| Summary: | The following are some events which had a great impact on the lives of the Turtle Mountain people and which must be included in this history. BUFFALO HUNTS The buffalo, properly called the bison, was the mainstay of the Indian in this region prior to and for some years after the advent of the white man. He depended on the buffalo for clothing, food, shelter, implements and even toys for his children. Covering for the body was made of the tanned skins; buffalo hides, or robes, provided additional covering and the tanned hides were used for tipis. Implements and toys of buffalo bones have been found in mounds and were in use long after the whites came to the country. The annual buffalo hunts in June and November were not only the great events in the lives of the Indians, but later engrossed the attention of the mixed-bloods and even the whites. These events were more than hunting trips; they were great expeditions in which adventure, romance, excitement and thrills were plentiful. Numerous descriptions of buffalo hunts have been written. Before dealing with any of these, it is necessary to explain that the Chippewa of the Turtle Mountains had formerly been woods Indians in Minnesota and there had been able to obtain a diversity of food and materials for clothing and shelter. Those who came to North Dakota soon found that the buffalo, of which there were millions when the first whites arrived, must become their principal means of existence. They had known the woods buffalo in Minnesota but had not relied on it so completely. The Sioux, on the other hand, had hunted the buffalo from time immemorial, but the Chippewa soon became as adept as their neighbors. When drought or other causes drove the buffalo far from their usual haunts into enemy territory, the Indians, deprived of the hides and meat, suffered keenly. Fortunes rose and fell with the success of the annual hunts. Courtesy of Manitoba Archives Wedding Ceremony - Voyageur with Indian Maiden; Blackrobes in background. Chaplain on Hunt In the decades from 1840 to 1870 the Metchif hunters came mostly from Manitoba, being joined on this side of the line by American Metis, Indians and sometimes a few whites. They followed a more or less regular route on their summer and fall expeditions. The Dogden buttes marked the boundary of the hunting grounds at one point, and it appears that McHenry County generally was the most western country hunted by the Metis and mixed-bloods of this district. The limits of the area hunted were fixed by fear of the hostile Sioux. The Chippewa did not fear the Sioux in battle, but, being peaceable, did not wish to clash with them. Schools were conducted on these expeditions for the children of the families accompanying the hunters. Since many of the French-Canadian and the Metchif were Catholic, a priest normally accompanied the hunting party. The priest performed the rites of the church in cases of birth, marriage, and death, and conducted Masses. There were regular church services, and stops were made at different points, sometimes for a considerable time. In winter, dog teams were sometimes used to draw toboggans over the snow and overtake the heavy animals which tried to escape through the drifts. Sometimes the buffalo were killed with spears or stone hammers when being worried by the dogs. In 1850 one of the last large buffalo hunts took place in the Turtle Mountain area. The Metchifs from the Red River Valley attacked a buffalo herd at the east end of the Turtle Mountains. In 20 minutes the hunters had killed 800 buffalo. A name prominent in the Pembina history around 1850, in the buffalo hunting days was Wilkie. The Wilkies, Martins, Demontignys and the Joe Monette family are descendants of Chief Wilkie of Pembina. Joe Monette's mother, Philomene Wilkie Monette was his granddaughter. A story of the buffalo hunting days by Gregoire Monette, born 1855, father of Joe Monette, as told to a reporter of the Langdon Courier in 1917 appears in another section of this book. RED RIVER CARTS The Plains Ojibwa were designated "the cart- using Indians of the Plains.' It was around 1803, when Captain Henry surveyed the Pembina Mountains, that the famous Red River Cart seems to have made its first appearance, to help in developing the brisk fur trade. The Plains Ojibwa exploited the buffalo herds by means of two-wheeled carts instead of travois, to transport their tents, their dried buffalo meat and hides. Ox-carts, however, were not as familiar in the Turtle Mountains as on the adjoining prairies: first, because horses had become more common when the main settlement period in the mountains began, and second, because these carts could not easily thread the tortuous paths that were the first mountain trails. The early carts of the hunting expeditions usually skirted the mountains and only later did cart and wagon trains take furs from the region south and east of the mountains to the Red River. 222 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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