| Summary: | numbers were so great it might take several days for one herd to pass by. There would also be periods of many weeks when no buffalo would be seen. Another very large animal that stalked these prairies and must have given the solitary trapper tense moments now and then was the unpredictable grizzly bear. The grizzly was originally an animal of the plains but today is found only in the Rocky Mountains because this is the only region where sufficient wilderness habitat, needed by the bear, exists in the lower forty-eight. Another animal who needs vast areas of wilderness to survive is the wolf which was once common here. Other animals whose furs the trappers gathered included beavers, black bears, brown bears, red foxes, fishers, otters, martens, and mink. These trappers of the past knew a different land than what we see today. This was a wilderness of wild- flowers and grasses teeming with animals. It was also a relentless land of mosquitos, eternal wind, bitter cold, storms, unfriendly Sioux, and crushing loneliness. Surely there were trappers who ventured out on these hostile plains never to be heard from again. His final resting place would never be known. His story would never be told. Oxcarts As the fur trade was drawing to a close another colorful phase of Red River Valley history could have been witnessed from the site of Galesburg. This was the long lines of squeaky oxcarts that made their way hundreds of miles from Canada and posts on the Pembina River to the newly established city of St. Cloud. This became a more profitable way of hauling furs to markets in the East. This pageant was part of the prairie scene from the 1840s to the early 1870s. These carts were piloted by interesting people of mixed parentage known as the Metis. These people at one time made up the bulk of the Red River Valley population. Most of these people were of French and Chippewa ancestry and their strange language was an unusual blend of these two tongues. They held yearly buffalo hunts and would slaughter many hundreds. Because of this intense hunting buffalo were no longer seen in the Red River Valley. One would have to go to the James River and beyond to find the herds and this is what the Metis did. The Metis could best be described as a rugged, easy-going, innocent, and fun-loving people who were at home on this ocean of grass. They loved the music of the violin. Many of the Metis were excellent fiddlers. There were, in fact, several full blooded Chippewas who not only became known for their fiddling ability but composed music besides. Likely the first instrumental music to grace this land was the lilting melody of a French Canadian reel issuing from an evening camp on the oxcart trail. There were dozens of oxcart trails across the Red River Valley. The route chosen depended on the year and the season. In wet years the trail followed the west edge of the Red River Valley and then at some point just a few miles south of Erie the trail may have already been heading cross country toward Fort Abercrombie. The higher elevation and sandy soil of this trail made cart pulling easier than it would have been in the gumbo country to the east. Possibly oxcart trains passed right through what is now the town of Galesburg. It is also possible they may have passed over a ridge of hills west of town or somewhere along the eastern slope of the hills. An early diary contains this note: "Half way between the Goose and the Rush Rivers travelers came upon a cluster of hills of considerable elevation and often stopped at the edge of a gentle slope where they paused to admire the view." The writer was traveling north. The hills west of Galesburg fit this description quite well. The early traveler across the plains depended on landmarks for guides. The Red River Valley, however, was notoriously devoid of landmarks. This was a land of sameness where one could keep his eyes closed for one week of travel and upon opening them see the same scene that met his eyes a week earlier. It was easy to become disoriented and lost in this grassland wilderness. The chief landmarks were the wooded tributaries of the Red. These rivers are nicely spaced so that the distances between them were considered a one-days journey by oxcart. Overnight camps were usually in these river valleys where the trees provided fuel for the fires and repair material for the all-wood carts. The Goose River near Portland and the Rush River between Erie and Amenia were thickly wooded and would have been natural stopping places. These two locations are about forty miles apart and the average daily distance covered by an oxcart was twenty miles. These observations would indicate that the Elm River, very close to the town of Galesburg, was the site of an oxcart camp. The upper Elm was quite devoid of timber but it would have been little trouble transporting a few sticks of wood for the evening camp- fire. In wet years, when this trail would have seen the most use, the Elm River would have plenty of water and no doubt provided excellent hunting for the fun-loving Metis. Perhaps some day a traveler's diary will be uncovered giving us a firsthand description of the Galesburg prairies when this was still a remote wilderness. There were several diaries written by visitors to this area who rode with the oxcart trains. It is often difficult to determine which trail they used and exactly where they were when they made their entries in their journals. Because of the sameness of these prairies the exact locations probably makes little difference. Their entries could have been made anywhere. The overriding theme of these accounts of travel seems to be monotony, yet many were thrilled by the grandeur of these vast open plains. A traveler who took the west trail passing through our area wrote: "As far as the eye can reach on every side sweep the level lines, slowly darkening as they approach the horizon. Nothing obstructs or limits the view of the sky". This was in 1859. A less enchanted traveler writes: "We plunge from a shore of wood in the morning to bury ourselves for a few hours in a sea of grass, and to emerge at evening on apparently the same dark shore again". Another traveler summed up his trip this way: "I felt I had been dead a hundred years or so, and had woke into another existence, in a strange new world, in emerging from the sleepy days and sleepless nights of a journey down the Red River Valley". Many travelers had a sensation similar to that of crossing the ocean in a frail canoe with no shoreline in sight. There was a feeling of uneasiness being out in the midst of these featureless grasslands with no place to hide or seek shelter should a storm appear. The appearance of the thin, blue line of trees on the distant horizons ahead was always a welcomed sight. This meant they would be reaching the next river in an hour or two. Like the Mound Builders of an earlier time the people of the oxcart trails sought the security of the rivers. The location of the so-called Ridge Trail passing through the Galesburg area has never been pinpointed as it has in some other parts of the Valley. There are a few places where tiny 13 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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