HUNTERS OF THE 

 GREAT NORTH 



CHAPTER I 



PREPARATIONS FOR A LTFEWORK OF EXPLORATION 



My family were pioneers. In advance of the great 

 railways that eventually came to cross the northwestern 

 prairies, they traveled by primitive contrivance from 

 the west end of Lake Superior across to the Red River 

 of the North and down that river to Lake Winnipeg. 

 Before them had been the trappers, the traders and 

 missionaries; but they were among the earliest of the 

 farmer colonists who in 1876 settled and began the proc- 

 ess of transforming the pathless and romantic wilderness 

 into the rich but commonplace agricultural community 

 of to-day. 



Those were days of stern trial. The Indians were 

 friendly and to an extent helpful, but the settlers mis- 

 understood and mistrusted them. 



After two years of unremitting toil, our family found 

 themselves in possession of a comfortable log cabin and 

 the clearing of the forest had well begun, when there came 

 a flood that drowned some of the cattle, carried away 

 our haystacks and those of our neighbors, and left be- 

 hind it destitution, which towards spring turned into fam- 

 ine. A brother and sister of my own are said to have 

 died of malnutrition and some of our neighbors died of 



