FIVE FORTS OF WINN^IPEG. 137 



McTavish, McCJillivray, Gregory, ]\IcLeod, and others took place in 1787, and we learu 

 i'rom the evidence of the Hon. William McCfillivray that the first liold in a permanent form 

 of the Red Eiver district was taken in 1788. This statement is further corroborated by 

 Alexander Henry, jun., a fur-trader, who, in 1800, journeyed along Red River. From him 

 we learn that the first fort on Red River was built by a trader, Peter Grant. The fort 

 was situated on the east side of Red River, a little south of the International bound- 

 ary, and no doubt near the St. Vincent railway station. Henry in 1800 says that there 

 were at this point " the remains of an old fort." 



Fort Pembina on the west side of Red River, a little more than a mile south of the 

 International boundary, was built by a North-West trader, Charles Chaboiller in 1797-U8. 

 Mr. David Thompson, the surveyor of the North-West Company, a man of great persever- 

 ance and marvellous endurance, gives an account of a visit to this post in 1798, at which 

 time, though he passed the spot, he makes no mention of a fort at the mouth of the Assini- 

 boine. At the time of his journey, which was made up Red River, there was a North- 

 West fort sixty miles further up stream, at the mouth of Red Lake River, where now 

 stands the town of Grand Forks, in Dakota. This fort was in charge of a French half-breed 

 trader, Baptiste Cadot, the sou of the celebrated old trader of Sault Ste. Marie, referred to 

 by many writers of the period. Further up Red Lake River there was at this time a post 

 also upon Red Lake, celebrated as being one of the supposed sources of the Mississippi. 

 This was under the charge of a North-AVest bourgeois, John Sayer. It was a son of this 

 trader who afterwards figured in the remarkable trial at Fort Garry in 1840, when the 

 French half-breeds rose against constituted authority, and seized court-house, judge and 

 jury. As an example of the hardships endured at these forts, Thompson tells us that the 

 trader, Sayer, and his men had passed the whole winter on no more substantial food than 

 wild rice and maple sugar. The Forts on Red River, in 1798, seem to have been Pembina, 

 the Forks (Grand Forks), and Red Lake, all of them in what is now the United States. 

 The approach to Red River would seem to have been made by the North- Westers by 

 way of Rainy River, or even from Fond du Lac, on Lake Superior, and down Red Lake 

 River. The union of the North-Westers and the X. Y. Company, who had been rivals 

 since 1796, and to the latter of which Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Edward Ellice 

 belonged, took place in 1804. An impulse was given to their trade, and seizing a leading- 

 position at the Forks of our rivers, they built a new post. 



Fort Giiîkaltar. — The Hudson's Bay Company claim to have built a fort at Red 

 River in 1799, but no trace of it remains. Possibly it may have been at the point a few 

 miles below the Forks, afterwards taken up by the colony. It was in 1806 that the North- 

 Westers erected their fort at a point, one old resident informs us, "within gun-shot of old 

 Fort Garry," as it was afterwards built. Such a comparison is suggestive of the relations 

 of the two companies, and certainly it M'as the warlike humour of the builders rather than 

 the strength of the position that gave this fort its name. It faced towards Red River 

 rather than the Assiniboine, and was situated below the site of the recently removed 

 emigrant sheds. From the evidence of a resident of the colony, we know that, in 1818, 

 this fort was about fifty yards back from the river. The same observer says the river was 

 then 1.50 yards wide : it is now at this point al)Oi\t 200 yards ; so that from each side of 

 the river twenty-five yards have fallen into it. It will tlius be seen that ten yards of the 



Sec. II., 1SS5. IS. 



