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Updated: June 4, 2025
Five causes may be stated as leading up to it. The weakness of the Government of Assiniboia and the sickness and helplessness of Governor McTavish, whose duty it was to act. The rebellious character of the Metis, now irritated anew by the actions of the surveyors. The inexplicable blundering and neglect of the Dominion Government at Ottawa.
There were men who had won fame as Rocky Mountain stage-drivers, or who had spent endless days in guiding the slow wagon-trains across the grassy plains. There were miners who knew every camp from the Yukon to Leadville, and cow-punchers in whose memories were stored the brands carried by the herds from Chihuahua to Assiniboia.
The Earl of Selkirk had had many troubles, and early in 1815 he was again filled with anxiety by news received in Scotland concerning the imperilled condition of Assiniboia.
A third place of muster for the colony was the city of Glasgow. There the Earl of Selkirk's representative was Captain Roderick M'Donald. Many Highlanders had gone to Glasgow, that busy hive of industry, in search of work. To the clerks in the shops and to the labourers in the yards or at the loom, M'Donald described the glories of Assiniboia.
Even in the banished Duke, there is a strain of oddity and quaintness. Not many years after the middle of last century, a Detroit lawyer fled from the troubles of society and city life to the peaceful plains of secluded Assiniboia. Marrying, after his arrival, a daughter of one of our best native families, and on her death, a pure Indian woman, he reared a large family.
It so chanced that the Earl of Selkirk while in Canada had met Macdonell, then a captain of the Royal Canadian Volunteers, and had been impressed by his courage and energy. In consequence, Selkirk now invited him to be the first governor of Assiniboia.
Four officers Captains Matthey and D'Orsonnens and Lieutenants Graffenreid and Fauché and about eighty of the rank and file were willing to enlist. It was agreed that they should receive allotments of land in Assiniboia on the terms granted to the settlers who had formerly gone from Scotland and Ireland.
Here they met both French and British fur traders, who in spite of the bitter weather came from Assiniboia, about a hundred and fifty miles north, to trade for furs with the Indians. The weather was bitterly cold, but the men were fairly comfortable in their log huts, and they had plenty to do. They went upon hunting expeditions to get food, they built boats, and they set up a forge.
The refugees of the year before, who were encamped on the Jack river, had returned to their homes, and now, in instituting a parish for them and creating the first local division in Assiniboia, Lord Selkirk was giving it a name reminiscent of the vales of Sutherlandshire. 'Here you shall build your church, continued his lordship.
The long train was speeding smoothly across the vast white levels of Assiniboia, when Agatha, who sat by a window, looked up as the conductor strode through the car. Mrs. Hastings asked him a question, and he stopped a moment. "Yes," he said, "we'll be in Clermont inside half an hour." He went on, and Mrs. Hastings smiled at Agatha.
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