Volume 1

ON TO PEMBINA. 79
a beautiful effect. It is not more than three leagues in a
direct line from where we started this morning. The
country for two miles from the river is overgrown by low
willows. The course of the river is very crooked
;
current
is
the
smooth, and in some places rather strong, but there
are no rapids. The land on the E. side is well wooded for
a mile in depth ; then succeed low poplars and willows for
two miles more, where the plains commence. This evening
Indians and their families camped with me:
;
the following
Maymiutch ; Crooked Legs ; Aupersay ; Charlo ;
Acegue-
Liard ;
Crow Little Crane. These eight men
manche ;
were all I expected to go with me.
Sept. ^th. Early I sent the Indians ahead on discoveries;
they had but one horse among them. At nine o'clock I
sent off the canoes ; Desmarais and myself proceeded by
land. We Ccime to Panbian [Pembina '^J
river and crossed it
"^
Henry is near the parallel of 49° N. when he starts, and soon crosses the
line, passing from Manitoba into N. Dakota as he goes up the W. side of
Red r., and having Minnesota on the E. In so doing he goes through West
Lynn, Man., opposite which is Emerson, Man., and through Huron, N. Dak.,
at once ;
but it is still some little distance to Pembina, N. Dak., opposite which
is St. Vincent, Minn.; then comes the mouth of Pembina r. , close to which
were Chaboillez's and Grant's houses ; and it is then a little way to the U. S.
Fort Pembina, N. Dak. So many points so near together naturally raise the
question, where does the forty-ninth parallel cross Red r.? The full answer
would involve a long history of international endeavor to fix the position of the
line. David Thompson was here Mar. I4th-2ist, 1798, as the guest of the elder
Chaboillez, in whose house he spent the week observing, drawing, and writing.
He determined the position of the house to be lat. 48° 58' 24" N., long. 97'
16' 40" W. He also says that there were 95 Chippeway men about the place,
trading with the N. W. Co. and H. B. Co., showing that the latter had also a
post at that time. Aug. 5th, 1823, Major Long's party arrived on the ground, for
the purpose of determining and marking the parallel, some question concerning
which had meanwhile arisen. He planted a flagstaff in what he called Camp
Monroe, in honor of the President of the U. S., and its position was determined
by repeated observations to be 48'' 59' 57.20" N. The required distance to 49°
being measured off, an oak post was set up to mark the boundary, lettered G. B.
on the N. side and U. S. on the other
;
guns were fired, and the major proclaimed
the result with due ceremony. But in April, 1870, when the U. S.
military reservation for Fort Pembina was located, it was found by the engineers
in charge of that work that the recognized boundary was nearly a mile (some