Volume 1

ADVANCE OF THE SEASON—FORT DAUPHIN. .
1
75
three wolves of this year, which he had found in
a hole in
the ground ; they sometimes have their young in a hollow
log or stump. The river almost every morning frozen over,
but drifting in the afternoon. I sent a man on the 9th to
Reed river with directions for Langlois concerning his
Another of my men brought in six young wolves
Indians.
he had found in one hole ; they were very tame, and we
proposed to keep them for the trains, as they are of the
large species. The ground was clear of snow on the loth.
The Indians are in continual alarm on account of the
Sioux; they wish to persuade me they see them almost
every day, and have made a kind of fort or barrier with
trees and brushwood. I made up my pemmican into bags
of 90 pounds each — 50 pounds of beef and 40 pounds of
grease.
make tallow.
The women continue to cut up drowned buffalo to
Crow arrived from Red lake with letters from
there and Lac la Pluie. The horses got safe to their destination
last February. /////. Fine warm weather. Buffalo
are now mostly with calves of this spring. 12th.
Frogs began to croak. I made up my packs, isth. Maymiutch
came down Park river in a skin canoe, with 25
beaver skins, 12 of which were still in the meat ; he had only
been gone two days. i8tJi. Rain
;
drowned
buffalo still
drifting down the river, but not in such vast numbers as
before, many having lodged on the banks and along the
beach.
Desmarais arrived from Fort Dauphin,^" via Portage
*° Fort Dauphin of Verendrye is given on a recent historical map (Devine's,
Ontario, 1878) as having been situated,
"before 1749," on the W. side of present
Lake St. Martin, which discharges by present Dauphin r. into Sturgeon bay
of Lake Winnipeg—and not on present Lake Dauphin, which lies W. of Lake
Manitoba. The date appears to be 1741 ; for Verendrye, returning from a visit
to Canada he had made in 1740 (after his Mandan tour), reached Fort la Reine
at Portage la Prairie on the Assiniboine, Oct. 13th, 1741, and pushed on to
found Fort Dauphin on the lake which thereupon received its name. There is
no question in my mind that Verendrye located his Fort Dauphin at the N. W.
angle of Lake Manitoba, at or near the E. end of present Meadow portage
(which goes over to Lake Winnipegoosis).
This position is clearly indicated on
Gallisoniere's Carte, " dressee sur les memoires de M"". de la Verandrie," etc.,
1750. The map in Ontario Sessional Papers for 1889, XXL pt. vi., marks the