| Summary: | "HE LONG AGO. 15 direction of the march to the prairies. ■ The bison, like other wild animals, instinctively avoided all 'localities inhabited by man. The buffalo ranges of the Northwest were along the Sheyenne, the Mouse, the neighborhood of the Turtle mountains, and the upper portion of the Red River Valley. Reaching any of these ranges, the hunters attacked the herds on horseback, using long stocked guns with flint lock fire, and slew these animals in large numbers. The remainder of the herd stampeded away with a loud noise, raising a great cloud of dust. The men skinned the animals for their hides, and the women assisted in cutting up the meat and loading it into the carts for transportation to camp where it v/as cut into strips and dried for winter's use, and for making pemmican. The tongues of the buflalo were considered a choice part of these animals. The hides were brought to the posts fcr shipment with other peltries. The guns used in the Northwest were made in England especially for purposes connected with the fur trading business. They were imported by way of York Factory and exchanging at the posts for peltries at certain values They continued to have flint fire locks long after the percussion cap had came into general use, on account of the great distances to the points at v/hich the latter might be obtained. If an Indian or other hunter got out of his supply of percussion caps, on the supposition that he used them, it might be a hundred ^r more miles from the nearest post, a percussion fire gun would be of no use. while the flint-lock gun v/as serviceable at anytime. There were some salt springs in the country that were u'ilized to some extent by the Selkirk colonists and the fur companies, on account of the expense of importing salt. "Considerable quantities," says Warren Upham, were yearly made by the evaporation-of the water of salt springs. One of these springs from which much salt was made for the Hudson Bay company is situated in the channel of the south branch of Two Rivers, about one and one half miles above its junction with the north branch and some six miles west of Hallock. It is exposed only when the river runs low, and in such portion of the summer the work of salt-making was done " About the year 1840, if not earlier, independent traders began to establish I themselves at Pembina, with outlying posts at other points. In 1843 Norman W. Kitison also came to Pembina and began laying the foundation of his large fortune. The establishment in the Red River Valley of distinctively American traders, whatever their ancestry may have been, led to the diversion of a part of the fur trade of this region toward the Mississippi. This trade had an important influence on the founding and early growth of St. Paul One of the most interesting characters of this period was the veteran voyageur and trader "Jolly Joe Rolette." who came to Pembina about 1841-2, arid a short account of him at this time will not be out of place. Always active and cheerful, his life was full of adventure, and he proved himself a man of affairs as well as one capable of extracting enjoyment from life under the most unfavorable circumstances. His father was also an ad. venturous man and young Joe seems to have come honestly by his wild and roving disposition. Joseph Rolette, sr.— more properly Jean Joseph Rolette—is said to have been educated for the priesthood in the province of Quebec; but, being unable to content himself to the humdrum affairs of a rural congregation, he early came to Wisconsin and began business in life as a voyaguer He was not a man of the <=ort to remain a mere private in the ranks, and before many years he was himself a successful fur trader. Neither was he the sort of a man to Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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