THE HALF-BREED SCRIP COMMISSION 6,9, 



All preliminaries having at last been settled, the taking of 

 declarations and evidence began on the 23rd of June, and, 

 shortly afterwards, the issue of convertible scrip certificates, 

 or scrip certificates for land as required, took place to the 

 parties who had proved their title. 



This was a slow process, involving in every case a careful 

 search of the five elephant folios containing the records of 

 the bygone issues of scrip in Manitoba and the organized 

 Territories. 



It was necessary in order to prevent the issue of scrip 

 to parties who had already received' it elsewhere. But to the 

 credit of the Lesser Slave Lake community, few efforts were 

 made to " come ia " again, not one in fact which was a clear 

 attempt at fraud, or which could not be accounted for by 

 false agency. Indeed, a high tribute might well be paid 

 here to the honesty, not only of this but of all the communi- 

 ties, both Indian and half-breed, throughout these remote 

 territories. We found valuable property exposed every- 

 where, evidently without fear of theft. There was a looser 

 feeling regarding debts to traders, which we were told were 

 sometimes ignored, partly, perhaps, owing to the traders'' 

 heavy profits, but mainly through failure in the hunt and a 

 lack of means. But theft such as white men practice was a 

 puzzle to these people, amongst whom it was unknovm. 



The most noticeable feature of the scrip issue was the> 

 never-ending stream of applicants, a surprising evidence of 

 the growth of population in this remote wilderness. Its, 

 most interesting feature lay in the peculiarities and man- 

 ners of the people themselves. They were unquestionably 

 half-breeds, and had received Christian names, and most of 

 them had houses of their own, and, though hunters, fisher- 

 men and trippers, their families lived comparatively settled 

 lives. Yet the glorious instinct of the Indian haunted them. 

 As a rule they had been born on the " pitching-track," in the 

 forest, or on the prairies — in all sorts of places, they could 



