by Elizabeth Campbell

I was alerted to a new-to-me website this morning – one that mentions the Red River Colony. So, naturally, I went in to have a look!

by Elizabeth Campbell

Ross concludes his list with the following entry:

A few more Rindisbachers related to the RRS:

Métis Family ca. 1826 (Bata Shoe Museum P80.982)

Chippewa mode of traveling in spring and summer by Peter Rindisbacher c. 1825 (Virtual Museum of Canada; West Point Museum Art Collection)

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.

The expedition members rise the next morning and spend the day travelling toward Shoal Lake. On the way they meet the Indian man of the day before and a Métis woman who is returning to Oak Point with a load of pine planks that were likely made in the saw-pits of the Red River Settlement. Gunn remarks that she

Portras Demarey & Hamlin accompanied the Canadians as servants to Brandon House – they are giving every encouragement to every Freeman, not to assist the Settlement in any way whatever, and they express themselves openly that the Settlement was merely established to ruin their business, but that they would soon be the ruin of the Colony – and try whose loads were hardest such is the Language they hold forth.