1036 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



bear of the Mountains, and his account, especially in view of 

 the supporting testimony, must be allowed full weight. In the 

 year 1800, he built a trading post on the Red River at the mouth 

 of Park River in North Dakota, about thirty miles south of the 

 International Boundary. The journal he kept of those times 



shows that Blackbear were extraordinarily numerous, and that 

 Grizzlies were occasionally seen on Red River. In his journal 

 for 1800 are these entries:* 



"October 17. * * * During my absence the hunter killed 

 a large Grizzly-bear^ about a mile from the fort. He had seen 

 two males and a female, but the latter escaped. My people, 

 having cooked and eaten some of the flesh, were taken very ill, 

 and most of them threw it up. This Bear had been wounded 

 in the fore-leg some time before by an arrow, the iron head of 

 which stuck fast in the bone, and was beginning to rust. 

 Grizzly-bears are not numerous along Red River, but more 

 abundant in the Hair Hills [Pembina Mountains]. At Lac du 

 Diable [Devil's Lake], which is about 30 leagues west, they are 

 very common — I am told as common as the Blackbear is here, 

 and very malicious. Near that lake runs a principal branch of 

 Schian [Cheyenne] River, which is partially wooded. On the 

 banks of this river I am informed they are also very numerous 



* Alexander Henry Journal, 1897, P- ^^i. 



' Dr. Elliott Coues, the accomplished naturalist who edited Henry's Journal, identifies 

 this as the Ursus horribilis. 



