A JOURNAL.

PRINTED BY L. B. SEELEY,
WESTON GREEN, THAMES DITTON.

THE

SUBSTANCE OF A JOURNAL

DURING A RESIDENCE

AT THE RED RIVER COLONY,

British North America;

AND FREQUENT EXCURSIONS

AMONG THE NORTH-WEST AMERICAN INDIANS,

IN THE YEARS 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823.

By

JOHN WEST, M. A.

LATE CHAPLAIN TO THE HON. THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.

PRINTED FOR L. B. SEELEY AND SON,
FLEET STREET, LONDON.
MDCCCXXIV.

TO THE

REV. HENRY BUDD, M. A.

CHAPLAIN TO BRIDEWELL HOSPITAL, MINISTER OF BRIDEWELL PRECINCT,
AND RECTOR OF WHITE ROOTHING, ESSEX,

AS A TESTIMONY

OF GRATITUDE FOR HIS KINDNESS AND FRIENDSHIP,
AND OF HIGH ESTEEM FOR HIS UNWEARIED EXERTIONS IN EVERY
CAUSE OF BENEVOLENCE AND ENLIGHTENED ENDEAVOUR
TO PROMOTE THE BEST INTERESTS OF MAN,

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR.

ERRATA.

PREFACE.

We live in a day when the most distant parts of the earth are opening as the sphere of Missionary labours. The state of the heathen world is becoming better known, and the sympathy of British Christians has been awakened, in zealous endeavours to evangelize and soothe its sorrows. In these encouraging signs of the times, the Author is induced to give the following pages to the public, from having traversed some of the dreary wilds of North America, and felt deeply interested in the religious instruction and amelioration of the condition of the natives. They are wandering, in unnumbered tribes, through vast wildernesses, where generation after generation have passed away, in gross ignorance and almost brutal degradation.

Should any information he is enabled to give excite a further Christian sympathy, and more active benevolence in their behalf, it will truly rejoice his heart: and his prayer to God, is, that the Aborigines of a British Territory, may not remain as outcasts from British Missionary exertions; but may be raised through their instrumentality, to what they are capable of enjoying, the advantages of civilized and social life, with the blessings of Christianity.

September, 1824.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Chapter I.—Departure from England. Arrival at the Orkney Isles. Enter Hudson's Straits. Icebergs. Esquimaux. Killing a Polar Bear. York Factory. Embarked for the Red River Colony. Difficulties of the Navigation. Lake Winipeg. Muskeggowuck, or Swamp Indians. Pigewis, a chief of the Chipewyans, or Saulteaux Tribe. Arrival at the Red River. Colonists. School established. Wolf dogs. Indians visit Fort Douglas. Design of a Building for Divine Worship1

Chapter II.—Visit the School. Leave the Forks for Qu'appelle. Arrival at Brandon House. Indian Corpse staged. Marriages at Company's Posts. Distribution of the Scriptures. Departure from Brandon House. Encampment. Arrival at Qu'appelle. Character and Customs of Stone Indians. Stop at some Hunter's Tents on return to the Colony. Visit Pembina. Hunting Buffaloes. Indian address. Canadian Voyageurs. Indian Marriages. Burial Ground. Pemican. Indian Hunter sends his son to be educated. Mosquitoes. Locusts28

Chapter III.—Norway House. Baptisms. Arrival at York Factory. Swiss Emigrants. Auxiliary Bible Society formed. Boat wrecked. Catholic Priests. Sioux Indians killed at the Colony. Circulation of the Scriptures among the Colonists. Scarcity of Provisions. Fishing under the Ice. Wild Fowl. Meet the Sioux Indians at Pembina. They scalp an Assiniboine. War dance. Cruelly put to death a Captive Boy. Indian expression of gratitude for the Education of his Child. Sturgeon64

Chapter IV.—Arrival of Canoe from Montreal. Liberal Provision for Missionary Establishment. Manitobah Lake. Indian Gardens. Meet Captain Franklin and Officers of the Arctic Expedition at York Factory. First Anniversary of the Auxiliary Bible Society. Half-Caste