Timeline...
1600 - 1699
The
World
British Colonies are established along the east coast of North America.
These colonies would eventually become the “13 Colonies”
that would
break away from Britain to for the United States
Canada
What we now know as Quebec was a French Colony known as New France. It
was valuable because of its resources, mainly fish, timber and furs.
The profits available through the Fur Trade would prompt westward
exploration.
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Manitoba
In 1670 the Hudson’s Bay Company received a monopoly to trade in the
huge region which drained into Hudson’s Bay. What we now know as
Manioba was a vital part of the terriotory.
In the late 1690’s Henry Kelsey traveled southwest from Hudson Bay
– he was the first European to reach the eastern edge of the
Great Plains (somewhere west the The Pas) , and the first to see
buffalo.
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Turtle Mountain
& the Souris Plains
When the first European settlers arrived in this region it was obvious
to them that they were not the first inhabitants of this land. Evidence
of past inhabitants was more visible in those days, be it in the form
of burial mounds or prairie trails. Artifacts found in the several
notable archaeological sites show that a succession of cultures called
the region home or visited it regularly.
Although settlement by the Nakota (Assiniboine), Dakota, Ojibwa and
Plains Cree people were often intermittent as befitted their dependence
on the roving herds of bison, it was ongoing and substantial.
Absence of any written record is of course a challenge as we try to
understand the times, but thanks to archaeologists, we know the region
was then, as it is now, a home. With that knowledge comes the
understanding that the story of the first peoples is still unfolding,
and that it bears some similarities to the story of all Canadians. They
also migrated here, likely as not led by advanced scouting parties
(explorers?), and they adapted to the land and took from it what they
needed to survive and prosper.
The Assiniboines and Gros Ventres had semi-permanent homes along the
Souris. The Gros Ventres had inhabited the area west of the Souris
River from Oak Lake to the Moose Mountains and south into the
Dakotas.
The people then called the Sioux, but who call themselves Dakota, often
came north into this region, to hunt, and to make war with their
traditional enemies, the Nakota (who the Europeans called Assiniboine.)
**Like most aboriginal groups, the people who lived on the prairies had
two names; the name the called themselves, and the names they were
called by the European visitors.
1650
By about 1650, two tribes, Assiniboines and Gros Ventres had
semi-permanent homes along the Souris River.
Around 1660 the Santee and Yankton Dakota from western Minnesota and
central North Dakota begin moving into British Canada to fight the
Cree, Ojibway and Assiniboines. Battles with the Assiniboines
took place along the Souris and in the Turtle Mountain area.
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