mTRODUCTION 27 



mand of the force present at the making of the Fort Carlton 

 Treaty in 1876 ; and Mr. J. A. Cote, an experienced officer 

 of the Land Department at Ottawa. The secretaries were 

 Mr. J. F. Prudhomme, of St. Boniface, Man., and the writer. 



Our transport arrangements, from start to finish, had been 

 placed entirely in the hands of a competent officer of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. H. B. Round, an old resident 

 of Athabasca; and to the Commission was also annexed a 

 young medical man. Dr. West, a native of Devonshire, Eng- 

 land, whose services were appreciated in a region where 

 doctors were almost unlniown. But not the least important 

 and eifective constituent of the party was the detachment of 

 the Royal ITorth-West Mounted Police, which joined us at 

 Edmonton, minus their horses, of course; picked men from 

 a picked force; sterling fellows, whose tenacity and hard 

 work in the tracking-harness did yeoman service in many a 

 serious emergency. This detachment consisted of Inspector 

 Snyder, Sergeant Anderson, Corporals Fitzgerald and Mc- 

 Clelland, and Constables McLaren, Lett, Burman, Lelonde, 

 Burke, Vernon and Kerr. The conduct of these men, it 

 is needless to say, was the admiration of all, and assisted 

 materially, as will be seen hereafter, in the successful progress 

 of the expedition. 



Whilst it had been decided that the proposed adjustments 

 should be effected, if possible, upon the same terms as the 

 previous treaties, it was Imown that certain changes would 

 be necessary owing to the peculiar topographic features of 

 the country itself. For example, in much of it arable 

 reserves, such as many of the tribes retained in the south, 

 were unavailable, and special stipulations were necessary, in 

 such case, so that there should be no inequality of treatment. 

 But where good land could be had, a novel choice was offered, 

 by which individual Indians, if they wished, could take their 

 inalienable shares in severalty, rather than be subject to the 

 " band," whereby many industrious Indians elsewhere had 

 been greatly hampered in their efforts to improve their con- 



