Volume 1

44 SITE OF CITY OF WINNIPEG.
former coming in from the W., while the latter keeps its
direct course from the S.
I found about 40 Saulteurs awaiting my arrival ; they
were provided with a plentiful stock of dried buffalo meat,
and anxious for a dram. I accordingly gave liquor in
return for their provisions ;
they fell to and kept drinking
all night, during which we were plagued by mosquitoes, and
to say of old F. traces is specially interesting. Mr. Bell, /. c, p. 4,
cites Henry, believing that he refers to Fort Rouge, and that what he says
shows it was on the N. side of the Assiniboine, and not on the S. , as generally
has been supposed. Mr. Bell believes that he has determined the exact spot ;
viz., the Indian graveyard Henry speaks of: " even as late as 1870, when I
arrived at Fort Garry, the thicket of willows and brambles which stretched
along what is now the east side of Main street, from near the entrance of
Graham St., south to York St., covered the site of an extensive Indian graveyard,
and was evidently the locality mentioned by Henry as the resort of the
watersnakes." The Forks was the name of the confluence of the two rivers by
the end of the last century, and consequently the fort H. B. Co. built there,
about that time, was so designated. This was on the N. side of the mouth of
the Assiniboine. In the summer of 1807 John McDonald of Garth built Fort
Gibraltar for the N. W. Co. at the mouth of the Assiniboine, near the present
site of the H. B. Co. mill ;
this was seized by Colin Robertson for the H. B. Co.
in Apr., 1816, and destroyed by Governor Semple before June 19th of that year.
Fort Douglas was built in 1812 by Miles McDonnell on Red r., a mile below
present Fort Garry, " on the N. side of a coulee which entered the river, just
below where Mayor Logan's house now stands" (Bell, 1885); it was occupied
by the half-breed forces under Cuthbert Grant after the fight of June 19th, i8r6.
The name is that of Lord Selkirk's family, and the fort was occupied by the
first Selkirk settlers, who came from Hudson's bay in 1812.
Fort Garry, which
so long gave name to the place, was built in 1835-36 by Mr. Christie, for the
H. B. Co.; it became the nucleus about which the city finally accreted, and
has never ceased to be an important establishment. But there was an earlier
H. B. Co. post of the same or similar name, for Keating's Long speaks of Fort
Gerry, in 1823 in charge of Donald McKenzie, chf. factor H. B. Co. (the same
who had been one of the overland Astorians) ;
this was coexistent with the
colonists' Fort Douglas ; there were then also two churches, a school, and a pop.
of 600. The earliest H. B. Co, post is said to have been built about 1799.
Yet other trading-houses than those herein mentioned have been built at various
times on this historic spot, and we shall learn of some of them from our author.
The Forks he has now reached are so evenly matched in size that it was once
a question. Which is the main stream, and which the branch ? This has been
answered by common consent in favor of Red r. , the stream which arises in
Minnesota, in relation and to some extent in actual connection with certain