Volume 1

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192 CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR AT PEMBINA.
i/^th. Buffalo near the fort. Three men arrived from
Grandes Fourches. i6th. Sent them back. Went to the
hills with a horse and cariole, low and surrounded with
parchment buffalo skin ; it only weighed 20 pounds, but
was large enough for one person and his bedding, igth.
Returned home ;
buffalo in abundance near the fort. 21st.
Set off for Riviere aux Gratias with my horse and cariole. I
met Joseph St. Germain and family at Riviere aux Marais,
en route from Portage la Prairie ;
they came to remain at
Panbian river. Desmarais takes a few fish every day at the
entrance of the little river, with a small net; he caught a
large sturgeon some time ago, and often takes small ones
of
the rough, scaly sort, called sturgeon millers.''
Friday, Dec. 2^th.— Christmas. Snowed all day. Indians
perpetually going and coming from one house to another,
getting what they ask for, without the trouble of hunting.
2yth. Lac la Pluie Indians arrived, for people to go en
derouine on the upper part of Two Rivers. 28th. Red
Lake Indians arrived from Lac aux Voleurs. We have
our hands full ; since my arrival it has been the same
never one day quiet, sist. I came home from Grandes
Fourches, Riviere aux Gratias, and Hair hills.
Friday, Jan. ist, 1802. This morning the usual ceremony
of firing, etc., was performed. I treated my people
with two gallons of high wine, five fathoms of tobacco, and
some flour and sugar. My neighbors came visiting, and
before sunrise both sexes of all parties were intoxicated
and more troublesome than double their number of Saulteurs
; the men were fighting and quarreling all night.
Joseph St. Germain and others returned from a derouine
with 200 skins, all good—the best derouine ever made from
Panbian river. 3d. People continually en derouine to
Indians' tents ;
arrivals from and departures to the different
" So copy, perhaps for the F. term esturgeon milieu. The species meant is
not the shovel-nosed sturgeon, Scaphirhynchops platyrhynchus, but simply the
young of the common sturgeon of British American fresh waters, Acipenser
rubicundus, differing much from the adult in appearance.