III. SOURIS COUNTRY: ITS MONUMENTS, 

 MOUNDS, FORTS AND RIVERS 



The following is the inaugural lecture of the winter series- 

 before the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, recent 

 ly delivered by the president, Rev. Dr. Bryce : — 



On September 7th, 1886, the writer having pursued his 

 journey by rail southwestward through Manitoba, and driven 

 some forty miles by wagon, arrived by the ''Boundary Commis- 

 sion trail," at the crossing of the river Souris, about two- 

 hundred and twenty-five miles from the city of Winnipeg. 

 Here seen from the brink of a valley about a mile 

 wide, and at the bottom — one hundred and fifty or two 

 hundred feet below the prairie level — runs the river, skirted at 

 places with its belt of timber. The writer's party descended the 

 steep bank, and as the equipage stood in the middle of the 

 stream — at this season very small and shallow — a troop of 

 mingled thought hurried through their minds. Here or very 

 near by passed up, one hundred and forty-four years ago, 

 two brave sons of the intrepid Verandrye, calling the Souris 

 river the St. Pierre, in memory alike of Governor Beauharnois, . 

 of Quebec, and of their father, the explorer. By this route they 

 reached, after a short portage, the Missouri, and first of white 

 men north of Mexico, saw on January 1st, 1743, rise before 

 their wondering gaze the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains' 

 This river was the pathway of their great discovery. A few 

 miles back upon the trail must have crossed in the year 1797 a 

 party led by Mr. David Thompson, the astronomer and survey- 

 or of the Northwest Fur Company, from the fort at the mouth 

 of the Souris to the Mandan village on the Missouri, and by 

 the same route journeyed also a party carrying a message in six 

 days over the snowbound prairies in December, 1801, from 

 trader Chaboillez, at the mouth of the Souris to the celebrated ', 

 American expedition of Lewis and Clark as they ascended the 

 Missouri to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. And 

 centuries before, as evidenced by the remains to be described,, 

 here dwelt a numerous population, which fought, and worked,, 

 and died, and whose scanty memorials we now have in our pos" 

 session. 



