138 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
“ see the first little Christian Church and Steeple of Wood rising through 
“these Wilds to hear the Sound of the first Sabbath Bell which has tolled 
“here since the Creation.” Semple’s Letter. 
The House is very comfortable. From hence we rode two Miles to 
Hay Farm (Mr. Laidlaw.) Lord Selkirk’s, where I found Colonel Dick- 
son. About 70 Acres are in Cultivation but the Grasshopper had made 
here dreadful Devastation, whole Beds of Potatoes eaten without a 
Vestige remaining, fine Fields of Wheat destroyed and the whole having 




































FRONT VIEW OF UPPER FORT GARRY, RED RIVER SETTLEMENT, IN 1852. 
From A. Ross's “ Red River Settlement.” 
a most desolate melancholy Appearance. Mr. Laidlaw thinks they 
would deposit their Eggs again but this Opinion I consider to arise more 

1 Long, in 1823, found two churches built, Protestant Episcopal and Roman 
Catholic, and 600 settlers. The H. B. Co. Post is called Fort Gerry by Long, and the 
Colony Post Fort Douglas. Fort Garry, which for so long gave its name to what is. 
now the city of Winnipeg, was built in 1835-36. Henry (Coues), I. p. 44. 
[After the union of the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay companies in 1821, the 
new directors ordered the construction of a fort, a little further up the Assiniboine 
than Fort Gibraltar, which had been destroyed in May, 1816. This upper fort was 
named after the author of the Diary, and stood until 1852, when it was pulled down. 
In 1831 the Company built just below the St. Andrew’s Rapids, at a distance of 
nineteen miles from the old or upper fort, a large establishment known until very 
recent times as Lower Fort Garry. This fort was the scene of many stirring events 
in the history of the Northwest. Here it was the rebel Louis Riel had his head- 
quarters for a short time in 1870, and ordered the execution of Scott. It was sold 
in 1882, and now the gate of this interesting pile of buildings alone remains. I give 
two sketcnes of the fort, as it appeared in 1852, and in 1876, just before it was 
demolished. See with respect to the history of this fort an interesting article by 
Professor Bryce, of Winnipeg, in the Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. iii. (old series), 
sect. 2.—Ed. Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.] 
