Picturesque Population--Indians shopping--An "All-sorts" Store--St.
Boniface and its Bells--An Evening Scene.


Red Lake River flows into Red River at Grand Forks, some twelve or
thirteen miles below Fisher's Landing. It is much the narrower stream,
with so many bends that when we were not running headlong into the left
bank we grounded on the right. The boat frequently formed a bridge from
one bend to the other, and heads were ducked down or drawn back suddenly
to avoid having eyes scratched out by the spreading boughs of beech and
hazel which stretched over the stream. It was nothing unusual to find our
course impeded by a large branch becoming so entangled in the wheel at
the stern, that men had to get down and chop it away before the boat
could proceed.

At Grand Forks, where there is a Hudson Bay Company's trading post, a
billiard saloon, hotel, general store, and post-office all in one, and a
few smaller houses, the ferry is a large flat-bottomed sort of platform,
railed on either side and fastened to a long thick rope stretched across
the river. When there is a load to ferry over, this platform is let loose
from the shore, and the current carries it across, the rope keeping it
from going down stream. The shores of Red River are almost bare; a few
miserable poplars here and there, one or two small log-houses and
mud-built huts from which wild, dirty Indians emerged to watch the boat
pass, were all we saw upon them. The banks are for the most part so high
that only from the upper deck could we see inland.

The frontier post, Pembina, is well known as the spot beyond which in
1869 the rebel Louis Riel, the "Little Napoleon" of Red River, would not
allow Mr. McDougall, the "lieutenant-governor of Manitoba," appointed by