47 



House. He had, on his way from the west, stopped at a 

 Nor'wester Fort, which he called Montagne a la Basse — about 

 50 miles west of Souris mouth. This, which would in English 

 mean " Sand Bank Hill," seems to have been northwest of 

 Oak Lake, and it is probably in a corrupted form the " Boss 

 Hill " of Capt. Palliser. Assiniboime House was in charge, 

 at the time, of Mr. Charles Chaboiliez, and the trader states 

 that the people from the other two forts were in May of that 

 year invited to a very boisterous entertainment in Assiniboine 

 House. In # this year the Nor'west and X. Y. Companies 

 united, and Assiniboine House would seem to have been com- 

 bined with it, and the headquarters of the united company at 

 this point to have become 



FORT A LA SOURIS. 



Across the ravine from Brandon House, and on the ad- 

 joining quarter section, are yet to be seen the ruins of what 

 we take to have been Fort a la Souris. The site is grown over 

 with great weeds and underbrush, but the stockade would 

 seem to have been about 150 feet by 66 feet. Four cellars and 

 a chimney are still traceable on the site. This fort was the 

 rival of Brandon House in the troubles between the companies 

 in 1816 and was in 1814 under the charge of Mr. John 

 Pritchard, afterwards Lord Selkirk's agent, and the father of 

 a numerous family among our Red River settlers. It was 

 from this locality that four hundred bags of pemican, each 

 weighing 80 or 90 pounds, were seized from the Nor'-Westers 

 by Governor Miles Macdonell's orders, to be paid for, how- 

 ever, for the use of the Selkirk colony ; and it was to this Fort 

 a la Souris that the loot was taken in 1816, when Brandon 

 House was seized by the Nor'-Westers and Peter Fidler com- 

 pelled to leave it. Forty-five miles from the mouth of the 

 Souris, seemingly near its junction with Plum creek, was 

 situated at the beginning of this century a fort named Ash 

 House. Of this we know little, but in subsequent years the 

 Hudson's Bay Company maintained a winter port somewhere 

 in this locality. 



CONCLUSION. 



Thus closes our sketch of the Souris River region, which 

 in early mound building times was plainly well peopled, whose 

 natural monuments are of continental reputation, whose 

 mounds and intrenchments well repay study, and around 

 whose forts far more adventure and trade centred up to Lord 

 Selkirk's time than attach to the forts of Red River. 



