Throughout the day we observed picturesque groups watching the course of the expedition, and here and there a wild-looking Indian in his blanket and leggings would be seen standing next in succession to a young lady whose dress might just have come from Paris.
The ample edifice of the pasture of St. Andrew’s gives place in the scene to the whitewashed hut of his half-breed neighbour. A field succeeds a garden, a prairie a field, till houses again take their place in the moving scene, and trimly built, well-finished residences sit side by side with the poor unfinished houses of the Indian farmer.
— Kate Ranoe and Molyneux St. John, Globe, August 23, 1807
At dawn on Monday, August 22, the lead boats rounded the southwest corner of Elk Island and pulled hard for the Red River estuary. At this point, a smudge of poplars could be made out far along the southern horizon. These eventually gave way to “low, stagnant marshes and mud banks” marking the estuary. At around 10:00 a.m., the boats entered the Red River proper and set ashore for a quick meal. Our correspondents didn’t record much of the day’s journey, save for R-SJ noting that “the boats made their largest advance of any single day, a grand total of 44 miles.”
The troops pitched camp that night on what Cunningham thought was “the dirtiest, muddiest, and most uninviting spot along the banks of the Red River.” As they did, Chief Henry Prince and a delegation of Saulteaux came in to meet with Wolseley. Dispensing with the usual “high-flown compliments and expressions of devotion to the Great Mother,” Wolseley got down to business by asking, “Chief Prince, what is it you want?”
Through the interpreter, Prince replied with what Cunningham described as notable calmness. “If the chief was visiting England, he should have considered it his place to have explained his visit. And so, under these circumstances, the chief will be silent and wait to hear the Gitche-okey-man speak.”
Cunningham thought that Wolseley was impressed. “Well, if you put it in that light, tell Chief Prince I have received his letters of loyalty and am very pleased. I would be delighted to hear anything further the chief has to say.”
“The chief has a great deal to say but will only say now that his soul has longed for the day of meeting with the Gitche-okey-man to explain his desire with which he has been waited for, and the loyalty her red children feels for their Great Mother.”
Wolseley was tired and tried to end the conversation. “I have travelled far this day and would like to eat and rest. I would, though, take an early opportunity of meeting the chief again and would make a special appointment for that purpose. In the meantime, I hope that the chief and his young men would also eat before they retire.”
The colonel then ordered one barrel of pork and one of flour be provided to Prince and his delegation. “I wish the chief would instruct his people that they should not ask the Volunteers for provisions — they do not speak the language and would not understand the matter.” And with that the conversation ended, Chief Prince and his followers returned to their settlement across the river, and Wolseley retired to his tent.
Always with an eye for a scoop, Cunningham grabbed an interpreter and followed Prince across the river to his village — a collection of about 100 wigwams “laid out in regular order” — to pay his respects to the chief of the “celebrated Swampies.” Cunningham said that he found Prince in his wigwam dressed in striped pants and a red woollen shirt. The chief was seated beside his “Queen,” who was clad in a “blue calico with yellow spots — the pattern of 50 years ago.” When Cunningham and the interpreter entered their home, Prince rose, “wiped his right hand on his trousers,” and shook the reporter’s hand. Cunningham was impressed — “Prince is one of the finest men, physically speaking, I have ever looked at. He has a noble head, large vivacious eyes, a chest like an ox, and the muscle of a prizefighter.”
Prince invited Cunningham and the interpreter to take a seat on the mat with his wife and children. They were tucking into the pork and potatoes Wolseley had presented. Cunningham said that he and Prince talked “a great deal,” mostly about “the land question.”
“The chief would like to know how much Canada is going to give the Indians for the land,” Prince said through the interpreter.
“What particular land is the chief referring to?” Cunningham asked.
“The chief says the whole of the province of Manitoba.”
Cunningham replied that he was “staggered” by the answer. “Tell the chief I haven’t the slightest idea of to what extent Canada might be inclined to fork out, or whether she means to fork out at all or not.”
The reporter signed off for the night by saying from what he had been able to gather, the Métis and Saulteaux “not only lay claim to the territory” but also regard the Hudson’s Bay Company as “having acted quite illegally in giving grants to anyone.” Cunningham said he would have to “learn more about this afterward.” He took the commitment seriously. In 1872, Cunningham ran for Parliament on a promise to force the Dominion government to “come to prompt and generous arrangements with these tribes. Any delay on this head would be dangerous and shabby economy would be folly.”
On Tuesday, August 23, with 30 miles to go, the expedition pulled up stakes from their muddy campground and started “a little before four o’clock” on the cold, chilly morning. The soldiers were on tenterhooks — “more nervous by the mile as they approached the great unknown at Fort Garry.” Their apprehension began to subside as the rising sun promised a “warm, dry day” and the muddy banks filled with settlers, Saulteaux, and Métis who had “come down to the edge of the water to fire salutes and wave signs of welcome to the troops.” Children waved, women shook their kerchiefs, and men fired off volleys in salute. At some places, R-SJ said, whole villages of 40 to 50 Saulteaux turned out to sit on the banks of the river in front of their wigwams, “dressed in blankets of every colour, with leggings of an equally bright appearance, and such bead and feather ornaments as each one possessed.” The women and children generally squatted on the ground, while the men “stood draped in their blankets, as if models for a sculptor.” R-SJ thought it all had a quieting effect — the soldiers relaxed and “evinced the pleasure with which they witnessed these greetings.”
As they passed by, Wolseley and his troops tried in vain to gather intelligence about what to expect at Fort Garry. No one seemed to know anything other than that “Riel was carrying provisions in large quantities out of the Fort [including] one hundred and sixty-five bags of pemmican.” Similarly, the locals seemed surprised that the expedition was so near. Chief Prince, in fact, had made the point the previous day that “he did not know we were in the river until he saw us round the point.”
At around 10:00 a.m., the expedition reached Lower Fort Garry — a.k.a. Stone Fort — where a large, welcoming crowd of “Indians, French and English half-breeds, and pure-blooded British and Canadians” had gathered to give the troops a “right royal welcome.” Flags flew “from every elevation,” and the church bells rang. Cunningham said that the reception was welcome tonic for the weeks and weeks of travelling through the wilderness: “We had at last come once more in contact with civilization and Christianity.”
At Stone Fort, the enlisted men lit their fires and started breakfast, while Donald Smith, the Dominion government’s envoy, invited the officers to dine up in the main hall. After they “demolished a substantial and luxuriant breakfast,” Wolseley and his officers spent the next few hours reorganizing the battalion for the final approach to Fort Garry. Most of the provisions — the pork, flour, and tea — were taken out of the boats and put in storage at the fort. The force was also converted into various landing parties: an “advanced guard” was created from one of the brigades, B Company was “transformed from voyageurs into riflemen” and sent on ahead along the west bank of the river, a third unit was established as a mounted troop in Red River carts, and a fourth was turned into a mounted unit of 30 men under Captain Nesbit Willoughby Wallace’s command. This last featured a mounted signalman and bugler. A fifth unit — composed entirely of Wolseley’s intelligence officer, Captain William Butler — was sent off with a 16-shooting repeater “somewhere doing something for our security,” wrote R-SJ.
Wallace experienced “some little difficulty” in organizing his “corps d’observance,” mainly because it was unclear who could ride. Said R-SJ: “One man, when asked whether he could ride, said yes in a prompt and decided manner, but, being given a horse, endeavoured to scramble up on the wrong side and became involved in difficulties with the tail and crupper; another, hardly less confident, said that he had never tried to ride, but that he had no doubt he could. His efforts were scarcely more successful.”
Eventually, all was ready and the force moved upriver, the land-based “gallant protectors” out front, careening behind house and garden, reappearing farther up the road. As they proceeded, Wallace’s population of ponies grew as “fresh captures were made” and “fresh men mounted.” R-SJ said that most of the little ponies were mares and nearly all had foals “running at their heels” so that “one saw swinging across the prairie a long straggling animal running with her foal, and a rifleman with his rifle on his back holding on to the saddle.”
At St. Andrew’s parish, the 50 boats came to a small rapid that everyone tried to run at the same time. Cunningham wrote that there was an abundance of “shouting and a noise of poles and oars driving against the rocks and shingle, and a whirr of the water, and the clamour of many voices uttering and repeating inharmonious orders.” On the banks above, the good people of St. Andrew’s watched the proceedings, the women and children waving their kerchiefs, “a token of welcome to those who have come so far to relieve them.”
And so the expedition continued upstream, field succeeding garden, prairie replacing field, “till houses again take their place in the moving scene.” With so many hours spent organizing at Stone Fort, though, darkness came quickly and the battalion was forced to come ashore seven miles short of Fort Garry to pitch camp one last time. Wallace’s troop established a picket and posted sentries, with orders to detain anyone attempting to pass through their line. Cunningham said about 50 “nocturnal visitors” were apprehended. R-SJ said that these were “really held as prisoners” and remained in custody until morning. So much for Governor General Young’s mission of peace.