I found the following entry to be quite interesting........................
" The vast plains surrounding the [Red River] settlement are well stocked with bison, affording the inhabitants (particularly the French half-castes) ample amusement and profitable sport. In the early part of the summer they collect and set off in large parties with their wives and families, horses and carts, and everything requisite for a lengthened stay on the prairies.
They are obliged to travel in large parties as they are liable to be surprised and cut off by the Sioux Indians who also hunt bison on these plains. Having arrived at the hunting grounds, the wives remain in camp while the hunters, all mounted on horseback, ride pell-mell after the terror-stricken beasts, which rush headlong onward. They soon overtake them, and singling out the fat cows deal death and destruction among them. Guns are generally used in these hunts, although the arrow will do execution. The hunters are very expert in loading these guns. On their right side is slung a powder horn and in their mouths they carry their ball, loading as they ride by merely pouring in an unequal charge of powder, on top of which they drop a ball without any wadding. Riding up alongside of their victim they drop the muzzle of the gun and instantly fire. It often happens, however, that from their careless mode of loading, their guns burst by the ball sliding down the barrel before they can discharge it.
Every hunter, as he kills an animal, marks it by throwing down his cap, or other article, to denote that it belongs to him, and then continues on after the herd, which is generally slaughtered ere the chase is relinquished.
The animals are next skinned and cut up, the carts are brought and the meat, shining with fat, is conveyed to the camp where it is handed over to the women to split in thin slices to cure it by the action of the fire and sun. The worst parts of the animals are dried and then pounded, and this, with an admixture of a proportion of animal fat, is amalgamated together and then put into bags of the half dressed hide, and finally sewed up and allowed to cool. This is the famous food of the voyageurs all over the country, and known by the name of pemmican: the word is Cree and is pronounced “pemi-cin.†From the little care, however, bestowed on its manufacture by these people, it is not good, as they burn both the meat and the grease. The best pemmican is made at the Company’s forts on the Saskatchewan: it is both good and cleanly made and from the care taken in its manufacture it will keep for a long period if placed in a dry place.
Fine pemmican is made by pounding the meat finer, using marrow fat instead of hard grease, and by adding in the mixture berries (poires). [Saskatoon berries].
This sort of provision has rather a forbidding appearance, and a novice has generally to mouth it pretty well before he can muster courage to swallow it. If the reader ever saw a kind of food called graves, grives, or some such name, on which sporting dogs are sometimes fed, he will be able to tell what this celebrated pemmican looks like. It is however, excellent food, and a man will make a good long tramp in a day without feeling hungry after a breakfast of it."
Topic: Pemmican By Nancy Marguerite Anderson (Read 129 times)