Cornerstone Colony

Cornerstone Colony
Selkirk's Contribution to the Canadian West
Copyright 1977 Western Producer Prairie Books
Cover designed by Warren Clark
218 pages,
ISBN 0-919306-80-2.

To further complicate the food situation and add to the danger of famine, the buffalo herds remained far away, thus reducing the chance of obtaining meat from the natives "who never lay up any stock," but live only "from hand to mouth." The river, offering fish, appeared to be the best hope for food but a scarcity of fishhooks was enough to greatly limit the return. It was a bleak outlook and Macdonell knew he had to act decisively.

Seeing no chance.of accommodating and feeding his workers and the settlers somewhere en route if they remained at the Forks, his decision was to send most of his men at once to Pembina where they would be close to a Hudson's Bay Company post and nearer the buffalo herds wintering on the grasses of the plains.

The sooner they started to build huts for themselves and the settlers following, the better. And so, on September 6, Macdonell placed most of his workmen under the command of John McLeod and A. Edwards, the surgeon, and sent them south on the sixty-mile journey to Pembina River. Mr. Heney of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was familiar with the country, accompanied. The men remaining at the Forks would attack tasks like cultivating ground for seeding to winter wheat, and recovering hay for the few cattle and horses and any other animals the settlers might bring. As soon as the party left for Pembina, Macdonell and several of the remaining men went downstream by canoe to consider further the selection of the most suitable location for the settlement.

Confident that he would find a satisfactory site; he took along the bull and heifer, the bushel and a half of precious seed wheat carried from Scotland, and such other stores as might be left at the place chosen for permanency. After a tour taking three days, living exclusively on fish, Macdonell returned to the point of land made by a bend in the river, just about a mile north of the Forks, "as the most eligible spot." At this location, fire had destroyed most of the trees and brush, and weeds and the gumbo sod were the only other obstacles to cultivation. It would be known as Point Douglas and the men were set to work at once to clear an expanse of ground for cultivation by the only means at hand, namely spades and hoes. Cultivation would be followed by the planting of the winter wheat by the time-honored broadcast method. A small and rough log structure was built at the spot to accommodate the hand tools and stores which could be left until spring.

"Next day," the 9th of the month, Macdonell wrote, "I set off on horseback for Pembina, with an escort of three men, and reached there the 12th, a day after my people." There, also, he had to make a decision about a building location and in his typical forthright manner, he selected ground on the south side of the Pembina River where it enters the Red, almost against the North West Company fort. At once he assigned his men to the jobs demanding prompt attention, "one man to fish with a bent nail," others to drag logs for the building of shelters. Men who were strangers to an ax one year earlier were now swinging with commendable aim and force, and log huts were soon emerging in disorder as if dropped from the skies.

While building was progressing, Macdonell was negotiating with local freemen and Métis to devote themselves completely to hunting buffalo for the purpose of keeping the expanding colony of newcomers in meat for the winter.

Pembina now had three posts, the Hudson's Bay Company fort, the North West Company fort, and the new complex of shacks and huts being built for the workmen and settlers which Captain Macdonell christened Fort Daer, honoring a Selkirk family name. Having seen the Pembina building program progressing, Macdonell, on October I, started back to the Forks, taking two horses and a harrow - also a supply of buffalo meat just received from the plains. In returning north, he could supervise the planting of that bushel and a half of seed wheat, and if his premonition was serving him properly, he would be present to receive the party of settlers whose leader hoped to reach Red River before the lakes and rivers were frozen and winter would be upon him.

With the aid of the two horses and the harrow, the little plot of ground for the wheat received a thorough grooming to present a moderately acceptable seedbed for the grain to be planted with an involuntary Macdonell benediction.

From wheat, attention turned to hay. Although the season was late, too late for good hay, it was obvious enough that poor hay must be better than no hay and the men went back to cutting and gathering and stacking more of the native grasses grown tall and coarse and dry, mainly with the thought that Lord Selkirk might send some sheep with the settlers.

And sure enough, the party of weary men, women and children - seventy-one altogether - led by that cheerful son of Old Ireland, Owen Keveny, arrived on October 27. There had been another slow ocean voyage, a sixty-one-day crossing to York Factory, but all survived; in fact the party did better than survive because it reached York Factory with one more passenger than at the Start, Mrs. McLean having given birth to a daughter "two days before we came to dock."