Volume 1

SCRATCHING RIVER. 63
the ground, forming a small basin, whose center seems continually
agitated, bubbling up like a pot of boiling water.
This, I am told, is an excellent place for making salt at all
seasons, as the water never freezes ; but the process is
tedious, and requires a number of large kettles, nine gallons
of water producing only one pint of salt. This is fine and
white, almost like basket salt, having no grain or grit.
Having viewed the salt pit, we proceeded past a heap of
fresh meat which lay on the bank ; we supposed it intended
for the Indians' families, and, therefore, did not touch it,
but came on to the Riviere aux Gratias,*^ where we arrived
.at two o'clock. The Indians were all waiting for us, with
*' Gratia is a Canadian French name of various plants with prickly burrs.
The gratias of the Red River bottoms are two species of stickseed, Echinospermum
Jloribundum and E. dejlexitm, belonging to the borage family {Borraginacea).
They are rough, hairy herbs, a foot or two high, with small blue
flowers in bracted racemes, whose nutlets are garnished with stout prickles.
E. virginictim is a species sometimes called beggar's-lice. The European
species, E. lappiila, is commonly naturalized in the U. S., as a weed in waste
places.
Riviere aux Gratias of the F. is sometimes Englished as Gratias r., but
now oftener called Scratching r. , as it has been at least as far back as 1815.
Thompson calls it Burr brook, 1798. Keating's Long, II. 1824, p. 80,
renders "the name of Kaomenakashe, (Gratiats of the French.)" It falls
into Red r. from the W., in the N. E. portion of Tp. 4, R. i, E. of the
princ. merid., in the District of Provencher, and at
the town of Morris, where
several railroads now concenter. Scratching r. arises in the N. part of the
Pembina mts., not far S. of the Assiniboine, and takes a general eastward
course, under the name of Riviere aux flots de Bois (River of Clumps of Trees),
till it is dissipated in some extensive marshes, about the contiguous corners of
Selkirk, Lisgar, and Provencher districts ; regathering from which, and taking
the name of Riviere aux Gratias, it flows S. S. E. to its confluence with Red r.
at Morris, as already said. The course of Scratching r. lies between Riviere
Sale and Pembina r., and also between the S. W. branch of the C. P. Ry.
and the Pacific and Manitoba R. R. Its branches are numerous, but unimportant
(one of the largest being Tobacco cr.) ;
and the same may be said of
several places on or near them and it.
J.
Duford built for the X. Y. Co. at
mouth of the river in Sept., 1801, and J. B. Desmarais for the N. W, Co.
there at the same time : see the date beyond. In coming from Rat r. to
Morris, Henry has not given us data to check his progress more closely than
his mention of the rocky points and salt pits may enable us to do ; but we may
note that he has passed successively the places now called Ste. Agathe, Union
Point, Aubigny, and Silver Plains.