While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Ours are the only mounds making up a
distinct mound-region on Canadian soil. This
comes to us as a part of the large
inheritance which we who have migrated to
Manitoba receive. No longer cribbed,
cabined, and confined, we have in this our
"greater Canada" a far wider range of study
than in the fringe along the Canadian lakes.
Think of a thousand miles of prairie! The
enthusiastic Scotsman was wont to despise
our level Ontario, because it had no
Grampians, but the mountains of Scotland all
piled together would reach but to the foot
hills of our Rockies. The Ontario geologist
can only study the rocks in garden plots,
while the Nor'wester revels in the age of
reptiles in his hundreds of miles of
Cretaceous rocks, with the largest coal and
iron area on the continent. As with our
topography so with history. The career of
the Hudson's Bay Company, which is in fact
the history of Rupert's Land, began 120
years before the history of Ontario, and
there were forts of the two rival Fur
Companies on the Saskatchewan and throughout
the country, before the first U. E. Loyalist
felled a forest tree in Upper Canada. We are
especially fortunate in being the possessors
also of a field for archaeological study in
the portion of the area occupied by the
mound builders-the lost race, whose fate has
a strange fascination for all who enquire
into the condition of Ancient America.
The Indian guide points out these mounds to
the student of history with a feeling of
awe; he says he knows nothing of them; his
fathers have told him that the builders of
the mounds were of a different race from
them-that the mounds are memorials of a
vanished people-the "Ke-te-anish-i-na-be,"
or "very ancient men." The oldest Hudson's
Bay officer, and the most intelligent of the
native people, born in the country, can only
give some vague story of their connection
with a race who perished with small-pox, but
who, or whence, or of what degree of
civilization they were, no clue is left.
It must be said moreover that a perusal of
the works written about the mounds,
especially of the very large contributions
to the subject found in the Smithsonian
Institution publications, leaves the mind of
the reader in a state of thorough confusion
and uncertainty. Indeed, the facts relating
to the Mound Builders are as perplexing a
problem as the purpose of the Pyramids, or
the story of King Arthur.
Is
it any wonder that we hover about the dark
mystery, and find in our researches room for
absorbing study, even though we cannot reach
absolute certainty? Could you have seen the
excitement which prevailed among the
half-dozen settlers, I had employed in
digging the mound on Rainy River, in August
last, when the perfect pottery cup figured
below was found, and the wild enthusiasm
with which they prosecuted their further
work, you would have said it requires no
previous training, but simply a successful
discovery or two to make any one a zealous
mound explorer.
A mound of the kind found in our region is a
very much flattened cone, or round-topped
hillock of earth. It is built usually, if
not invariably where the soil is soft and
easily dug, and it is generally possible to
trace in its neighborhood the depression
whence the mound material has been taken.
The mounds are as a rule found in the midst
of a fertile section of country, and it is
pretty certain from this that the mound
builders were agriculturists, and chose
their dwelling places with their occupation
in view, where the mounds are found. The
mounds are found accordingly on the banks of
the Rainy River and Red River, and their
affluents in the Northwest, in other words
upon our best land stretches, but not so far
as observed around the Lake of the Woods, or
in barren regions. Near fishing grounds they
greatly abound. What seem to have been
strategic points upon the river were
selected for their sites. The promontory
giving a view and so commanding a
considerable stretch of river, the point at
the junction of two rivers, or the
debouchure of a river into a lake or vice
versa is a favorite spot. At the Long Sault
on Rainy River there are three or four
mounds grouped together along a ridge. Here
some persons of strong imagination profess
to see remains of an ancient fortification,
but to my mind this is mere fancy. Mounds in
our region vary from 6 to 50 feet in height,
and from 60 to 130 feet in diameter. Some
are circular at the base, others are
elliptical.
The mounds have long been known as occurring
in Central America, in Mexico, and along the
whole extent of the Mississippi valley from
the Gulf of Mexico to the great lakes. Our
Northwest has, however, been neglected in
the accounts of the mound-bearing region.
Along our Red River I can count some six or
eight mounds that have been noted in late
years, and from the banks having been
peopled and cultivated I have little doubt
that others have been obliterated. One
formerly stood on the site of the new
unfinished Canadian Pacific Hotel in this
city. The larger number of those known are
in the neighborhood of the rapids, 16 or 18
miles below Winnipeg where the fishing is
good. In 1879 the Historical Society opened
one of these, and obtained a considerable
quantity of remains. It is reported that
there are mounds also on Nettley Creek, a
tributary of the lower Red River, also on
Lake Manitoba and some of its affluents.
During the past summer it was my good
fortune to visit the Rainy River, which lies
some half way of the distance from Winnipeg
to Lake Superior. In that delightful stretch
of country, extending for 90 miles along the
river there are no less than 21 mounds.
These I identify with the mounds of Red
River. The communication between Red and
Rainy River is effected by ascending the Red
Lake River, and coming by portage to a river
running from the south into Rainy River.
Both Red and Rainy River easily connect with
the head waters of the Mississippi. Our
region then may be regarded as a
self-contained district including the most
northerly settlements of the strange race
who built the mounds. I shall try to connect
them with other branches of the same stock,
lying further to the east and south. For
convenience I shall speak of the extinct
people who inhabited our special region as
the Takawgamis, or farthest north mound
builders.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative
stereotypes reflecting the culture or
language of a particular period or place.
These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied
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