Not associated with the Commission, but travelling with it as a
guest, was the Right Rev. E. Grouard, O.M.I., the Roman Catholic
Bishop of Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers, who was returning, after
a visit to the East, to his headquarters at Fort Chipewyan, where
his influence and knowledge of the language, it was believed,
would be of great service when the treaty came under consideration
there. The secretaries of the Commission were Mr. Harrison Young, a
son-in-law of the Rev. George McDougall, the distinguished missionary
who perished so unaccountably on the plains in the winter of 1876,
and Mr. I. W. Martin, an agreeable young gentleman from Goderich,
Ont. Connected with the party in an advisory capacity, like Father
Lacombe, and as interpreter, was Mr. Pierre d'Eschambault, who
had been for over thirty years an officer in the Hudson's Pay
Company's service. The camp-manager was Mr. Henry McKay, of an
old and highly esteemed North-West family. Such was the personnel,
official and informal, of the Treaty Commission, to which was also
attached Mr. H. A. Conroy, as accountant, robust and genial, and
well fitted for the work.

The Half-breed Scrip Commission, whose duties began where the
treaty work ended, was composed of Major Walker, a retired
officer of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, who had seen
much service in the Territories and was in command of the force
present at the making of the Fort Carlton Treaty in 1876; and
Mr. J. A. Coté, an experienced officer of the Land Department at
Ottawa. The secretaries were Mr. J. F. Prudhomme, of St. Boniface,
Man., and the writer.

Our transport arrangements, from start to finish, had been placed
entirely in the hands of a competent officer of the Hudson's Bay