Volume 1

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE POST. 291
Here I found an Indian, sent by Mr. Chaboillez from
Riviere'la Souris to inform me of his arrival at that place
from Fort Dauphin. I hear of nothing but famine throughout
the country. The Indians of this establishment have
been away since June ist, and have made no dried provisions
whatever. They can scarcely find food sufficient
for their families. Their principal resource has been along
the shores of Lake Maninthonobanc \_szc—Manitoba], where
wild fowl breed in prodigious numbers. Round the S. end of
this lake, and as far N. as the Straits, a low, broken, marshy
country extends from one to three miles before we come to
terra firma—these extensive morasses being the
great resort
for wild fowl of all kinds. At the season when
swans and other birds shed their feathers, the Indians
destroy great numbers by pursuing them in canoes and killing
them with sticks. Eggs of all sorts they also collect in
abundance—even canoe-loads [canotees]. Muskrats are
likewise very plentiful in these marais.
At Portage la Prairie we have an excellent garden, well
stocked with potatoes, carrots, corn, onions, parsnips, beets,
turnips, etc., all in forwardness and good order. Cabbages
and melons do not turn out so well as at Panbian river—the
soil here is too dry and sandy. It was late before our
the present parish, and for the town, somewhat off the river, where the
N. P. and Manitoba R. R. crosses the main C. P. Ry. Portage cr. runs from
this vicinity toward Lake Manitoba. McDonnell says, /. f., that Wm. McKay
of the N. W. Co. wintered here, 1794-95, with Mr. Reaume, in opposition to
Mr. Linkwater of the H. B. Co., and one Dejadon, acting for one Laviolette.
Thompson, who passed down Mar. 2d,
1798, notes " several old houses " in the
vicinity. Harmon, who was here June 13th, 1805, says :
" Here the North
West Company have a miserable fort, the local situation of which is beautiful,
beyond anything that I have seen in this part of the world. Opposite the fort
there is a plain, which is about 60 miles long, and from one to ten broad, in the
whole extent of which not the least rise of ground is visible," Journal, 1820,
p. 140.
A place on the river, which may be worth noting here, for future identification,
is indicated as follows : "In the Assinneboin river, at one or two days
above the Prairie Portage, is a place called Kenewkauneshewayboant, (where
they throw down the gray eagle,)" James' Tanner's Narr. 1830, p. 60.