312 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



of boats in their expeditions to York Factory on Hudson's 

 Bay, and throughout the northern interior. Pemmican is 

 made by pounding or chopping buffalo meat into small 

 pieces and then mixing it with an equal quantity of fat. 

 It is packed in bags made of the hide of the animal, in 

 quantities of about ninety pounds each. Dried meat is 

 the flesh of the buffalo cut into long, broad, and thin 

 pieces about two feet by fifteen inches, which are smoked 

 over a slow fire for a few minutes and then packed into a 

 bale of about sixty pounds. We had many opportunities 

 of seeing the Cree women on the Qu'appelle, cut, pre- 

 pare, and pack dried meat. 



At Fort Ellice (longitude 101° 48', latitude 50° 24' 32", 

 Captain Palliser) the thunder storms were as violent as 

 on the Souris ; not a day passed without hghtning, thunder, 

 and generally violent rain of half an hour's duration. 

 The grasshoppers at this post had destroyed the crops 

 last year, and, at the time of our visit, the young brood 

 were well advanced, their wings being about one-third of 

 an inch long. Full grown insects from the south were 

 flying overhead or alighting in clouds around us, so that 

 all hopes of obtaining a crop from the garden or potato 

 fields were abandoned for this year. Provisions were 

 very scarce at the post, and had it not been for the fortu- 

 nate arrival of the hunters with some pemmican and 

 dried meat, we should have been compelled to hunt or 

 kill the ox. 



From Mr. McKay I received a particular account of the 

 " Great Bones " on Shell Creek, which had long been a 

 source of wonder and awe to the Indians hunting on the 

 left bank of the Assinniboine, and whose magnificent 

 descriptions led me to suppose they might belong to a 

 cetacean, and were worth a day's journey out of our track 

 to visit and examine. They were seen many years ago 



