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They inhabit the prairies which extend from the Qu'Appelle to the South Saskatchewan, a portion of territory which was formerly the land of the Assineboine, but which became the country of the Crees through lapse of time and chance of war.
On Sunday morning the 30th of October we reached a high bank overlooking' a deep valley through which rolled the Assineboine River. On the opposite shore, 300 feet above the current, stood a few white houses surrounded by a wooden palisade. Around, the country stretched away on all sides in magnificent expanses.
House, Assineboine The Bear's Paw . . . Estimated population of half-breed about 2000 souls, forming many scattered settlements not permanently located. Names of persons whose appointment to the Commission of the Peace would be recommended: All officers of Hudson Bay Company in charge of posts. Mr. Chanletain, of St. Albert Mission, Edmonton. Mr. Brazeau. Mr. McKenzie, of Victoria. Mr. Wm.
Along the countless creeks and rivers that add their tribute to the great stream, along the banks of the Battle River and the Vermilion River, along the many White Earth Rivers and Sturgeon Creeks of the upper and middle Saskatchewan, down through the willow copses and aspen thickets of the Touchwood Hills and the Assineboine, the great beasts dwelt in all the happiness of calf-rearing and connubial felicity.
Its numbers were constantly increased by the retired servants of the Hudson Bay Company, who selected it as a place of settlement when their period of active service had expired. Thither came the voyageur and the trader to spend the winter of their lives in the little world of Assineboine.
We passed the ruins of an establishment, which the traders had been compelled to abandon, in consequence of the intractable conduct and pilfering habits of the Assinéboine or Stone Indians; and we learned that all the residents at a post on the south branch, had been cut off by the same tribe some years ago. We travelled twelve miles to-day.
Here, too, was the true home of the Indian: the Commanche, the Apache, the Kio-wa, the Arapahoe, the Shienne, the Crow, the Sioux, the Pawnee, the Omahaw, the Mandan, the Manatarree, the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the Assineboine divided between them the immense region, warring and wandering through the vast expanses until the white race from the East pushed their way into the land, and carved out states and territories from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.
I saw the names: of places familiar in imagination the winding river, the junction of the Assineboine and the Red River, and close to it Fort Garry and the village of Winnipeg; then, twenty miles farther to the north, the Lower Fort Garry and the Scotch and English Settlement. My object was to reach this lower fort; but in that lay all the difficulty.
Starting from Fort Garry on the 25th October, I reached Fort Ellice at junction of Qu'Appelle and Assineboine Rivers on the 30th of the same month. On the following day I continued my journey towards Carlton, which place was reached on the 9th November, a detention of two days having occurred upon the banks of the South Saskatchewan River, the waters of which were only partially frozen.
When the white man came he sold his kettle to the stone-heaters, and henceforth the practice disappeared, while the name it had given rise to remained a name which long after the final extinction of the tribe will still exist in the River Assineboine and its surroundings.
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