EX-SPEAKER J. F. BETTS.
Mr. Betts said: "I came in in May 1875. I W85 25 years of age. I
W88 born In Stirling, Hastings County, Ontario. I came In with Pretty
of Toronto, who was running immigration parties. He would charge $80
from Toronto to Winnipeg. He guaranteed us meals at Chicago and St.
Paul at 25c apiece. Besides this we had to board ourselves. We came
over Jim Hill's railroad. We landed at St. Boniface and went over a
ferry there to Winnipeg. The ferryboat was a scow.
"I had no capital. My first experience in Winnipeg was as a cook,
although I had never cooked a meal in my life before. That year the
Indian farm Instructors came in. They came on an Immigration train.
I got $21 a week, for there were 21 of them and each paid a dollar. We
made a camp behind where the Hudson Bay store now is. We bought
tents. The staple food was bacon and beans. I could buy bread 80 did
not have to bake.
"Archbishop Matheson and Archdeacon Fortin were the only two
clergymen that ever came to our camp, and they came twice a week to
see how we were. They would shake hands and ask if there was anything
they could do for us.
"I left Winnipeg on the 1st day of July on the overland trip to Prince
Albert. I saw a big train of carts going into the Hudson Bay yards. I
walked over and said: 'Who do these carts belong to"' The man I spoke
to said they were his. I said: 'Where did they come from"' He said:
'The Saskatchewan.' The carts were loaded with furs. The Hudson Bay
people bought the breeds' furs. There was a man named Richard Gwynne
there who had $250 and who afterwards was my partner in Prince Albert.
I said to him: 'If these men can go out and bring in buffalo robes to sell,
why can't we" You have two or three hundred dollars.' Gwynne said:
'Sure we can get some.' So we bought two oxen and a horse and three
carts and we struck out. When we got to Portage La Prairie, we were
offered a free building lot if we would stop there, but we had made up
our minds to go to Prince Albert, so we declined the offer.
"Richard Gwynne came out from Ontario on the same immigrant train
that I did, and with the same outfit. When we left Winnipeg we had a
little outfit of provisions and groceries. We walked by the carts all the
way to Prince Albert and we got there on the 18th of August, 1879. We
hired a stable to keep store in. It was 12x14 made of log. with a bark
roof. We had to clean the manure out of it before we could occupy It.
We paid $8 a month rent for it to John A. McDonald, who was of the old
Selkirk colonist blood. McDonald came to Prince Albert twelve years
before with the Rev. Nesbitt, who is now dead. We were the first free
traders in here except Charley Mair. The regular settlers started coming
in in 1880 and 1881. When we formed our oldtimers' association, we
made the date of incoming 1879, and we had twenty members. We had
an oldtimers' dinner in 1881 or 1882. We held the dinner in the old club-
room where the hotel is now. The old club-room was the place where a
lot of us batched together. (See T. 0. Davis' story for further particulars
of the club-room)~.
"For: the dinner we printed a card. The menu included buffalo tongue,
buffalo hump, moose-nose and pemmican.
"For drinks we had Jamaica ginger and pain-killer. On the menu
was also bannock and cold-grease, but this was a joke, as, of course, we
didn't eat it. There was also tea brewed on buffalo chips (buffalo dung).
Lestock Reid, the surveyor, and I got up the card. Lestock was in the
chair and I (J. F. Betts) was in the vice-chair.
"The store of Betts and Gwynne in 1879 was near where the present
brewery now is,-between the brewery and the bank, on the river front.
There were seven houses in all in Prince Albert when I came.
"Lawrence Clarke, the Hudson Bay factor, treated me right. If not I
would have starved to death the first winter, for all our goods were gone
in two or three weeks. He helped us out.
"I saw the first house built in Brandon in 1881.
"I was on the first train that crossed the bridge at Brandon. I was
very ill. I had typhoid fever and I jumped on the train. At that time
at Indian Head and Qu'Appelle there was nothing at all.
"In 1882 I came up on a construction train as far as Qu'Appelle with
my wife. I worked through from Brandon in great shape.
"Lawrence Clarke was one of the brainiest men the Territories had,
but he was king of the country and lost his head. He was the most sus-
ceptible man to flattery I ever met in my life.
"The first telegraph line to Prince Albert was partly built by the
people, who furnished the poles,-and the government furnished the wire.
"There was a riot over the location of the office. (See T. 0. Davis).
A Mr. Grisbourn was the representative of the government. He had
eight of the leading citizens arrested. Clarke and Grisbourn were both
rotten-egged and they escaped quick. The indignity broke Clarke's heart.
Old John Stewart (afterwards Mayor), Gwynne, Powers, Orr, J. L. John-
son (afterwards Mayor), and others were arrested. They were let out
on bail and when the Court resumed, Mr. Grisbourn had escaped and
the case was dropped, and the telegraph office was erected where the
people wanted it.
"The first woman to come in after the C. P. R. reached Qu'Appelle
in 1882 was Mrs. Agnew. Mr. Agnew went east to Winnipeg and married
her there. They came up in a box car on a construction train as far as
Qu'Appelle and drove from there to Prince Albert in a buckboard. It is
about 250 to 260 miles from Qu'Appelle Station to Prince Albert. Mrs.
Betts was the first woman to come in over the Regina and Long Lakeroad.
"The biggest cart train I ever had was 39 carts, oxen and ponies.
There were no wagons in those days-all carts. A big wheel is much
better than a small one in mud-holes. An average cart load was from 750
to 1100 or 1200 pounds. One man was expected to attend to four carts.
Twenty miles a day would be a big day's travelling.
"The Salt Plains was a very bad section of trail. It was alkali, soft
like putty. I once started on the Salt Plain at sun-up; we worked
hard all day and at sunset we had not gone a thousand yards; perhaps
we did not go more than 400 or 500 yards. It was a very wet season. We
would take one cart at a time and get it through as quick as we could. It
was the hardest day's work I ever did in my life. The half-breed with
me was one of the best-hearted fellows on the earth. As a freighter the
half-breed can't be beat-99 per cent of them. I would trust them better
than I would trust a white man with an outfit. The half-breed is a won-
derfully hardy man; he can stand almost anything. The charge for freight
from Winnipeg to Prince Albert was five cents a pound. You used to
mix your load-thus, if you had a dozen light window sashes you would
have something heavy to outset it-say a barrel of salt. For two years
I did my own freighting. It would be from forty to fifty days from the
time one left Winnipeg before you got to Prince Albert. The quickest
trip I ever made was forty-four days. The first trip I made it took
fifty-two days.
"We carried blankets, of course, as we always slept under the carts.
I once camped at the Hill of the Cross somewhere about the tenth or
twelfth of March. We got to Humboldt next day forenoon and Mr. Wel
don at the telegraph station said he had sent his meteorological report
the night before that the thermometer was 49 below zero. But though
it was cold we had slept the night before in a snow drift and were as
comfortable as bed bugs. That was in March, 1880, and was the first
trip I made east after coming to Prince Albert. It was an awful year.
The snow was tremendously deep and it was cold and stormy. That was
the winter that no mail reached Prince Albert. I did not get my mail
till June when I returned from Winnipeg. I had left Prince Albert before
the mail came in. There was mail cached from Humboldt to Fort Ellice.
The mail man would bring it as far as he could, and when he could get no
further, owing to the deep snow, he would cache the mail in the trees.
"Mrs. Betts (before we were married) wrote me from the east and
wanted to know why I did not send her a Christmas card or something.
Well, there was a very good reason-there were no Christmas cards to
send.
"The birch was not very plentiful and the Indians were very jealous
of what there was for making their 'jumpers' (sleighs made out of rough
wood). Once Gwynne went over the river for wood and he ran into a
beautiful grove of birch. He cut it all down. Then I thought of a good
scheme and that was that we could write some Christmas cards on birch
bark. So we assembled round the fire and pulled a lot of the bark off
and trimmed the pieces up pretty good and put 'Merry Christmas' on
them, and those Christmas cards went to England and Ireland and all
over Canada.
"Old man Cameron made a trip down the river from Prince Albert to
Selkirk on the Red River in Manitoba, not far from Winnipeg. He had
a Peterborough canoe and two paddlemen. It was a 14-foot canoe. He
made the trip for pleasure. He stopped a day at Cumberland House and
a day at the Pass.
THE HILL OF THE CROSS.
"In the year of 1878 a party of half-breeds were going into Winnipeg.
There was a priest with the party. There was a young half-breed girl
and they were going down to Winnipeg to marry her to a fellow she did
not want. They found her dead in her tent. She had taken poison. There
was no service over her as she was a Catholic and had committed suicide.
A cross was erected on the hill. It was about 14 feet high and the cross-
tree would be eight or ten feet long. There were about fifty names carved
on it with jack-knives when I saw it. The cross was made of spruce or
tamarack. There was no inscription on it. The Hill of the Cross was
just 12 miles on the Prince Albert side of the old telegraph station. They
called it Twelve Mile Plain. There was a bluff, and the cross was on the
edge of the wood. The trail ran past the foot of the hill. There was a
spring right in the side of the little mountain and the spot was a great
camping ground. The top of the hill would be several hundred feet
above the level."
SHERIFF GRAHAM NELSON.
"I am of Scotch blood, born in Halton, Ontario. Colonel Sproat lived
just across the road from our place (Halton) and Wesley Speers (well
known immigration official), used to buy cattle through there. I came in
over the old Dawson Road. The road in 1874 was let by contract to bring
in people to Manitoba. It brought in both passengers and freight. The
charge was about $10 a passenger from Port Arthur to Winnipeg and
$40 a ton for freight. That was under the MacKenzie regime. There
were little tug boats and open boats and then a big steamer on Lake of
the Woods, and four-horse teams to Winnipeg. I came to Winnipeg the
year it was incorporated which was in 1874. Mr. Cornish was the first
Mayor. If the MacKenzie plan for the C. P.R. had gone through the road
would have come through where Warman now is. Prince Albert was
practically the only settlement worth mentioning west of Portage La
Prairie, although there were some people on the Little Saskatchewan who
came from Manitoba where they were born. Captain Moore was making
a hunting trip through this country in 1870 and the thought struck him
that he could start a sawmill and flour mill and he built a
little stone mill.
"Captain Moore was wounded at Duck Lake fight in the Rebellion
of '85; he was an Irishman making a tour of the country. Later on
McDowall (subsequently M. P.), was his partner. It was about 1875
that he started his sawmill and grist mill at the place that now is Prince
Albert lumber mill with a capacity of 50 millions of feet of
lumber yearly.
"I arrived here on the 4th of August, having left Winnipeg on the
20th of June with J. M. Campbell. We came in with oxen, ponies and
carts. J. M. Campbell had been here previously and it was he that in-
duced a great many people to come out here to the Prince Albert country.
He had a store here and a farm at Carrot River (Kinistino). Captain
Meyers came in at the same time with us. He had a brother Dave.
There were several others and among them a Mr. Harkness, who has
been here farming ever since, and T. N. Campbell, brother of Professor
Campbell of Toronto. This place where we are sitting (Prince Albert
Post Office) was in wheat when I came here. James Payne and Fred
Orr were farming it. Payne went up to Battleford as farm instructor
and was subsequently killed by the Indians. Orr is now in the States.
Prince Albert seemed like an Eldorado coming in from the wild prairie-
to find a place with farms and people. The farms were all along the
river. There were stacks and fields of grain. These farms were nearly
all owned by half-breeds, but here and there was a white settler who had
come in a few years before. There were some Kildonan people down at
Colliston about seven miles east, down the river. In 1879 Joe McFarland,
old man Cameron and McDowall were here and William Leittell. A
number of these men came up to work for Captain Moore, and they took
up homesteads. There were probably seven or eight farmers at Carrot
River. It was considered the finest piece of farm land in the country.
The Carrot River country was much more open then than now. A great
deal of it that was clear then, is now covered with bluff of 40 years'
growth.
"In the early days of the settlement black tea was $1.00 a pound,
sugar three or four pounds for a $1.00, fresh pork 20c a pound, bacon
25c a pound, matches were $1.00 a quarter gross. In March we paid $5.00
a gallon for coal oil. We got it from Charles Mair who kept a store.
The winter of '79-'80 was the winter of the very deep snow. In the
winter of '79-'80 we went nine weeks without mail. The one winter that
approached it since was the winter of 1893. Flour was never so very
dear because we had a grist mill. It ran about $5.00 a sack. Emanuel
College was built in 1880. A great deal of lumber was whipsawed.
Bishop McLean lived in a little log house by the college which was after-
wards used for a number of years as a stable. We had the pleasure of
seeing the Marquis of Lorne in 1881. He came here in a boat and went
west. He stayed pretty nearly a day. We arranged to have a gala day
of horse-racing and that sort of thing and it rained. We had carpet laid
down from the boat to the Hudson Bay Company's store. It was laid
from the boat up to a platform, but the Marquis did not walk on the
carpet, he walked on the planks. Owing to the rain we held the sports
the next day after he left here; they left that evening. It was a red
carpet about 100 feet long that we put down and it was supplied by the
Hudson Bay Company.
"The second summer I was here ('76), there were about 100 tents of knee:
Sioux Indians that came in after the Custer massacre in Wyoming. They
were on the hill where the High School is now. Quite a number of those
Indians or descendants are here yet. They were never repatriated. They
live in a reserve across the river about seven miles out and are under the
Presbyterian Church and they are workers. They took part in the Re-
bellion. They are good workers, and the farmers used to like to get
Sioux Indians to work for them. I don't think there are more than a
third as many now as there used to be at first. They still do a good deal
of work and the squaws do a good deal of scrubbing and washing around
the town. They are not only good workers, they are very moral.
"In 1879 the Presbyterian Church had regular Sunday service in the
old log church. Bishop McLean's Church, St. Mary's, was here in '79;
it was then a log church but it was afterwards sheeted over. The services
were pretty Low-church.
"Two boats were built on the Red River by merchants, I think, in
1876 in opposition to the old line of boats controlled, I should say, by
J. J. Hill. The first boat they had was brought in pieces and put together
at Grand Rapids in 1881 or 1882. She was sunk somewhere between
Saskatoon and Medicine Hat. The freight was taken west on the C. P. R.
and loaded in Medicine Hat later in the year. It was late in the year and
much of it was taken back to Qu'Appelle and freighted up here. Perhaps
some of it was flatboated down the river.
"At first when we came in there were Hudson Bay boats and these
other boats belonged to a Transportation Company that was formed in
opposition. The Lily ran for several years and eventually she sunk on
the South Saskatchewan Branch. We then had the Northcote; then the
North West and the Marquis which was the largest boat of the lot. Part
of her hull is down at the Hudson's Bay now. The boilers were sold and
taken away. That is the last relic of the boats that used to run from
Winnipeg to Prince Albert. I have forgotten the name of the Transpor-
tation Company. The boats were managed by Captain William Robin-
son of Winnipeg. The stock I think, was mostly held by the Hudson Bay
Company.
"Fur was plentiful then, but I think there is a bigger business done
in fur now than there was at that time. It is more of a collecting point
now. Beaver were plentiful, and there were wolf, mink, muskrat, marten,
and a great many bears both cinnamon and black, and occasionally we
would get some musk-ox fur. The trade in fur must amount to a quarter
of a million a year now. The fur comes in from several hundred miles.
The spring is the greatest time for it to come in. A great deal comes
in by dog train in the winter. They bring in their furs now and go to
the different fur buyers who give them a bid for it. In the old day~
it was a trade with the Hudson Bay Co., now it is all cash. White men, In-
dians and half-breeds all make a business of fur. I farmed two years
and then I was in the building trade mostly after that. I was appointed
sheriff in 1897. The pea vine is not like what it was; I have worn the
knees of my pants out while riding through the pea vine on horseback.
The crops used to be magnificent in the Shell River district; they were not
so good at Colliston. The breeds used to have big families. The only
way they will decrease in a district is by some of them moving off."
MRS. KENNEDY.
"I was born near Winnipeg and am a cousin of Colonel Inkster, who
was an Orkney man. In 1874 my husband, Alex R. Kennedy, and I were
at Battleford. Mr. Kennedy was trading for Alfred Boyd, who was the
first Minister of Public Works. When we left Winnipeg to go to Battle-
ford, Mr. Pritchard was with us, but he only came as far as Prince Albert.
We got to Battleford in August. We got furs from the Indians. We got
a thousand buffalo robes, not counting foxes. They were worth, tanned
by squaws, $1.50. (There was a buffalo robe in the room.) There was
a Hudson Bay post at Battleford with Peter Ballantine in charge. We
returned to Winnipeg. In crossing rivera we would take four cart wheels
and cover them with buffalo hides making a kind of raft, and with these
we would cross with babies and fur. We stayed in Winnipeg all winter
and then came out to Fort Saskatchewan (Victoria east of Edmonton)
in 1876. Lawrence Clarke brought Mr. Kennedy out, and Pritchard too.
"The traders would bring in prints, tea, sugar, ammunition, ribbons
and beads. We have made our home here since 1878. We had a log store.
There it is outside now. It was the first store in the district. Peter
Hourie was trading here and farming and we bought him out. Carlton
is about 50 miles from the Hudson's Bay Company's store west up the
river. We were more contented and better satisfied, I think, in those days
than we are now. There was plenty of game and wild fowl, chicken,
deer and buffalo.
"When we left Battleford in 1874, we left two or three carcasses of
buffalo for the Indians. The last time we had buffalo meat was in 1881.
Jimmy Short, who was shot in the Rebellion, brought us two quarters of
buffalo in 1881, and that was the last buffalo meat we had. Jimmy Short
was a half-breed. People were more religious in those days than they
are now. It did not matter how far the church was people would go to it.
In those days Indians would go to church on Sunday. People were more
sociable then. There was more kindly feeling, and everybody knew every-
body else there in the country. Some of the luxuries of those days were
buffalo tongue, buffalo bosses and beaver tails, and sometimes we would
have a big plum pudding or boiled rice with raisins in it.
"If you went to give a party you would send the boys out on horse-
back around to everybody and ask them out. If it was in the winter
people would come in sleighs drawn by Hudson Bay dogs or in all kinds
of rigs. There would be a fiddler. People would begin to come along
by' sundown. The table was set with roasted duck and so on and eating
and drinking would be going on all the time. There would be tea to drink,
very seldom anything else but tea. Shortly after sundown the fiddler
would start and dancing would begin. All enjoyed themselves in smok-
ing, talking, eating and having a dance. There would be a pack of cards.
This would be kept up until morning. If it was a wedding we would keep
it up for three days. We would keep on dancing. We started the dance
on Wednesday, on Thursday they would get married and keep it up till
Saturday. We were all the same, rich and poor together. All had the
same friendly feeling in those days. We were 54 days on the cart train
in getting from Winnipeg to Battleford."
INDIAN CURIOSITIES.
At Mrs. Kennedy's the writer was shown some Indian curiosities from
the north country, the property of Canon Flett, who was then making
his home there. They included an Eskimo suit of reindeer which came
from north of Chesterfield Inlet and which was given to Rev. Canon
Flett by Andrew Flett of the North West Mounted Police; also a Louchoux
woman's work bag from the sub-arctic circle given to Canon Fleet by a
daughter of the Queen of Louchoux. It is made of the skins of the legs
of cranes and other wading birds, trimmed with tanned reindeer, em-
broidered with beads and stuffed; also goggles of hard wood with slits in
them, no glasses, with strips of reindeer to tie on with; copper knife with
deer bone handle about a foot long made by Eskimo. The Eskimo used
these to make snow houses with. These curiosities showed remarkably
clever workmanship.
Bibliography follows:
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