I thought this week would be a good time to look at one of the essential entries in the Red River farmer’s Day Timer. It’s an aspect of the livestock farmer’s life even to today: making hay.

As you will see, hay making was necessarily a community project, especially in the early days. And from the accounts of the activity in early settlement journals, we can learn some interesting things about life at the Red River Settlement.

Initially, the farms of Red River had ten chains frontage on the river, and extended back into the plains for the distance one could view beneath a horse’s belly – two miles. Hay priviledges were granted for a further two miles unless someone else had prior claim, in which case the use of an equivalent piece of land was offered elsewhere. Each farm also had a wood lot allotted to it on the opposite side of the river. Later the hay lots were granted in fee simple to the farmers.

These lots were often divided between children as the older generation passed away and, according to R. G. MacBeth, newcomers chuckled over the method of farming in lanes at Red River.

(reference: Rev. R.G. MacBeth. p. 33-4.)

The expedition began to go downhill for Donald Gunn once they arrived at Lake Manitoba. He developed a skin infection that painfully affected his eyes. On the third day, the group turned south, heading home to the RRS. They were near the south shore of Shoal Lake when the heavens opened, and they were forced to set up camp beneath the carts. The rain was intense, and they feared a lightning strike to the carts, caught as they were on the open plains. Everything, including the specimens, was thoroughly soaked.

At daybreak they hitched up and moved out. By 8 o’clock they had reached the big beach ridge, and the sun had begun to peek through the clouds. But the cart-trail was in bad shape, covered in water in many places. Everyone was worn out from the journey and lack of sleep the previous night, and Gunn was very ill – almost blind and in great pain.

They spent another night on the trail; this time sleep came easily. The rain had missed the area covered in the last stage of their journey and the roads were much better. So was Gunn, after a good night’s sleep.

Gunn concludes his report with more information on the inhabitants of the villages located south of Lake Manitoba: Oak Point, the Bay, and a new village under construction at the time.

These peoples are like the fowls of heaven; they “neither sow nor reap,” nor do they even, as far as I have been able to see, plant potatoes. They possess a few cattle and horses; the latter roam through the woods summer and winter, living independent of their masters’ care. The finest of hay grows within a few yards of their houses, yet I have been informed that many of these people are so indolent as to allow their animals to die in the winter from starvation. There are two or three exceptions to the above rule. The question will naturally arise, how do people so bound down by indolence procure food and clothing? …I said above that the lake abounded with fish. As soon as the thaw commences the fish forsake the deep places to which they resorted as the winter advanced, and swarm towards the shore, and run into the many little creeks that pass out of the marshes into the lake. Here they are taken in nets and by angling from the beginning of April until the breaking up of the ice in the latter end of May, and for some time after continue plentiful until the water in the lake becomes warm, when the fish return again to the deep places. In April the ducks and geese return in great numbers, become plentiful, and feed in numerous flocks in all the marshes fringing the lakes for at least a month and a half….

While the fish and wildfowl can be had these people enjoy a continual feast; and when these fail, [musk]rats, which have been taken in great numbers for some years past are considered desirable articles of food; even when plenty reigns in the land the [musk]rat furnishes them not only with food but with the means of providing themselves with clothing. …When all the wild fowl have taken to their breeding places the people have a hard struggle for dear life against hunger, which compels them to search along all the lakes and marshes for eggs, and for every other eatable that falls in their way; and during the month of July and part of August they suffer much privation of food, unless possessed of means to enable them to draw on the settlement for flour; but when the young ducks begin to take to their wings and the fish begin to approach the shore, they are able again to set hunger at defiance for a time. …Another trait of these people of primative habits and manners is, that, although occupying these villages for a long time, they have neither president, council, nor magistrate, and I never heard of any crime of any kind being committed by any of them except once, and that was a case of manslaughter which arose out of undue provocation.

The agricultural life that was so familiar to inhabitants of the RRS was something very foreign to the First Nations/Métis cultures of the area, although some archaeological evidence exists that shows that some did practice a rudimentary form of agriculture, and others took it up with some success after the settlers arrived. Neither Donald Gunn nor Alexander Ross could get their minds around the cultural difference, and both explained it away as a form of laziness or living for the moment – an incapacity to prepare for the time when food was scarce. Agricultural methods need to be learned, and the time for learning them happened to coincide with the times of plenty – when food in the wild was easy to gather, and must be gathered!

Corn was a novelty to the first arrivals at Red River, and it was necessary to teach them how to plant it. Although Macdonell mentions his own party planted some on the 19th and 22nd, I can’t find reference to anyone teaching the Settlers how to plant it properly.

(reference: pp. 16832-2 of the Selkirk Papers, M186, Manitoba Archives)

“Set my men to repack the seed grain in iron hooped Rundlets- the Casks it was in were not sufficient.”  – Miles Macdonell Journal

The work party is making ready to head inland from York Factory.

“The wheat I sowed last fall does not appear it was too late sown & had not time before the frost set in to vegetate.”  – Miles Macdonell Journal

Macdonell and the settlers arrived back at Red River on this day, after spending the winter at Fort Daer. A tour of “the Point” (Point Douglas) was full of disappointment – only two rams, ewes and a lamb had survived the winter, along with the bull, one cow and a calf – the cow badly injured from dog bites. And with what disappointment he must have viewed the wheat field!

(reference: page 16825 of the Selkirk Papers, M186, Manitoba Archives)

“…the plains are all on fire North side the Pembina- sent men burn round Heneys Fort- Our two Express men who went on the route to Brandon Ho. returned this evening- could not find their way on account of the smoke to one of them, the only guide we have who Knows the way is quite Knocked up- I am quite perplexed what to do.”  -Miles Macdonell Journal 1814

“…where the fire ran in the plains [22 April] it is entirely covered with young grass, what a fine country and what an astonishing vegetation.”  – Colin Robertson Journal 1816

Prairie fire was a constant threat to the colony. Occasionally farms and livestock were lost. If the fire came just before the snow, the bison disappeared to other areas where they could find grass through the winter. This meant that fresh meat would be challenging to find through the winter, and the colonists often went hungry as a result.

But as Colin Robertson’s entry shows, there were also positive aspects to the fires. If the fires occured in spring, the fresh growth made excellent pasturage almost immediately afterward. And the fires kept the country open and grassy for the buffalo herds. The resultant relatively tree-free landscape made turning the land to crop fields easier, too, in that there were far fewer stumps to be removed than in other areas like Upper Canada.

(references: pages 16894-5, 17513 and 17511 of the Selkirk Papers, M186, Manitoba Archives)