There a Difference in Life Expectancy Between the Officers and Laborers?
In my last post, I noted that the officers: 1) received more meat and fat rations; 2) were of different ethnic backgrounds; and, 3) did less physical work, than the laborers. Therefore, any/all of these factors (diet, type and degree of physical labor, and ethnicity) might account for possible differences in mean age of death.
Although this chart shows an approximately one year difference of mean age of death of the two groups, the difference is not statistically significant.
There is virtually no difference (statistically speaking) in the age of death of these two groups. None of the factors listed above was influential in shortening, or prolonging, the life of each group.
In this chart I calculated how many officers and laborers reach the age of sixty-five and over.
However, as the above chart shows, more officers are living at ages sixty-five and over than the laborer group. However, whatever is causing this difference, high meat protein and fat diet isn’t a significant factor in age of death. If it was, more laborers than officers would have lived over sixty-five years of age (because the officers consumed more meat protein and fat than laborers).
How Well did Company Employees Fare in Respective Fur Trade Districts?
The major fur trade districts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, c.1830. Borders and names occasionally changed over the years. Image from Richard Somerset Mackie. “Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843. ” (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997)
Company employees were often unwilling to work at the northern posts because of the extreme hardships they faced. Such as the Athabasca or Peace River Districts which takes up most of northern Alberta. Or the even further northern Mackenzie District in the Northwest Territories.
In the words of Chief Factor John Lee Lewes, at Fort Simpson, in 1840: “…for from it [lack of food] arises more than 9/10 of the anxiety we all have to suffer from it [lack of food] in this hardest of hard Districts. Provisions, provisions….” (Brackets mine) Times were often tough in the far north.
How tough? Tough enough to affect human health, and perhaps average age of death? I grouped the data into major fur trade districts and checked. The results are shown below.
The fur trade districts in western Canada are ranked from easiest (Saskatchewan, Red River, and York Factory/Eastmain ) to hardest (Athabasca/Peace River, Mackenzie District). Not only did the more southerly Saskatchewan District and Red River posts have access to more wild game, they also acquired domestic stock and started agriculture relatively earlier. In the Athabasca/Peace River and Mackenzie Districts, this was not always possible. Also, at York Factory and Eastmain there was a more constant supply of foods coming from Britain, reducing hardship considerably. The Columbia District results are a bit of an enigma. However, they certainly didn’t increase the mean age of death. Instead, they lowered it.
With the exception of the Columbia District (coastal), there is virtually no difference in the mean age of death among the men of the different fur trade districts. Despite the constant hardships and complaints of not having enough food and supplies, which may have been real enough, the men at the Mackenzie, Athabasca/Peace River District forts did not die at an earlier age than those further south. Periods of starvation can have detrimental health affects (fatigue, dizziness, constipation, drop in blood pressure, etc.). And if too severe or prolonged, even death.
I have not conducted any detailed research on how smoking and alcohol consumption might have affected age of death (although those data are certainly available in other fur trade documents). However, a preliminary check indicates that far more employees from the Saskatchewan District, smoked and drank alcohol, than in Districts further north. But there are no discernible differences in mean age of death in these districts.
Did the Average Age of Death Change Through Time?
In the chart below, I plotted the average age of death through time. As wild game populations declined, many fur trade posts began to produce more agricultural goods and import domestic stock to supplement their diet. Thus, dietary habits changed through time, but at different rates geographically.
In the last part of the 19th century, there was a more balanced food supply and likely better medical technology for the Company men. However, the results above show a similar age of death among Company employees through time.
Was There a Difference in the Mean Age of Death Among the Different Ethnic Groups in the Fur Trade?
Given their different types of work, access to food, and genetic makeup, did certain subgroups in the fur trade fare better than others? Did those French Canadians, for example, who did most of the back-breaking work in the fur trade, die at an earlier age than their Canadian counterparts? There are suggestions they did, but never backed by any hard data. The results are shown in the chart below.
Although there is a difference of over four years between the English/Scottish group and the Metis/First Nations group, the difference is not statistically significant. Even though they worked harder, and had significantly less access to food, both French Canadian and Metis or First Nations working for the Companies fared about the same as their English/Scottish counterparts.
But, where the real difference shows up, is how many men of each ethnic group lived past the age of sixty-five. The results are shown in the chart below.
There is a significant difference in the number of French Canadians who reach the age of sixty-five and over, compared to both Metis/Native and English/Scots categories. And, if you’ve ever read how hard some of these men worked, and played, this figure is not really that surprising. My research (Pyszczyk 1987, 1989, 2015) also suggests that on average French Canadians spent more money on tobacco and alcohol than their English and Scottish counterparts (laborers).
Were Metis and First Nations People Better or Worse off Than Today?
My last question concerns the well-being of our Indigenous populations in Canada. Did they fare better during the 18th and 19th centuries, than today? Historic population data for First Nations and Inuit peoples are very hard to find. I managed to only compare Metis populations over time.
The results are a bit of a shocker. The percent of Metis who reach an age over sixty-five years are significantly lower today than during the 18th and 19th centuries. They are also lower in the fur trade than non-aboriginal employees. Here are the latest present-day statistics for the three Indigenous groups.
While I don’t have the statistics for historic First Nations and Inuit, the present-day statistics certainly tell the tale of all three groups falling behind the non-aboriginal Canadian population as they age.
All three Indigenous groups have a lower percentage of people surviving sixty-five years and older than the Canadian non-aboriginal population. Studies indicate that death from disease, drugs and alcohol, suicides, etc. are significantly higher in today’s Indigenous populations than earlier, and in the contemporary Canadian non-Aboriginal population.
What Do These Results Tell Us About Fur Trade Society?
Firstly, that rather wicked high meat protein and fat diet didn’t reduce the average life span of these people significantly. Nor did the occasional bouts of near starvation and hunger, harder work and poorer living conditions significantly reduce their length of life. Some of these factors only become important as the population aged (e.g., percent living over sixty-five).
Secondly, why did this population of men, when compared to the rest of the world and other Canadians, fair significantly better? I have some ideas. But currently no real proof or definitive answers. The men chosen for the fur trade may have been selected for their superior fitness and general good health. They therefore don’t represent the norm in either White or Indigenous Canadian society, or other world populations at any given time.
Thirdly, this population of people was relatively isolated from the rest of Canadian society. Some of the men working on the canoe brigades traveled to Montreal or York Factory annually to resupply, thus having short contact with larger centers. But most of their time was spent at the remote inland fur trade forts. Was there less chance of catching some disease, getting sick, and dying? The men living at the most remote forts in Canada don’t seem to live any longer than those less isolated, such as at Red River settlement (with a much larger population).
Or, is it my data and bias in the records? Many of the laborer class had no documented history, and therefore no birth or death dates. This is a common problem for a people without a written record. Is this sample similar to the famous 1936 Literary Digest US telephone and car registration presidential polling fiasco? When not everyone had a phone or car, and thus the polls were very skewed when using only these data. And they got the winner of the presidential election wrong. I simply can’t answer that question right now.
My last concern is with the health and welfare of our Indigenous populations. Their state of well-being seems to be heading the other direction compared to the rest of Canadian society. The cries of concern and need for more help from these people is well grounded in some of the historic population statistics. And in particular the life expectancy data.
David Thompson’s grave marker, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. One of Canada’s greatest explorers and cartographers underwent considerable hardships in the wilds of western Canada. Impoverished and destitute in old age, he lived to a ripe old age of eighty-seven.
Note: There’s always a fine line between providing too much detail (yawn) and ‘dummying down’ in these posts. Because of my background, I tend to err on the former side. I believe everyone should know what my results and interpretations are based on. And, I also know that many of my regular subscribers would prefer more than less information and facts.
Let me know what you think. Too much? Not enough?
References:
Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 1987. Economic and Social Factors in the Consumption of Material Goods in the Fur Trade of Western Canada. Ph.D Thesis. Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.
Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 1988. Consumption and Ethnicity: An Example from the Fur Trade in Western Canada. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 8:213-49.
Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 2015. The Last Fort Standing. Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798 – 1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14.
During most of human history, hominins (that’s us, and all prehistoric humans before us) selected animals, and parts of animals, containing the most fat. Or, the most calories packed into the least amount of meat. For purely survival reasons, before the advent of agriculture and domestication (which did not occur in many parts of the world) the name of the game was to consume the richest foods possible, whenever possible.
“We Eat Everything Except the Manure.”
(Explorer, Peter Fidler, 1801, describing eating wild game, while traveling with the Dene in northern Alberta and the North West Territories, Canada)
Our Present Canadian Diet
FOOD. As Canadians we often take it for granted. For most of us, there’s always something to eat. Just a matter of selecting from the hundreds of different foods and dishes available.
And when it comes to the Canadian diet and the role animal fat plays in it, warning bells go off. BE AWARE. We’re told to eat it in minimal amounts. Because it’s bad for you.
However, for most of human history, that was not always the case. For example, in traditional Inuit diets, approximately 50% of their calories came from fat, 30–35% from protein and 15–20% from carbohydrates. Animal fat also ruled in the Canadian fur trade.
The 18th and 19th Century Canadian Diet
During the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, in western Canada, a wide variety of wild game animals provided First Nations peoples and Euro-Canadians with most of their calories. In eastern Canada during this time, domestic animals and agriculture had largely replaced wild animals and plants in peoples’ diet.
In western Canada, animal fat was highly desirable and sought after. At the fur trade forts, wild game meat and fat was even doled out according to social class. Ironically, the hard working fort employees who needed it most, received the least amounts.
In 1832, at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vermilion, Northern Alberta, for example, Company employees received following meat rations:
Category
Fresh Meat
Dried Meat
Pounded Meat
Grease
Officers Mess(2 people)
2,250 lbs
57 lbs
57 lbs
105 lbs
Officers Families (6 adults)
4,283
159
6
108
Engages (8 people)
7,752
576
576
18
Engages Families (3 adults)
2,612
148
148
4
Note: From the above table, calories derived from animal fat versus animal protein is estimated to be ~4:1
At Fort Vermilion, each officer consumed about 1,125 pounds of fresh meat a year, or approximately three pounds (1.4 kilograms) per day. Each worker consumed 969 pounds per year. This figure does not include the dried and pounded meat, or fat. That’s about three bison per year, folks. Hard to imagine eating that much meat now. Every day.
Other historic references suggest that Company employees ate even more meat than listed above. For us these numbers are truly staggering. But also very difficult to verify:
“The ordinary ration, under these circumstances [no flour or vegetables] at any of the Hudson Bay Company posts is either three large white fish, or three rabbits, or two pounds of pemmican, or three pounds of dried meat, or eight pounds of fresh buffalo meat per day per man.” (Alexander Sutherland, 1888)
Along the Saskatchewan River, where forts had access to the vast herds of Plains Bison, an enormous amount of meat was needed to feed the fort occupants for a year:
“Daily requirements for the fort – approx. 20 men, 11 women, 19 children, 36 train dogs. Of fresh meat – the tongues, bosses, ribs and fore and hind quarters of 3 animals.” (From the journals of Issac Cowie in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1867 -74) Total bison/year = 1095.
At the North West Company’s Fort George in Alberta, Clerk Duncan M’Gillivray noted: “…we have finished a Glaciere containing 500 thighs & shoulders for the consumption of April & beginning of May…” (From the journal of Duncan M’Gillivray, at Fort George 1793-94)
Also, First Nations traded huge amounts of meat to this fort:
Article (lbs)
Traded from Indians & C
Supplied the Factory
Expended
Remains
Buffalo Meat
26,230
“
19,673
6,557
Buffalo Fat
2,900
2,500
400
“
Pemmican
7,200
7,200
“
“
And over two hundred years later, this is what the archaeological record at these Fortes des Prairies looks like. Both photographs are from the North West Company Fort George (c.1792-1800), central Alberta. In the top image we found a cellar filled with animal bone. In the bottom image, this line of bone lies along the fort palisade wall. These early Saskatchewan River forts were ‘meat factories’, processing tens of thousands of pounds of meat to make pemmican for the Company canoe brigades. Imagine what this place must have smelled like in the spring and summer months. There are many theories why these forts were abandoned relatively shortly after being built. According to most documents, animal populations were soon decimated near the fort requiring a move. But the ‘Stink Factor’ must have played a role for an early exit as well.
The More Fat, the Better
Fort occupants ate a variety of game animals. Lynx, bear, dog, wolf, porcupine, squirrel, skunk, owls, muskrat, varying hare, raccoons, beaver, elk, caribou, moose and bison. Also a variety of fish (especially whitefish) and waterfowl.
“…a rich, agreeable, and very wholesome fish (whitefish), that never palls the appetite; and is preferable, and other fish of this country…” (from the journals of Sir John Richardson, surgeon and explorer)
“…ducks of various kinds, which having shed their feathers, are easily killed in the numerous lakes and ponds. The larger ducks are generally fat at this season, the young of the year are lean and insipid.” (from the journals of Alexander Henry (the younger), Fort White Earth, Saskatchewan River, central Alberta)
Sometimes the consumption of some rather unorthodox critters got just a little out of hand. Explorer Samuel Hearne describes one such incident: “…the warbles out of the deer’s backs, and the domestic lice, were the only two things I ever saw my companions eat, of which I could not, or did not, partake. I trust I shall not be reckoned over-delicate in my appetite.” (from Samuel Hearne’s diaries)
While it’s hard to imagine eating something like this warble off an animal, hunger often trumps all. As Peter Fidler’s rather blunt words suggest, when people are driven to extremes of hunger they will eat almost anything. And, at some of the northern fur trade posts, near starvation situations occasionally occurred.
“Friday gave the men a parchment skin to eat – a Canadian that came home from the hunting tent informed me that the hunters was all starving as they could kill no cattle [bison].” (HBC trader, Thomas Swain, Mansfield House, 1802, near Fort Vermilion, Alberta)
On the other end of the extreme, Company employees often had considerable choice and selection of wild game. Whenever possible they chose the fattiest animals, and selected the parts of the animal that contained the most fat.
Fatty, and Fat Animals
The large plains and woodland bison provided First Nations and first Euro-Canadians with considerable amounts of meat. A two year old bison weighs approximately 850 pounds, yielding about 300 pounds of usable meat.
Some game animals were fatter during certain times of the year. The flesh of some animals contained more fat than others any time of the year. According to fur trade records, bison tasted best when fat:
“We killed a great many buffalo, which were all in good condition, and feasted…..luxuriously upon the delicate tongues, rich humps, fat roasts, and savory steaks of this noble and excellent species of game….We had found the meat of the poor buffalo the worst diet imaginable, and in fact grew meager and gaunt in the midst of plenty and profusion. But in proportion as they became fat, we grew strong and hearty…” (from S. Phillips 1940:42)
The fat of some animals were considered inferior to others:
“The Red Deer is next in size to the Moose, but it is not equal to it in its delicious flavor, on account of the peculiar quality of the fat, which turns cold so very fast, that a person must eat it the instant that it is taken from the fire, and even then the mouth is sometimes lined with a grease of the consistence of tallow.” (from the journals of Edward Umfreville, trader, 1790)
The Canadian Beaver, economic driver of 18th and 19th century Canada. Valued for both its fur and its meat. Sometimes the fort workers valued its meat far more than its fur.
Not only was the Canadian beaver valued for its fur but also for its flesh, and in particular, its fat. In its prime, beaver meat is composed of over thirty percent fat. The tail, considered a delicacy among fur traders and First Nations, was almost all fat.
“In summer, the beavers are lean, and their fur poor, for which reason they are usually not caught at this time. But in winter they get fat and have thicker fur. Their meat is very palatable. The tails, which are fat all through, are especially regarded as delicacies.” (from the journals of F. A Wislizenus 1839).
“The flesh of the Beaver is much prized by the Indians and Canadian Voyageurs, especially when it is roasted in the skin, after the hair has been singed off. In some districts it requires all the influence of the Fur Trader to restrain the hunters from sacrificing a considerable quantity of beaver fur every year to secure the enjoyment of this luxury…” (from the journals of James Richardson 1819)
At many of the northern Peace River fur trade sites, beaver bones were the most common. Such as this beaver pelvis and ulna found near the NWC/HBC Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) site. And and most of this bone shows knife marks from butchering, not skinning. This evidence, and its occurrence with other domestic household refuse, suggests consumption of the highly sought after meat.
(Now that I look closely at this photograph I see the Canadian nickel used for scale. And the beaver on it. Believe me, this was not intentional. But fitting, I guess. Couldn’t find a loonie.)
Not only were certain animals with high fat content selected for, but the parts of the animal, such as bone marrow, tongues, nose, some organs, and the fattest portions on the carcass (hump of the buffalo, rib meat, etc.) were also preferred.
Moose nose, or ‘muffle’. A great Canadian delicacy. Image courtesy of Four Pounds Flour. For a great read, go to this post and read all about preparation of this dish. And the historic quotes about its delicacy and flavor.
Other parts of the animal, now rarely eaten, often were very high in fat content:
“…and, oh shade of Eude, the marrow bones!” (author, unknown)
“Marrow was held in such high esteem that the term “marrow” seems to have come to be applied to other parts of the animals which were considered good to eat. As well as the frequently mentioned “marrow bones”, there are references to “marrow ribs”, “marrow fat”, and “marrow guts”…but the marrow guts were eaten by the Blackfoot and by the French Canadian voyageurs, who considered them a treat.” (from Isobella Hurburt 1977:16)
“…rich cow [bison] tongues cooked with buffalo marrow, which had been preserved in the autumn when the animals were fat…” (from the journals of John Palliser, 1853)
Bison tongue was considered a delicacy by First Nations and Canadian fur traders alike. Animal bone marrow contains approximately eighty-five percent fat. It was highly sought after in the fur trade. We find animal long bones that have been spirally fractured (green bone fracture) by a heavy implement to extract the marrow inside. The shaft of this large ungulate femur, found near the NWC/HBC Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) was deliberately smashed open to extract the marrow inside.
Fort personnel even boiled animal bones to extract every ounce of fat. The evidence? We often find hundreds of thousands of crushed pieces of animal bone at fur trade archaeological sites.
“…bones were also crushed, and all the marrow fat extracted from them. This was done by boiling the bones in sufficient water to cover them, and as the marrow or grease rose to the surface it was carefully skimmed off….This fat was eaten with “pounded meat”, and was also used in making pemmican.” (Amelia M. Paget, 1909, at HBC Fort Qu’appelle in Saskatchewan)
Crushed animal bones from a historic site near Fort Vermilion. Evidence of possible bone boiling for the extraction of grease.
In the words of Paul Kane, one of Canada’s earliest artists, while visiting Fort Edmonton in 1847, Christmas dinner contained many of these dishes:
“At the head, before Mr. Harriot, was a large of boiled buffalo hump; at the foot smoked a boiled buffalo calf. Start not, gentle reader, the calf is very small, and is taken Caesarean operation long before it attains full growth. This, boiled whole, is one of the most esteemed dishes amongst the epicures of the interior. My pleasing was to help a dish of mouffle, or dried moose nose; the gentleman on my left distributed, with graceful impartiality, the white fish, delicately browned in buffalo marrow. The worthy priest helped the buffalo tongue, whilst Mr. Rundell cut up the beaver’s tail. Nor was the other gentleman left unemployed, as all his spare time was occupied in dissecting a roast wild goose….Such was our jolly Christmas dinner at Edmonton; and long will it remain in my memory…”
In Times of Scarcity
At the other end of the spectrum, when times were tough, people would eat other, leaner types of animals, such as varying hare, or greater portions of lean meat containing higher amounts of protein. When humans ingest large amounts of protein or lean meat, and less fat, some severe health issues may occur. This malady is described below by one of Canada’s greatest arctic explorers, Vilhjalmur Stephanson:
“If you are transferred suddenly from a diet normal in fat to one consisting wholly of rabbit you eat bigger and bigger meals for the first few days until at the end of about a week you are eating in pounds three or four times as much as you were at the beginning of the week. By that time you are showing both signs of starvation and of protein poisoning. You eat numerous meals: you feel hungry at the end of each: you are in discomfort through distention of the stomach with much food and you begin to feel a vague restlessness. Diarrhea will start in from a week to 10 days and will no t be relieved unless you secure fat. Death will result after several weeks.” (Vilhjalmur Stephanson, Arctic Explorer)
Protein poisoning is also commonly known as ‘Rabbit Starvation.’ Rabbit, or varying hare, meat is very lean. Fat comprises about six percent of the meat on a domestic rabbit and about two percent on a wild rabbit, or varying hare. In comparison, bison meat contains approximately sixteen percent fat. Explorer, David Thomson, while in Alberta, got sick from eating too much lean fresh meat from very thin game animals in the early spring.
Rabbit starvation is best explained by how much energy humans use to digest and metabolize certain types of macronutrients. Here is the SDA (specific dynamic action), or metabolism of macronutrients:
Carbohydrates = 6%
Fats = 14%
Animal protein = 30%
This may explain why high lean meat diets result in weight loss. But these diets could potentially also be extremely dangerous. Also some studies (the China Study by C. Campbell, 2005) suggest there might be a relationship between high animal protein consumption and high heart disease rates. This study, however, is not without its critics.
The fur trade archaeological record
Whenever we excavate a fur trade site, we collect and identify all animal bone to animal taxa and element whenever possible. We can then reconstruct diet. So, what do the bones we find say about human diet during times of plenty versus times of scarcity? A lot. Here are a few examples:
FORT/NISP (# of Identifiable specimens)
Bison
Moose
Elk
Beaver
Varying Hare
Rocky Mt. Fort (1794 -1804)
181
678
12
748
143
Fort St. John’s (1806 -1823)
313
720
1595
136
639
In the above table, animal bones are listed from two fur trade forts in eastern British Columbia along the Peace River (from Burley et al, 1996). Rocky Mountain Fort was occupied when game animal populations were still very abundant. Fort St. John’s was occupied after nearly thirty years of fur trade activities in the region. When you do the math, at the latter fort, as game animal populations dwindled, the use of varying hare nearly tripled. Why? Fewer large game animals? Or, the cyclical population patterns of varying hare?
Region
% Varying Hare
Lower Peace River Posts
14.2
Upper Peace River Posts
15.7
Fortes des Prairies Posts
2.2
The above table shows the percent of varying hare that made up the faunal assemblages of forts of various regions along the Peace River and along the Saskatchewan River. At the Saskatchewan River posts, large game animals were much more plentiful than at the Peace River posts.And consequently, there was a considerably less amount of varying hare animal bone present in those assemblages.
At Dunvegan, located along the Peace River, north of Grande Prairie, Alberta, for example:
“The men all hunting and fishing, but very unlucky….We are now in a very alarming situation, not having a mouthful to eat. The children are always going about the fort crying for something to eat.” (Dunvegan journals, 1805, one year after the fort was opened)
When the hunters brought in 855 pounds of moose meat in on June 11, 1854, it was, “…welcome enough as we were at our last gasp for Grub.” (Dunvegan journals, 1854)
Animal Grease/Fat Selection
Archaeologists have devised ways to determine whether there is a deliberate selection of those parts of the animal containing the highest amounts of fat. On the Y-axis the anatomical parts of large mammals are ranked according to the amount of fat in that part or anatomical unit(e.g., bison hump). The X-axis represents the relative number of bone elements from each unit (e.g., thoracic vertebrae for the hump of the bison) found in the archaeological record (adjusted for number of elements). If there was a deliberate selection of units with the most grease/fat, then bone elements with the lowest grease/fat content will occur in the lowest numbers and bone elements with the highest grease content would occur in the highest numbers.At Fort George, where dietary stress was almost non-existent and large game was plentiful, there is a relatively good fit in the selection of animal parts containing the largest amounts of grease. Because people had more choice in meat selection, they choose parts of animals with the highest amount of fat, or grease.At Fort Vermilion, northern Alberta, where game animals were often scarce, there was no deliberate selection of only animal units containing high amounts of grease. In other words, nearly every part of the animal was eaten.
How Did This Diet Affect the Health of People in the Fur Trade?
Well, that’s the interesting question, isn’t it. What does a diet in high meat protein and fat do to you over your lifetime? Currently, according to everything we’re told by experts, it could shorten your lifespan. Or causes other major health issues.
But these statements seem to fly in the face of other evidence in our human history. Humans for hundreds of thousands of years, when given a choice, selected meats with the highest fat content. And what about those Inuit? Reportedly very healthy before they started eating a North American diet.
I’ll try to answer that question in my next post. Read about the interesting approach I took to answer it with the available fur trade data.
And no, I am not secretly working for any Canadian bacon brands. Maybe they’ll approach me with advertising when they see this post. Not even promoting a greater use of fat in the Canadian diet.
A Few Key References
Pyszczyk, Heinz W. 2015. The Last Fort Standing. Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798 – 1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14, April 2015. (In particular, Chapter 7 discusses the faunal remains found at the site in detail).
Hurlburt, Isobella. 1977. Faunal Remains from Fort White Earth N.W.Co. (1810-1813). Human History Occasional Paper No. 1. Provincial Museum of Alberta. Alberta Culture, Edmonton.
Brink, John W. 2001. Carcass Utility Inidces and Bison Bones from the Wardell Kill and Butchering Sites. In People and Wildlife in North America. S. Craig Gerlach and Maribeth S. Murray (eds), pp. 235-273. BAR International Series 944. (Jack Brink, formerly at the Royal Alberta Museum, has done extensive research on animal fats and their use by Plains First Nations in western Canada and the United States.)
Burley, David V. 1996. Prophecy of the Swan. The Upper Peace River Fur Trade of 1794 – 1823. UBC Press, Vancouver.
Tobacco was an integral part of the Canadian fur trade. It was smoked, chewed and snuffed. It was traded and gifted to Indigenous peoples, and consumed by both men and women. One of the most common ways of smoking tobacco was with a clay tobacco pipe. However, not all pipes were made of clay. This is a story of one of the most interesting and unusual types of tobacco pipes I have run across – a stone tobacco pipe.
Metis dog driver, Lac La Biche, Alberta, smoking a clay tobacco pipe. (Arthur Heming sketch, courtesy of Glenbow Archives)
Clay Tobacco Pipes
Whenever we excavate at the inland fur trade posts in Canada, one of the most common artifacts we recover are clay tobacco pipe fragments. These pipes are the remnants of smoking activities at these posts. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. At the end of the 18th century the stem on some of these pipes, known as Churchwardens, was nearly three feet long. Only the upper classes smoked them while the laborers smoked the shorter stemmed cuttie.
Man smoking the excessively long-stemmed churchwarden tobacco pipe.
These two clay tobacco pipes were recovered from the c.1830 – 1917 Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The pipes were made from ball clay and mostly manufactured in Europe. While they were relatively cheap, they were also quite fragile.
Many of the 18th and 19th century clay tobacco pipes shipped to the inland posts, were made in Europe. The Hudson’s Bay Company imported most of their pipes from England. Many of the pipe bowls and stems were stamped sometimes with the maker’s name or initials. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 19th century that a Canadian clay pipe industry took hold in eastern Canada. Bannerman of Montreal clay pipes were shipped to the Alberta fur trade posts.
These tobacco pipe fragments came from the Northwest/Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vermilion (c.1798-1830) site. This pipe bowl has the letters ‘TD’ stamped on it. It refers to Thomas Dormer, a pipe maker in England during the late 18th – early 19th centuries.
Ornate clay tobacco pipe stem fragments with floral designs. In the second half of the 19th century many pipes had very elaborate decorations on them. Some of the bowls even had faces on them. The bottom stem has ‘Baltic’ (origins unknown) stamped on it, probably referring to the manufacturer. These fragments were recovered from the HBC Fort Edmonton (c.1830-1917), Alberta.Hudson’s Bay Company men smoking outside of Fort Edmonton (1871), on what are now the Alberta legislature grounds. The Company inventories list thousands of pounds of tobacco shipped to these inland posts. These men might have been smoking one of the pipes above. (Photograph by Charles Horetzky, Library and Archives of Canada/c-7534)
The Somewhat Puzzling History of Western Canadian Stone Tobacco Pipes
But not all pipes were made of clay. When we excavated the North West Company Fort George (c.1792-1800) site in east-central Alberta we found platform (a type) tobacco pipes made from soapstone, pipestone or local mudstone. They were found in domestic household refuse along with many other common fur trade artifacts (beads, buttons, etc.). These pipes are poorly documented.
This rare, complete mudstone tobacco pipe was found at Fort George, Alberta. The mudstone occurs in round nodules found in the North Saskatchewan Sands and Gravels. We found the mud balls and partially finished pipes in the household refuse at the site.
We often speculated who made and smoked these pipes. They certainly were not European. Or, so we initially thought. And, what were they doing in Alberta, Canada?
Peter Rindisbacher painting, 1821, Red River, showing a First Nations family smoking. The man is smoking a stone elbow pipe. And the woman is smoking what looks like a stone platform pipe similar to the one found at Fort George.
Initially we thought these pipes were made by local Indigenous men or women working at the western Canadian fur trade forts. But there is no record of this kind of pipe being used prior to White contact in Alberta. Only recently I realized that these pipes were similar to Iroquois platform pipes. Iroquois? In Alberta? Well, yes. The Northwest Company brought Iroquois hunters out west to trap furs in the late 18th – early 19th centuries. (The community of ‘Calahoo’, Alberta is named after an Alberta Iroquoian family.)
This image of an Iroquois man smoking tobacco from what looks like a platform stone pipe. Many stone pipe fragments, similar to the Alberta pipes, have been found at St. Lawrence Iroquoian archaeological sites. (photo image courtesy of Marie-Helene Daviau, 2008)
I thought at this point at least we now knew the possible origins of this pipe style. Quite possibly brought west by the Iroquois hunters who lived at the forts. But then, after seeing the image below, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
In this image, taken from the cover of Daviau’s monograph, shows a French Canadian farmer smoking what looks like a stone platform pipe. (Frederick von Germann, 1778) In 1749, Peter Kalm noted the French Canadian woodsmen borrowed this style from the Iroquois of the St. Lawrence River Valley (Daviau 2008:189).
The North West Company hired many French Canadians to work at their inland western Canadian posts. These men made up the famous canoe brigades and worked mostly as laborers at the posts when not paddling. So, it is entirely possible that they brought their stone pipes with them, or fashioned them out of local material at the forts.
We found similar stone pipe fragments at the remote northern Alberta fur trade posts, such as Fort Vermilion, Peace River region. But the peculiar markings on these pipes add a bit of a twist to the story.
This stone tobacco pipe base (the bowl on the top is missing), found at Fort Vermilion, Alberta, is of the platform variety, but with some unusual circle-and-dot markings on it. We are still trying to figure out how these perfectly symmetrical circles were incised into the stone. Possibly by a small auger bit.
Over the years I have noticed artifacts with similar circle-and-dot markings on them in other western Canadian fur trade assemblages. The circle-and-dot motif is an Athabaskan symbol that has a geographical distribution ranging from central Alberta to northwestern Alaska. Was this tobacco pipe style adopted by Athabaskan-speaking people who then put their markings on it? Quite possibly. Interestingly, in Alberta the style seems to disappear by the 1840s.
Bone artifacts from Rocky Mountain House, Jasper House and Dunvegan, showing the circle-and-dot motif. Left to right: Quill smoother; bone fragment; bone flesher.
A Few Final Thoughts
Occasionally archaeologists recover artifacts from a documented period of Canadian history whose origins and uses are puzzling. Not all material culture is well documented. Especially when it belongs to people who aren’t doing any of the documenting. These objects were likely made and used by Indigenous people and/or French Canadian voyageurs (who were mostly illiterate) – a people without a written history. In the case of the stone tobacco pipes, careful dating and geographic location are extremely important to figure out their possible origins and uses.
References
Daviau, Marie-Helen. 2008. La Pipe de pierre dans la societe conadienne des XVII et XIX siecles. Centre interuniversitaire d’etudes sur les letters, les arts et les traditions (CELAT), Quebec.
Heinz W. Pyszczyk. 2015. The Last Fort Standing: Fort Vermilion and the Peace River Fur Trade, 1798-1830. Occasional Papers of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. Number 14.
Note: In my next post, I’ll tell you about another unusual tobacco pipe in the fur trade. However, before I reveal more about this artifact, I will write a short story about it first.
The Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) of the Canadian prairies (the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae). Neither a true antelope or goat, its closest living relatives are (believe it or not) giraffes and okapi.
Meaning in Place Names
Sometimes the name of a place survives through history, but its meaning and origins are murky. There are many places in Canada like that. Like Cabri, Saskatchewan.
As Canadians, we drive by endless road signs and names of places. We usually never think too much about them. Just another place on a map to get us from point A to point B. Occasionally the synapses between our ears fire driving along those long stretches of road. And we ask, “I wonder what that name means?” Unfortunately, some scribe was not always there to write down the meaning and origins of those places.
Cabri, Saskatchewan, down Highway 32.
Towns Along Highway 32, Saskatchewan
Cabri is located in southwestern Saskatchewan along Highway 32, built along the once the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Empress Line.
Towns along Highway 32, Southwest Saskatchewan. Get out a Google map if you can’t read this smaller version very well.
A List of Town Names Along Highway 32
Let’s look at the names of those towns down Highway 32, starting with Leader: Leader – Prelate – Sceptre – Portreeve – Lancer – Abbey – Shackleton – Cabri – Battrum – Pennant – Success – Cantuar.
Leader was named after the then Regina Morning Leader newspaper. A prelate is a bishop or other high ecclesiastical dignitary in medieval England. A sceptre is an ornamental staff carried by rulers as a symbol of sovereignty. Such as English Royalty.
A portreeve is an English historical official possessing authority (political, administrative, or fiscal) over a town. A lancer carries a lance in battle, either on foot or on horse. An abbey is a monastery in England. Shackleton refers to the old English word ‘settlement’. And there was also Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, an Irish explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic.
You get the idea. I won’t list the others. This area of Saskatchewan initially was listed as a German settlement block in the early 20th century. But nearly all the town and village names are English. Except Cabri. A clue why all these names are English is found in Leader’s history. It was originally named ‘Prussia‘, after the many German and Russian immigrants who settled there. Prussia didn’t go over so well during the First World War; it was changed to Leader.
Meaning of the Word ‘Cabri’
Cabri is not an English word. When I lived in Cabri, I thought that it meant antelope in Cree after the many pronghorns in the area. The Cree spelled antelope: apistacihkos. And in Blackfoot: saokiawakaasi na. And keep in mind, neither language uses the letter ‘r’ in their words. And, these animals are not really antelope.
Cabri is the French word for kid (goat) or goat. In French pronghorn is Antilope d’Amérique. Why then were they called goats and why in French? It seems that both the French and the English initially called them goats: “Saw several wild Goats.” (Anthony Henday, 1754 while traveling through central-southern Alberta). Or, “.. in my walk I killed a Buck Goat of this Countrey, about the height of the Grown Deer, its body Shorter the horns which is not very hard and forks 2⁄3 up one prong…” (Lewis and Clark expedition on the prairies in the US. Cutright, P.R. (2003). Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists. Nebraska, USA: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 81–2).
Origins of Cabri
So, it seems highly likely that Cabri means goat in French. If so, where did the name originate? Certainly not from the initial influx of French settlers into the area. There are pockets of French-speaking settlements in the province but they are rare in southwestern Saskatchewan. And even more rare in the Cabri area.
The Butte. When I lived in Cabri we used to drive up on a large hill just east of town. And there we did things we didn’t want the local police to know about. From the top of the Butte you could see for miles in every direction, and no one could sneak up on you. When you said Butte, everyone knew where to meet. There was another hill west of town that we called ‘Whitehouse Hill’. So, why not call the Butte a hill too? Butte, in French means a small hill. Perhaps then butte and Cabri both have French origins.
If these words are of French origin, and there were few early French settlers in the area, then why the French name? For the answer we have to go back to fur trade history during the 1870-80s. The Hivernant (wintering over) Metis traveled throughout the prairies hunting buffalo. Many were of French Canadian descent and established settlements on the prairies (see map below).
The Hivernant Metis of the Canadian prairies, once considered by many as the best buffalo hunters in the world, wintered over in southwestern Saskatchewan.
Riviere La Biche located at the forks of the Red Deer and South Saskatchewan Rivers, was a Metis Hivernant settlement, started sometime in the 1870s. Three other Metis settlements were established in the Cypress Hills (Head-of-the Mountain, Four Mile Coulee, and East End). They too likely had French-speaking families.
The author examining an old Metis cabin fireplace, when visiting Riviere La Biche.
As the Metis wandered over the prairies they used key reference points to help them navigate. The prairies were like an ocean – endless and easy to get lost in. The landscape, and features on it, was their road map.
As I mentioned in my last blog (following the Siksika Kioocus‘s travels), Indigenous people often used rivers, creeks and large hills to navigate these landscapes. When you look at the stretch of land from Riviere La Biche to the Cabri area, there are not many unique, visible features to help you travel between the South Saskatchewan River to the north and the Great Sand Hills to the south. Getting lost in Saskatchewan’s sand hills without sufficient water could end in disaster (and I talk from experience).
Aerial photograph of Cabri, Saskatchewan showing the Butte, Miry Creek, which flows into the South Saskatchewan River, and Whitehouse Hill, southwest of town.The Butte(s) just east of Cabri, Saskatchewan.
It is therefore conceivable that the Butte and Miry Creek, just east of Cabri were key landmarks. And even today it is not uncommon to see antelope near town.
Conclusion
If Cabri was named by the French Metis in the 1870s (or earlier), it is unclear why it kept its name when the Canadian Pacific Railroad reached it in 1913. For some reason ‘Cabri’ stuck, even though the name of every town for miles around it received an English name; or the original name was anglicized. (There is no evidence of an earlier Metis settlement in the area; and, I have looked)
Unfortunately much of history is like a Cabri. We have some circumstantial evidence, or can make a solid argument to support an interpretation, but there rarely is a smoking gun.
Maybe that’s why one philosopher once wrote: “History. Read it and weep.” But, I don’t think so in this case. In my next post I will tell you the history behind the name of a town in Alberta – one that might make you weep.
Note: If any of you live in the Cabri area and read this post, and know of any facts that I missed, or something I got wrong, please send me a comment. I’d like to hear from you. If I were to do more research on this topic I would visit the local Metis families (if there are any) and see if there is anything in their oral histories about this area. Also, often the Oblates would name towns in French. I would check out if there were Catholic priests in Cabri early on.
In my last post, I talked about the importance of finding more balance when naming places on the Canadian landscape. Many places once had or could have, equivalent Indigenous names. Those Indigenous names were forgotten, replaced with Euro-Canadian names, or original names were not kept because they were not relevant to the new Euro-Canadian colonizers. And as one Edmonton alderman put it (and who later apologized for his remarks), some Indigenous names were just too difficult to pronounce and should not be used for signage. I guess I’m out of the race then. There will never be a ‘Pyszczyk’ Avenue in Edmonton if we apply those guidelines.
Historic maps can be a great source of information about long-lost places and names. But even here there is a fundamental problem. Most Canadian maps were drawn by early Euro-Canadians who had their own agenda of what was important to record, and what was not. In the words of historian, Theodore Binnema:
“Map makers must interpret landscapes, select the most important features of those landscapes, and depict those features in a way that their audience will understand… No part of this enterprise is objective. Each is heavily influenced by the society in which it occurs. Maps then, are artifacts that preserve potentially valuable information about human societies and the relationships they have had with their surroundings…” (an excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, written by Dr. Theodore Binnema, University of Northern British Columbia)
Indigenous maps would inform us of what was once important to the individual who drew them. There are few Canadian Indigenous maps. Indigenous maps of Alberta are even more rare. There are a few exceptions, however. This is the story of one such rare map, drawn by a Siksika man, in 1802. The map was copied by explorer, and trader, Peter Fidler of the Hudson’s Bay Company, while staying at the short-lived, ill-fated Chesterfield House (located at the confluence of the South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers). When viewing Kioocus’s map, we get a glimpse of parts of central Alberta and Saskatchewan through this man’s eyes. 1
Dr. Binnema’s words are best supported by some examples. Look at the three maps below. They show the same area of Alberta and Saskatchewan, each drawn at different time periods, by different people.
A modern map of parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan. We are a people of highways. Geographical features on the landscape are no longer as important as they were when travelling by foot, on horseback, or by canoe. Only good to look at.
A map drawn by British map maker Aaron Arrowsmith, c.1802. Arrowsmith emphasized accuracy, major rivers (important for travel during the fur trade) and the location of certain Indigenous groups (also important for the fur trade). Geographical features still largely dictated what was placed on his maps.
According to fur trader and map maker, Peter Fidler (HBC) this was a map drawn for him by a Siksika man, named Kioocus (Little Bear) in c.1802. It was transferred to his journals. 2 It depicts key rivers and places that Kioocus and his band found important. Many geographical features were omitted because they likely were not important. Simplicity, and mapping only a few important elements, was the key to navigating through this large area of western Canada and the United States.
If you compare these maps to one another they support Dr. Binnema’s point – the incorporation of places and their names lies not only in changing transportation technologies and settlement, but also in the eye of the beholder, or map maker.
The Kioocus Map
Dr. Binnema and I have stared at the Kioocus map for quite some time now. Whenever I drive through certain parts of the two prairie provinces, I look for the places Kioocus shows on his map. Some are easy to find, some very hard, and others still elude me.
The Kioocus map covers parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Montana, USA. The top of the map is oriented roughly north. When you first glance at it, you will probably have a hard time figuring out where you are. There is no scale and there are no roads. Here are a few key reference points that might help. Buffalo Lake (# 7), Alberta occurs at the top left side of the map. Manitou Lake (God’s Lake), Saskatchewan (#31) is located on the top right corner of the map. If you follow the South Saskatchewan River west, you will come to the confluence of the South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers, where the Northwest Company and Hudson’s Bay Company built Chesterfield House. The typed names on the map are recent additions. The small open dots mark camping places as Kioocus’s band travelled across the landscape. The names of places are in Blackfoot, translated by Fidler.
It is impossible to do justice to the entire map in this post. So I will focus on the eastern part of Alberta and the western part of Saskatchewan and particularly Kioocus’s journey from Chesterfield House north across the plains to the Neutral Hills, located just north of present-day Consort, Alberta. I’ve driven that stretch of Highway 41 from Oyen to Consort many times. There is a lot of nothing out there – endless stretches of prairie with very few reference points to guide you. According to my late cousin, Ralph Berg, this is an area where even Jackrabbits packed lunch pails.
Some Familiar and Long-Lost Places
Chesterfield House: Kioocus’s band came from northern Montana, by foot and on horseback, skirted the western edge of the Cypress Hills and temporarily visited and traded at Chesterfield House before continuing north. Along that trek, Kioocus pointed out a number of places to Fidler. Some of those locations are easy to identify because they have retained similar names. Others are difficult to locate and verify with any other evidence. In the list of places below, refer to the Kioocus map and the numbers Fidler puts near those places.
The confluence of the South Saskatchewan and Red Deer Rivers, the location of Peter Fidler’s Chesterfield House. The fort sites have never been found. (But, that’s another story). Later in the 1870s, the area became an important wintering site for the Hivernant Metis.
#29. Ocks as sax e kim me — berries: There is a set of hills, south of Sounding Creek and southeast of the Misty Hills to the east of the travel route that fits this location. Kioocus depicts hills on his map by wavy lines which you can barely see on #29. (Numbers 2 and 4 are better examples). These hills occur just northeast of Salt Lake, putting them at N51o 38’49.58” and W110o13’54.58”. They have no name, only that you can find berries there.
#28. A qun is que — plenty of berries: This location could be any place on Sounding Creek, Alberta. But there must have also been hills or steep banks there, according to Kioocus’s map. However, if we draw a straight line between Chesterfield House and the ‘Nose of the Buffalo'(#30) and assume that Kioocus’s band travelled in a relatively straight line, then the spot on Sounding Creek becomes relatively more well-defined. There are archaeological sites, and possibly a bison pound, roughly where that line crosses the creek. This was definitely a well-travelled route and camping location by First Nations people.
#27. Chis seeks — little poplar (Below): This place refers to the Misty Hills, Alberta. These high hills line up along Kioocus’s route between the ‘Buffalo Nose’ (#30) and Chesterfield House. A creek and spring run through them where there are trees, plenty of berry shrubs and game animals. The area contains major archaeological sites as well as stone chert and quartzite outcroppings which were essential for stone tool making. The hills are very prominent and would have been an easy landmark to spot from far away for people travelling on foot or horseback. I have visited these hills and have taken extensive pictures. The view from the top is spectacular. The view from a helicopter is even more so.
Looking east towards the Misty Hills. In the foreground are the open prairies where Kioocus’s band likely travelled, then turned into the creek valley running into the Misty Hills. They would have found fresh water, berries and wood, and a variety of game animals as well.
#26. Eech e suk kitche stoup — a little poplar (Below): Mud Buttes, Alberta are located south of Consort, Alberta west of Highway 41 (you can see them when driving along Highway 41). The buttes are a very prominent landmark in the area and, like the Misty Hills, somewhat of an oasis in the prairie. They would have contained wood and water, and most likely outsourced chert pebbles, which were a major type of stone used for making stone tools by prehistoric Indigenous peoples.
Mud Buttes, Alberta. Visible west of Highway 41. Courtesy of Billy Robson
#30. ‘Buffalo nose’: This location refers to a singular, very prominent hill, just north of Veteran, Alberta, called Nose Hill by the Cree and Blackfoot. The hill is located near the westernmost edge of the Neutral Hills. It seems to signify the northernmost boundary of Blackfoot territory during that time period. Not only was the Nose a very prominent landmark, but it was also a major source of pebble chert for stone tool making. There are dozens of archaeological sites on the top of this hill representing many camping episodes by First Nations Peoples.
Nose Hill or the ‘Nose’ of the buffalo. Located just north of Veteran, Alberta, the hills are very prominent from a distance and contain a strong human historic presence (archaeological sites).
#7. E new o kee, Buffalo Lake: This is present-day Buffalo Lake, located just north of Stettler, Alberta, and north of the furthest northern point on the Red Deer River, in today’s Alberta parklands. This is one of the few places on the map that is in the parklands, past the ‘woods edge’ shown on the Kioocus map. According to explorer John Palliser, the lake received its name from, “…its outline of a buffalo hide stretched out…”. However, Kioocus would not have known its shape from the ground. The more likely reason for its name is that the lake and surrounding area were very important for the buffalo-pounding/wintering campsites that occur all along the parkland/prairie transition zone. On the east side of Buffalo Lake, there is an enormous prehistoric site that has been occupied almost continually for 8,000 years (known as Boss Hill). There is also a large bison pound between Buffalo Lake and the Red Deer River.
#8. E new oo suy yis, Buffalo tail Creek: Tail Creek, running out of the south end of Buffalo Lake into the Red Deer River, forms the tail of the buffalo. When we consider numbers 7, 8, and 30 together, we have the buffalo nose (3), body (7) and tail (8) stretching across the prairie-parkland transition – the important wintering grounds of the plains bison. Tail Creek also became an important wintering site for the Hivernant Metis later in the 1870s.
#31. N_ too o kee or Gods Lake: Gods Lake refers to Manitou Lake, near Marsden, Saskatchewan (see the enlargement on the Kioocus map). It is the largest saltwater lake in the Prairie Provinces. There are many known archaeological sites near the lake. There is a high hill just south of the lake, listed as #34 on the Kioocus map (which might already be destroyed by mining activities). Both the Blackfoot and the Cree claimed the waters of the lake had healing powers. There are 27 different types of salts dissolved in the water.
Mantou Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, as it looks today from a campsite on the west side of the lake. 3
#32. Now tok que a lake (Below): Sounding Lake, Alberta is located south of the Neutral Hills, south of Provost, Alberta. The lake is very prominent in Blackfoot and Cree lore. According to one legend, the lake received its name when an eagle with a snake in its claws flew out of the lake making a loud sound like thunder. There is a high archaeological site density in the area and along the entire Sounding Creek drainage.
Sounding Lake, Alberta. In the background loom the Neutral Hills. Interestingly Kioocus does not map the Neutral Hills, only the ‘Nose’ which is the westerly most point of the hills. Why? Perhaps the ‘Nose’ was the best geographical reference point for the Siksika and others.
Distance and Some Unmarked Places Along the Way
Distance and Travel Time: Below is an aerial photograph of Kioocus’s route. It shows the distance between Chesterfield House to the Buffalo ‘Nose‘, and then to ‘Gods Lake‘ (Manitou Lake). If each circle represents a stop between Chesterfield House and the ‘Nose’, then the band would have travelled the approximately 100-mile distance (165km) in ten days, covering about 10 miles (16.5km) per day. Men, women, children, horses, dogs, and their belongings. No small feat.
An aerial photograph of Kioocus’s journey.
Consort Quarry Site (Below): If you draw a straight line between Chesterfield House and the Nose, Kioocus’s band would have come very close to the Consort Quarry site (shown in the aerial photograph) – possibly one of the most unique, perplexing places in Alberta. There are various theories on how the rather large holes (numbering over 100) were created (meteorite hits, ice wedges, or purposely dug by hand to extract the chert pebbles). Regardless of how they were made, black, flat chert pebbles were abundant and there is evidence that Indigenous peoples visited the area.
The author with Blackfoot elders at the Consort Quarry site. The landscape is pock-marked with large pits which exposed black chert pebbles that were ideal for making stone tools.
Bodo Archaeological Site (Below): if Kioocus’s band travelled down ‘Snake Creek’ (now called Eyehill Creek) they would come to a sand hill formation south of Bodo, Alberta. This was an important place for Indigenous people for thousands of years, as is evident by the vast amount of archaeological remains.
The Bodo archaeological site is located south of Eyehill Creek, south of Bodo, Alberta. The site contains considerable archaeological resources, including a bison pound. It is open for viewing to visitors in the summer.
A Few Concluding Remarks
These are just a few of the places Kioocus shows on his map. They represent what was important to the Siksika in the early 19th century. There are more places of equal interest on the Kioocus map that will have to await a future post. My objective here was not to give these places names or promote any of them for signage. That is not my role. It is up to the Indigenous community to determine what is significant and what to name some of those places. I simply point out that these places were once important, at least to one Siksika man and his followers. I have visited some of these places with Blackfoot elders, to look for themselves and have shown them the Kioocus map as a reference. Even for them, many of these places were no longer in their collective memories or recorded in their oral histories.
Perhaps someday we will see a Kioocus Way along the Highway 41 route. Of course, his name may be too hard to say for some politicians, thereby deeming it unworthy of historic recognition.
Footnotes:
For an overview of other Indigenous maps in Canada check out the article by Judith Hudson Beatie[↩]
I recently cruised the South Pacific, ending up in Australia, before returning to Canada. I saw some pretty interesting displays of Indigenous history and culture on many of these islands, and Australia. What caught my attention was an article in THE AUSTRALIAN, December 2019 , similar to the above New Zealand piece, suggesting that there be more recognition of Australian Aborigine places in Sidney, New South Wales. But in a more visible, concrete manner – Signs for key places and suburbs in the City. That led me to thinking back about Anthony Henday’s journey into Alberta.
What are we doing in Canada (which means settlement or place in St. Lawrence Iroquois language) to recognize Indigenous history and place? A very cursory review suggests we’ve done plenty, but there is a long ways to go.
Powell River, Sunshine Coast
Recently I looked at a tourism map of the Powell River Area, Sunshine Coast, British Columbia. An area I am very familiar with and where I live for parts of the year. Most islands, and other major places, have an equivalent Tla’amin (Coast Salish) name beneath the English name. A good start, but I saw few Indigenous road or place signs in the City. It was only recently, in 2017, that the popular Willingdon Beach area in the City, the spot of a former Tla’amin Village, was recognized and signed.
In 2017 steps were also taken to incorporate more Indigenous names in the Powell River region.
Edmonton
When I look around my City, the number of Indigenous names for roads, places, etc. are few and far between. I counted two names (Bearspaw, and Ekota up to the letter M) when going through the list of streets and avenues which numbered in the thousands. The City of Edmonton claims there are a 128 Indigenous place names. However, that list contains places such as St. Albert Drive and Whitemud Drive. For me, these names are hardly Indigenous. At least I don’t see the connection.
But, there is a movement afoot in the Edmonton area to rectify this problem. I refer you to an article written by Caroline Barlott, 2017, entitled, “Naming Amiskwaskahegan: Why Edmonton’s Place Names Matter.” The author makes a convincing argument why a more Indigenous visible presence is valuable. She interviewed Calvin Bruneau, Chief of the local Papaschase Band, whose views about Indigenous place names are enlightening.
Back in 2000, while attending the EPCOR Hearings in Edmonton (on whether to expand the existing power facility), I listened to Cree Elder, Wilson Gotchew speak about the Edmonton area. He recalls that it was called, ôtênaw (A place where everyone came). The Cree also called it, ‘Amiskwaskahegan‘ (Beaver Hills House). While that may have been the name specifically for Fort Edmonton, the region where the fort was located may have had a different name – such as ôtênaw. Regardless of what it was once called (and it probably had many over the centuries) the City and region have an Indigenous equivalent which is now being recognized.
From what I understand more Indigenous names are planned for some of the new southeast neighborhoods – such as Decoteau. But surely there must be other local names. One of the problems that arises, is where do we look to find them?
The new Decoteau neighborhood, southeast Edmonton is named for Alex Decoteau, a Cree Olympian in track and field, and the first aboriginal police officer in Canada.
Back to The Henday Story and Attickasish
In my earlier Anthony Henday blog, it was evident that there were other members in Henday’s party, such as his Cree guide Attickasish, whose name could just as easily have been put on that Edmonton road, or a neighborhood, sign (or signs of any highways that run from Saskatchewan into central Alberta, such as highway 13) for his courage and knowledge in leading Henday into Alberta. Without this man, and others like him, Anthony Henday, Samuel Hearne and Henry Kelsey would not have traversed parts of the Canadian west or north, and made it out alive.
What were Middlemen/Women in the Fur Trade?
Individuals, such as Attickasish, walked in many worlds – sometimes among different First Nations or in the white traders’ world. They often brokered deals in trade and exchange between the two parties. Similar Indigenous individuals likely existed for centuries before any white contact or the advent of the Euro-Canadian fur trade. Trade and exchange were always part of First Nations culture in almost every part of North America. A few other names come to mind:
Thanadelthur
Thanadelthur (c.1697-1717) was a Chipewyan (Denesuline) woman of incredible courage. She was many things to many people – a peace maker, guide, teacher, interpreter. During this period of history, tensions between the Cree and Chipewyan were high. Thanadelthur managed to negotiate peace between the Chipewyan and Cree peoples during the early fur trade. She was also instrumental in creating ties between the Chipewyan people and the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Hudson’s Bay Company was indebted to her for being an important conduit to negotiate peace, and eventually trade.
Matonabbee
Serving as Samuel Hearne’s guide in the 1770s, Matonabbee was a powerful leader of his people and revered by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Hearne described him as the “carriers of the rest.” He organized and led his people to trade with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Without his help and influence, among his people and other First Nations, Samuel Hearne would have been toast. Dead, lying somewhere out on the Arctic tundra. Matonabbee, by bringing his people to trade with the Hudson’s Bay Company, became very wealthy; only to redistribute that wealth among his people (sometimes he was given gifts of 1,400 made beaver by the HBC before trading even began). His generosity with his people and others, earned him more power and prestige. After all, then, and now, that’s what wealth got you.
“…persevered with courage…to visit the Athapuscow Indians for several years successively; and at length …brought about a lasting peace, but also…established a trade and reciprocal interest between the two nations”. (Samuel Hearne, describing Matonabbee)
Attickasish
We know little about Attickasish except through Henday’s eyes and his few journal entries, where he is occasionally marginalized – put in the background as the ‘help’. But when you read carefully, Attickasish was a force. He, like Thanadelthur and Matonabbee, had considerable influence among his people, as well as others such as the Blackfoot, and with white traders. Here are a few excerpts about Attickasish from Henday’s journal:
July 22, 1754: “…at night I went to my tent, and told Attickasish, or Little Deer, my Leader, that had the charge of me…”
October 14, 1754: “…Attickasish, Canawappaw, Cokamanakisish, and the other of our leaders walked in from about 4 Miles farther then we; came to 200 tents of Archithinue Natives…Attickasish my guide, informed him I was sent by the Great Leader who lives down at the great waters, to invite his young men down to see him…”
From these few lines it is clear that Attickasish knew the country to successfully guide Henday west. He was the intermediary between Henday and the Blackfoot. And, he must have known some Blackfoot to interpret Henday’s wishes to their leader. Without his guidance, Anthony Henday would not have made it to the Edmonton Area.
Why Then, No Attickasish Names?
Anthony Henday is commemorated on that freeway sign. Attickasish’s name is nowhere to be found, either in the City or the Province. Eventually maybe there will be an Attickasish Highway sign, instead of that boring Highway 13 sign which runs partly across two provinces where he traveled (becoming HWY 14 in Saskatchewan). Surely we can do better than that!
The Many Problems of Naming Communities and Places
Equal voice is the key in naming places. I’m not advocating that indigenous names replace current signage or completely replace signs like Highway 13 (they should compliment them or be added when new place signage is needed); only that they have a greater presence than currently is the case. The McGillivrays, Campbells, and Rutherfords are important historic figures and should also be recognized. But they hardly represent all of Alberta’s history. To ignore the fact that other people had names for places or contributed to our past, is to evade reality.
There is a danger in denying or erasing a people’s history and identity; whether it be deliberately or inadvertently. As one famous person (whose name eludes me at the moment) aptly put it, denying a people their history results in a loss of their culture, and eventually their identity. Small, concrete gestures matter. Gestures that are seen often, by many people.
A Work of Collaboration
People from many walks of life can help in this process: Indigenous peoples, historians, ethnohistorians, archaeologists, City planners and politicians, and you the public. As an archaeologist, I can point out key places in the City that have a long Indigenous history, based on the archaeological evidence. Places you would never think of, such as Mt. Pleasant Cemetery or Magrath Heights Park, or the old Strathcona Science Park. Then its up to members of the Indigenous community to come up with appropriate names for some of these long-forgotten places.
I leave you with these last words about the significance and importance of places and signage by our current Mayor, regarding Indigenous place names and signs :
“In the gesture of working to acknowledge that the language of this place historically was a different language, that’s how we recognize and decolonize what is otherwise a narrative of conquest — and language is part of conquest.” (Mayor Don Iveson, Edmonton, 2016)
A good start but there is still much more that can be done, in the City, and the province.
In my next blog I will explore other Indigenous names and places in Alberta gathered from one of the most extraordinary, rare pieces of historic evidence – a preserved over two-hundred year old Indigenous map, drawn by a Siksikaman, for trader and explorer, Peter Fidler.
