| Excerpt from William Francis Butler's The
Great Lone Land |
|
Captain Butler's party left Fort Garry on October 24 th and arrived
at Fort Carlton on November 8th . The only record we have
of a faster trip over the trail is that of Sir
George Simpson 
and his
party in 1841. Butler and his companions had a Red River cart, a buckboard,
and seven horses.
On the 24th of October (1870) I quitted Fort Garry, at ten o'clock, at night, and, turning out into the level prairie, commenced a long journey towards the West. The night was cold and moonless, but a brilliant aurora flashed and trembled in many-coloured shafts across the starry sky.
A terrible disease had swept, for some months previous to the date of my journey, the Indian tribes of Saskatchewan. Small-pox, in its most aggravated type, had passed from tribe to tribe, leaving its track depopulated wigwams and vacant councillodges; thousands (and there are not many thousands, all told) bad perished on the great sandy plains that lie between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri (Rivers).
That night we made our first camp out in the solitudes. It was a dark, cold night, and the wind howled dismally through some bare thickets close by. When the fire flickered low and the wind wailed and sighed amongst the dry white grass, it was impossible to resist a feeling of utter loneliness.
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. This was Fort
Ellice,
near the
junction of the Qu'Appelle and Assineboine Rivers, 230 miles west from Fort
Garry. Fording the Assineboine, which rolled its masses of ice swiftly against
the shoulder and neck of my horse, we climbed the steep hill, and gained
the fort. I had ridden that distance in five days and two hours.
I remained only long enough at Fort Ellice to complete a few changes in costume which the rapidly increasing, cold rendered necessary. Boots and hat were finally discarded, the stirrup-irons were rolled in strips of buffalo slain, the large moose-skin "mittaines" taken into wear, and immense moccassins got ready.
I could not have believed it possible that horses could travel the daily distance which mine did without breaking down altogether under it, still less would it have appeared possible upon the food which they had to eat. We had neither hay nor oats to give them; there was nothing but the dry grass of the prairie, and no time to eat that but the cold frosty hours of the night. Still we seldom travelled less than fifty miles a-day, stopping only for one hour at midday, and going on again until night began to wrap her mantle around the shivering prairie.
My horse was a wonderful animal; day after day would I fear that his game little limbs were growing weary, and that soon he must give out; but no, not a bit of it; his black coat roughened and his flanks grew a little leaner, but still he went on as gamely and as pluckily as ever
Often during the long day I would dismount and walk along leading him by the bridle, while the other two men and the six horses jogged on far in advance; when they had disappeared altogether behind some distant ridge of the prairie my little horse would commence to look anxiously around, whinnying and trying to get along after his comrades; and then how gamely he trotted on when I remounted, watching out for the first sign of his friends again, far-away little specks on the great wilds before us. When the camping place would be reached at nightfall the first care went to the horse. To remove saddle, bridle, and saddle-cloth, to untie the strip of soft buffalo leather from his neck and twist it well around his fore-legs, for the purpose of hobbling, was the work of only a few minutes, and then poor Blackie hobbled away to find over the darkening expanse his night's provender.
Before our own supper of pemmican, half-baked bread, and tea had been discussed, we always drove the band of horses down to some frozen lake hard by, and Daniel cut with the axe little drinking holes in the ever-thickening ice; then up would bubble the water and down went the heads of the thirsty horses for a long pull at the too-often bitter spring, for in this region between the Assineboine and the South Saskatchewan fully half the lakes and pools that lie scattered about in vast variety are harsh with salt and alkalis.
Three horses always ran loose while the other three worked in harness. These loose horses, one might imagine, would be prone to gallop away when they found themselves at liberty to do so: but nothing seems farther from their thoughts; they trot along by the side of their harnessed comrades apparently as though they know all about it; now and again they stop behind, to crop a bit of grass or tempting stalk of wild pea or vetches, but on they come again until the party has been reached, then, with ears thrown back, the jog-trot is resumed, and the whole band sweeps on over hill and plain. To halt and change horses is only the work of two minutes-out comes one horse, the other is standing close by and never stirs while the hot harness is being put upon him; in he goes into the rough shafts, and, with a crack of the half-breed's whip across his flanks, away we start again.
But my little Blackie seldom got a respite from the saddle; he seemed so well up to his work, so much stronger and better than any of the others, that day after day I rode him, thinking each day, "Well, tomorrow I will let him run loose; but when tomorrow came he used to look so fresh and well, carrying his little head as high as ever, that again I put the saddle on his back, and another day's talk. and companionship would still further cement our friendship, for I grew to like that horse as one only can like the poor dumb beast that serves us. I know not how it is, but horse and dog have worn themselves into my heart as few men have ever done in life; and now, as day by day went by in one long scene of true companions ship, I came to feel for little Blackie a friendship not the less sincere because all the service was upon his side, and I was powerless to make his supper a better one, or give him a more cosy lodging for the night. He fed and lodged himself and he carried me-- all he asked in return was a water-hole in the frozen lake, and that I cut for him.
Sometimes the night came down upon us still in the midst of a great open treeless plain, without shelter, water, or grass, and then we would continue on in the inky darkness as though our march was to last eternally, and poor Blackie would stop out as if his natural state was one of perpetual motion. On the 4th November we rode over sixty miles; and when at length the camp was made in the lea of a little clump of bare willows, the snow was lying cold upon the prairies, and Blackie and his comrades went out to shiver through their supper in the bleakest scene my eyes bad ever looked upon.
About midway
between 
Fort Ellice and
Carlton a sudden and well-defined change occurs in the character of
the country; the light soil disappears, and its place is succeeded by a
rich dark loam covered deep in grass and vetches. Beautiful hills swell
in slopes more or less abrupt on all sides, while lakes fringed with thickets
and clumps of good-sized poplar balsam lie lapped in their fertile hollows.
This region bears the name of the Touchwood Hills. Around it, far into endless space, stretch immense plains of bare and scanty vegetation, plains scared with the tracks of countless buffalo which, until a few years ago, were wont to roam in vast herds between the Assineboine and the Saskatchewan. Upon whatever side the eye turns when crossing these great expanses, the same wrecks of the monarch of the prairie lie thickly strewn over the surface. Hundreds of thousands of skeletons dot the short scant grass; and when fire has laid barer still the level surface, the bleached ribs and skulls of long-killed bison whiten far and near the dark burnt prairie. There is something unspeakably melancholy in the aspect of this portion of the North-west.
Return to start of Butler excerpt
How do I participate in the student Sketchbook Project?
Back to Our Heritage
Home Page