I Blyster’d for the Cough McRea came to my bed, & asked how I did, I told him it made no matter to him how I was, not to bother me, that I would be soon well, from the effects of the Blyster & repeated I did not think he was a Gentleman

Miles Macdonell and Mr. Hillier made two camps near York Factory over the winter of 1811/12, where the men who were to be the work crew for the Red River Settlement lived until moving south after break-up. Even from Macdonell’s journal, which is often somewhat brief and lacking detail in its daily record of events, it is clear that the winter was full of malcontent.