04 CANADIAN WILDS. 



sively on their flesh, either in the fresh, dried 

 or peinican state. 



All foods, not imported, went under the 

 name of country produce, and as flour is the 

 staff of life to the white man, so was buffalo, 

 caribou, rabbit or white fish to the dwellers of 

 the north country. Beaver, partridge, porcu- 

 pine and other small prey, a kind of entree, or 

 side dish, got only at odd times, and not to be 

 depended on for regular three times a day diet. 



The quantity of any one of these four foods 

 required to sustain, even a family of six, dur- 

 ing a long northern winter, was something to 

 make a layman incredulous. 



The Indians living about the plains of the 

 lower Saskatchewan and foothills of the Kock- 

 ies not only lived on the buffalo, but made up 

 immense quantities of pemican, which was 

 parched in summer skin bags, weighing about 

 sixty pounds each, and traded for ammunition, 

 cloth, beads, hatchets, etc., at the forts. 



From these bases of supply the bags of meat 

 were sent to posts farther north, and used for 

 tripping and feeding the men about the post. 

 Large quantities were floated down each spring 

 from Fort Ellis, Qu Appelli and other plain 

 forts, by the Assiniboine to Fort Garry and from 

 there in larger boats to Norway House, on Lake 

 Winnipeg, which in those days was the receiv- 



