70 



GEOEGE BEYCE ON THE 



the name " Assiniboia " given by Lord. Selkirk to his colony on this and the Red Elver 

 a curious statement was made. This was in Chappell's Voyage to Hudson Bay (1814) ; 

 the writer says : " The infant colony is called by His Lordship Osna Boia (two 

 Gaelic words signifying " Ossian's town ") from the resemblance between that and the 

 Indian name of Eed River, " Asuaboyne." However consoling this may be to the High- 

 lander, it must be consigned to the limbo of fanciful conceits. 



The Spelling. 



The following are several of the different ways of spelling the name : — 



Assinipoulacs, (French map, 1680). 



Asseniboels, (Franquelin's map, 1688). 



Assinebouels, (Map, 1692). 



Asseuipoils, (De I'lsle's map, 1*700). 



Assinipoils, (Carver, 1*766). 



Assiniboilles, (Map of 1740). 



Assinibouels, (Map of 1744). 



(Margry after Joliet, 1671). 

 (Margry after Verandrye, 1730, 

 and Bourgainville, 17-57). 



'(D'Iberville, 1702). 



Assiuipoels, 

 Assiniboels, 



Assiniboin, 



Assinibouel, ) 



Assinipoets, (Robson, 1759). 



Assinipolis, (De la Harpe). 



Assenepolacs, (Duluth, 1684). 



Assinipouals, (Lahontan, 1703). 



Assinii)oulak, (Marquette's map of 1673) 



Assinibouans, (John McDonnell, 1798). 

 Ossiniboyne, (Selkirk settlers). 



The As.siniboine Occupied. 



The fur trade was the cause of the first occupation of the valley of the Assiniboine. 

 Several companies, with conflicting interests, found it profitable to extend their trade 

 along the valley, and within its limits were enacted a number of the most sanguinary 

 conflicts of the fur country. It is more than a century and a half since the first European 

 explored the Assiniboiue, although as our list of the different forms of the name shows, 

 the country of the " wild Assiniboine " was known to geographers more than two hun- 

 dred years ago. Four movements claim our attention in this earlier history. 



I.— The French Period, (1736-63). 



So far as we can ascertain, it was by the French explorer Varennes de la Verandrye, 

 who, after leaving Lake Superior in 1731 and threading the watery ways of Rainy Lake 

 and River, Lake of the Woods and Winnipeg River, across Lake Winnipeg, came up the Red 

 River in 1735 or 1736, that the mouth of the Assiniboine, where the City of Winnipeg 

 now stands, was first seen by white men. Some question has arisen as to whether or not 

 there was a French fort built at the mouth of the Assiniboine. It may be well to notice 

 again the grounds for believing that there was such a fort, as given by the writer in a 

 paper read before this Society in 1886. 



Fort Rouge. 



(1.) In the French archives at Paris is a map, of date 1737, showing at the mouth of 

 the Assiniboine, and on the south side, a fort marked " abandoned," so that it could only 

 have been in existence for two years at most. 



