Forest Prairie Edge

by Merle Massie

  34 Atlas of Saskatchewan, 118.

  35 Meyer and Epp, “North South Interaction.”

  36 See http://www.geostrategis.com/c_cli-prince-albert.htm (accessed 15 January 2009).

  37 Ibid., 4.

  38 See, for example, reports from the Prince Albert Daily Herald in late August 2008. http://www.paherald.sk.ca/index.cfm?sid=166907&sc=4.

  39 Interview, Merle Massie with Miriam Swenson, 13 November 2008.

  40 See, for example, the work of the Land Use and Land Cover Change program of the United States Global Change Research Program, http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/ProgramElements/land.htm.

  Chapter Two: The Good Wintering Place

  1 Silversides, Gateway to the North.

  2 Palliser, Journals, 92, 202.

  3 Burpee, ed., Adventurer from Hudson Bay, 103.

  4 “John N. Smith,” in Voice of the People, 117. This book is an edited collection of biographies and reminiscences collected by the Historical Society. Most of the original manuscripts are kept in the Bill Smiley Archives, Prince Albert Historical Museum, Prince Albert.

  5 Daschuk, “A Dry Oasis,” 3.

  6 Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade, 31–3. This model has been accepted by, for example, George Colpitts, as expressed in his essay, “‘Victuals to Put Into Our Mouths.’”

  7 See Chapter 1.

  8 Those who have studied bison movement and migration have included: Arthur, “The North American Plains Bison”; Bamforth, “Historical Documents and Bison Ecology on the Great Plains”; Clow, “Bison Ecology”; Epp, “Way of the Migrant Herds”; Flores, “Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy”; Moodie and Ray, “Buffalo Migrations in the Canadian Plains”; Morgan, “Bison Movement Patterns”; Roe, North American Buffalo; Vickers, “Seasonal Round Problems on the Alberta Plains.”

  9 Another researcher who strongly refuted Ray’s parkland co-occupation thesis was Dale Russell, whose important work, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree and Their Neighbours cited Ray extensively, while pointing out gaps in Ray’s research and/or large errors in interpretation.

  10 Malainey and Sherriff, “Adjusting Our Perspectives.”

  11 Ibid., 336–9.

  12 Bird, Ecology of the Aspen Parkland, 3–5.

  13 Vickers and Peck, “Islands in a Sea of Grass.”

  14 Ibid., 95.

  15 See Haig, ed., Peter Fidler’s Journal. Quoted in Pyne, Awful Splendour, 60. For a book-length discussion on energy (fire, wood, coal, oil, nuclear, etc.), see Schobert, Energy and Society, particularly Chapters 4 and 5.

  16 Vickers and Peck, “Islands in a Sea of Grass,” 98–9.

  17 It is unclear whether they were Woods or Swampy Cree.

  18 Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade, 41.

  19 Ibid., 45–6. Russell disputed many of Ray’s assumptions regarding the extent of these trips. He argued that Ray assumed this trip was “normal” and that it indicated a forest/parkland cycle that would only utilize the parkland/bison biome for a brief period in mid-winter. Russell argued that other influences, including a late start, illness, and a desire to wait for the French traders to arrive, accounted for their shortened route. See Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree, 111.

  20 Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade, 41.

  21 For years it was kept in the basement of the old Presbyterian church, before being put on display in the renovated Fire Hall, the present home of the Prince Albert Historical Society. Further details have been added in conversation with Jamie Benson, curator of the museum.

  22 A fantastic essay by Edward S. Rogers on “The Dugout Canoe in Ontario,” was published in American Antiquity 30, 4 (April 1965): 454–9. Rogers argues that dugout canoes were an idea brought by Europeans to the interior. Using a combination of fire and European tools, both Aboriginals and Europeans could carve a canoe from a large tree. As forest fires and logging decimated valuable birch bark trees, Rogers argued that dugout canoes gained favour, but that they were always used in a local situation, never for portaging. This is an intriguing environmental and cultural explanation. The Christopher Creek dugout canoe has never been dated; it is possible that it was created as recently as the nineteenth century. It is unlikely, however, to have been of European make.

  23 On the open plains of the South or the tundra to the north, where birch could not be found, hides were used to construct serviceable crafts of coracles or kayaks.

  24 Meyer and Epp, “North-South Interaction.”

  25 Ibid., “North-South Interaction,” 334.

  26 Malainey, et al., “One Person’s Food,” 143, 154; Meyer and Epp, “North-South Interaction,” 336.

  27 Malainey et al., “One Person’s Food.” For a fuller investigation of Malainey’s work, see Malainey, “Reconstruction and Testing of Subsistence and Settlement Strategies.”

  28 For an overview of the importance of isinglass and sturgeon to the fur trade, see Holzkam, Lytwyn, and Waisberg, “Rainy River Sturgeon,” 194–205. Historical geographer A.J. Ray talked about the gender connection of isinglass at Prairie Summit Conference, Regina, 2010, where Ray was the keynote speaker.

  29 Lewis, “Recognition and Delimitation.” For more of Malcolm Lewis’s work on the connection between First Nations and maps, see Lewis, Cartographic Encounters.

  30 There has been considerable discussion in ethnographic literature regarding the origin and dispersal of the Cree into the western interior. For an overview, see Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree and their Neighbours. The Assiniboin (for which group I like the historical term, Assine Poet), are sometimes referred to as Nakota in modern scholarship, and it was from this group that the Cree may have learned the art of bison pounding. See Meyer and Russell, “‘So Fine and Pleasant, Beyond Description.’”

  31 Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree, 146–55.

  32 Meyer and Russell, “The Pegogamaw Cree and Their Ancestors,” 307.

  33 These archaeological sites are sometimes known as Late Woodland. One site has been identified not far from the Garden River, as the Hulowski site, FiNi-3. See Meyer and Russell, “Pegogamaw Cree and Their Ancestors,” map, 311.

  34 The journals of the masters of both Cumberland House and its inland supply post, Hudson House, offer extensive references to this post, most of them quite negative in nature. See The Publications of the Hudson’s Bay Record Society: Cumberland and Hudson House Journals, 1775–82, First and Second Series, 1952. The site of this fur trade fort has been professionally excavated on several occasions, but the North Saskatchewan River has now eroded all traces of the old fort. For an intriguing article on the Sturgeon River fort and its role in place, commemoration, and the work of the Historic Site Board of Canada, see Thompson, “Life on the Edge: The Cultural Value of Disappearing Sites,” http://crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/20-4/20-4-18.pdf (accessed 8 September 2009). The most famous inhabitant of this fort was Peter Pond. A cairn was erected at the old site of the Sturgeon River fort to commemorate Pond.

  35 The Pink journals are as yet unpublished. See Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree, 98–105; see also Morton, History of the Canadian West, 277–81.

  36 Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree, 144. See also the letters of William Walker of Hudson House to Cumberland House, December through May, 1781–1782, in Cumberland and Hudson House Journals, 1775–82 Second Series, 1779–82 and Meyer and Russell, “Pegogamaw Cree.”

  37 William Walker letters and journals, Hudson House, 1781–1782, Cumberland and Hudson House Journals.

  38 Meyer, “Lands and Lives of the Pegogamaw Crees,” 217.

  39 Smith, Voice of the People, 117.

  40 The best explanation of the impact of horse and gun technology on First Nations groups in the western interior is found in Binnema, Common and Contested Ground.

  41 Erasmus, Buffalo Days and Nights, 231–2.

  42 Ray, “Northern Great Plains.”
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  43 Ibid., 278.

  44 Turner, Davidson-Hunt, and O’Flaherty, “Living on the Edge,” 456.

  45 Ibid.

  46 Morton, ed., Journal of Duncan McGillivray, 62.

  47 Allan Bird identified this battle as being from the early 1700s. It is therefore not possible to correlate the Cree/Dene hostility to the local resource richness of the early 1800s. For an overview of the story, see Shortt, Survey of the Human History and Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 4 and endnotes.

  48 Elliott and McGowan, “Links with the Past,” Cordwood and Courage, 2. See also Hayball, “Historic Lobsticks and Others,” 62–6.

  49 Podruchny, Making the Voyageur World.

  50 As quoted in Hayball, “Historic Lobsticks,” 64.

  51 Ibid., 64.

  52 Meyer and Thistle, “Saskatchewan River Rendezvous.” Meyer later rejected the term “rendezvous centre” for the term “ingathering centres.” See Meyer and Russell, “So Fine and Pleasant, beyond Description,” 234.

  53 See Lewis and Ferguson, “Yards, Corridors, and Mosaics.” The farmer who owned the land throughout the 1970s and 1980s would often find bison skulls when cultivating. Walter Mindiuk, personal communication to Merle McGowan (later Massie), 1985. Burned grass regenerates into new growth up to three weeks faster than natural grass.

  54 See in particular Meyer, Red Earth Crees and “Waterfowl in Cree Ritual.”

  55 A modern comparison would be the Catholic Church steeple at Albertville, on the same open plain not far from where the lobstick tree would have been. This steeple can easily be seen on a clear day from the crest of the Waskesiu Upland near Christopher Lake. The lobstick would have been similarly easy to find.

  56 If the exact location of the tree could be identified, an archaeological investigation of the site might produce more information on cultural use.

  57 Net-Setting or Sturgeon River, and Carp River are excellent toponymic examples of local exploitation practices.

  58 See Russell, Eighteenth-Century Western Cree and Their Neighbours.

  59 Goode, “A Historical/Cultural/Natural Resource Study,” 3.5. Note that these lakes did not carry their current names at this time. Maps of the region from 1885 show references to lakes called Little Swan Lake and Little Bittern Lake. Little Bittern was most likely Christopher Lake. When the Little Red River reserve was surveyed, what we now know as “Christopher Creek” was listed as “Little Bittern Creek.” See http://cartweb.geography.ua.edu/lizartech/iserv/getimage to view the 1885 map.

  60 Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 1; Goode, “A Historical/Cultural/Natural Resource Study,” 3.1–3.5.

  61 Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 9.

  62 Goode, “A Historical/Cultural/Natural Resource Study,” 3.5.

  63 See Ibid., “The Journal of the Reverend J.A. Mackay.”

  64 The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives has HBC post records from 1851 to 1930 for this post. The general account book for Candle Lake for the years 1887–1889 is also extant in the archive.

  65 See Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, 4–9.

  66 For an overview of this transition, see Binnema, Common and Contested Ground.

  67 Colpitts, “Pemmican Empire: Environment, Food and Trade in the Northern Great Plains,” History and Classics Colloquium, University of Alberta, 13 November 2009. See also Colpitts, “‘Victuals to Put into our Mouths’”; Ray, “Northern Great Plains.”

  68 Green, ‘“The House in Buffalo Country.”’

  69 Colpitts, ‘“Victuals to Put into our Mouths.”’

  70 Mandelbaum, The Plains Cree, 68. This book was based on Mandelbaum’s extensive fieldwork among the Cree, and his doctoral thesis, both of which were completed in the 1930s. See “Preface to the New Edition,” xiii.

  71 Mandelbaum, The Plains Cree, 68.

  72 Ibid.

  73 See James Nisbet letters and papers, published by the Presbyterian Church of Canada as Nisbet, Home and Foreign Record of the Canada Presbyterian Church. Some of the letters were reprinted in Voice of the People, Letter from N. Saskatchewan, 30 July 1866, from Rev. J. Nisbet to Rev. R. F. Burns, 25.

  74 The decline of the bison has been well-documented and extensively explored by historians, ethnographers, and biologists across the entire Great Plains. Excellent works on this subject include Isenberg, Destruction of the Bison; Flores, “Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy”; Foster, Harrison, and MacLaren, eds., Buffalo; Dobak, “Killing the Canadian Buffalo.”

  75 Erasmus, Buffalo Days and Nights, 248, 249.

  76 The signing and implications of the numbered treaties have been well-served by others and will not be repeated here. See, for example, Ray, Miller, and Tough, Bounty and Benevolence for the most recent, and comprehensive, Saskatchewan overview.

  77 Ray, Miller, and Tough claim “Treaty Six was negotiated primarily with the buffalo-hunting First Nations of the parkland/grassland region.” Bounty and Benevolence, 143.

  78 See the copy of Treaty 6 on the Indian Claims Commission website, http://www.indianclaims.ca (accessed 14 September 2009).

  79 Ray, Miller, and Tough, Bounty and Benevolence, 132.

  80 Treaty 6, p. 4, http://www.indianclaims.ca.

  81 Nisbet, “Three and a Half Years,” rpt. in Voice of the People, 32.

  82 The Order-in-Council that outlined the reserve stated: “Sturgeon Lake is a long narrow expansion of Sturgeon or Net-Setting River, and runs easterly, across the reserve. This stretch of water has high bold shores, and abounds with fish and fowl. It is used by lumbermen to get out timber.” This description would have been taken from the surveyor’s notes. See Order-in-Council PC 1151, 17 May 1889, 50–51.

  83 Library and Archives Canada [LAC], RG10 Vol. 2656, file 9092. James Walker, Acting Indian Agent, Battleford, NWT, to Lt. Governor, NWT, Battleford, 20 August 1877.

  84 For wording fromTreaty 6, see http://www.indianclaims.ca/pdf/authorities/6%20eng.pdf. Bob Beal, “Treaty Six,” Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, 951–2.

  85 Ray, Canadian Fur Trade, 34, 35, 38.

  86 LAC, RG 10 Vol. 3601, file 1754, John Sinclair, Prince Albert, to D.H. Macdowall, M.P., Ottawa, 26 May 1891.

  87 As noted in Goode, “Historical/Cultural/Natural Resource Study,” 3.8. See also LAC, RG 10 Vol. 3601, file 1754, John Sinclair to D.H. Macdowall, 26 May 1891.

  88 Goode, “Historical/Cultural/Natural Resource Study,” 3.8. For an overview of Treaty 6 and the Treaty 6 external adhesion at Montreal Lake, see Miller, Compact, Contract, Covenant, 175–200; see also Ray, Miller, and Tough, Bounty and Benevolence.

  89 Lac La Ronge band is sometimes referred to as “Rocky Cree.” See Roberts, Historical Events of the Woodland Cree, 4. The signing of the adhesion and its ramifications have been given a brief overview by Waiser in Saskatchewan’s Playground; by Ray, Miller, and Tough in Bounty and Benevolence; Champ in her essay “Difficult to Make Hay”; and Goode, Champ, and Amundson, “Montreal Lake Region.”

  90 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 3601, File 1754, Ottawa, 6 December 1888.

  91 Ray, Miller, and Tough, Bounty and Benevolence, 144.

  92 LAC, RG 10 Vol. 3601, File 1754, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Edgar Dewdney to Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed, 6 December 1888.

  93 Champ, “Difficult to Make Hay,” 27.

  94 Waiser, “John Alexander Mackay,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography online (accessed 8 May 2013).

  95 For an overview of the yearly trapping cycle, see Massie, “Trapping and Trapline Life.”

  96 Interview, John Charles with Joe L. Roberts, 14 April 1997; Vicky Roberts with Walter M. Charles, 18 August 1996. Historical Events of the Woodland Cree, 15 and 21. See Roberts, “Biography of Chief James Roberts,” Historical Events of the Woodland Cree, 8; Waiser, “John Alexander Mackay.”

  97 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 3601, File 1754, Notes taken by Mr. M
cNeil, of the Indian Department, at the treaty made at the north end of Montreal Lake, on 11 February 1889.

  98 Ibid.

  99 Ibid.

  100 Three ploughs and twenty scythes were ordered for his band, possibly under the assumption that he would want them in the same quantities and for the same reasons that James Roberts did.

  101 See LAC, RG 10, Vol. 3601, File 1754, “Montreal Lake band articles to be delivered next spring,” late fall 1889 (after fall annuity payment had been given and requests received).

  102 Ibid.

  103 Piper and Sandlos, “Broken Frontier.”

  104 Moodie and Kaye, “Indian Agriculture,” 83.

  105 The best overview of the idealized role of agriculture and its intended effect on First Nations was put forward by Sarah Carter in Lost Harvests. Carter’s work reflected a Plains Indian and government dynamic. See also Buckley, Wooden Ploughs to Welfare; Bateman, “Talking with the Plow.” For a historiographic overview, see Dawson, “Roots of Agriculture.”

  106 See Roberts, “Biography of Chief James Roberts,” in Historical Events of the Woodland Cree, 6–7.

  107 For a brief overview of these discussions, which included the divided opinion that the band should settle at Red Deer (Waskesiu) Lake, see Waiser, Saskatchewan’s Playground, Chapter 1.

  108 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 7766, File 1754, Hayter Reed to the Department of the Interior, 25 January 1890.

  109 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 7766, File 27107-4 Pt. 2, Annuity Payment report, October 1890.

  110 Merasty, “History of Little Red River.”

  111 For an excellent overview of residential schools that strives to present a balanced picture, see Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision.

  112 Merasty, “History of Little Red River.” See also Historical Events of the Woodland Cree.

  113 LAC, RG 10, Vol. 7766, File 27107-4 Pt. 2, Hayter Reed to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, 5 November 1890.

  114 Ibid., quoted in letter, Hayter Reed to the Deputy of the Superintendant General of Indian Affairs in Ottawa, 4 June 1891.

  115 Hilliard Merasty, interview with Vicky Roberts, 14 March 1997. Historical Events of the Woodland Cree, 11.