Andree

he (railing of

By
PHILIP H. GODSELL

F.R.G.S.

Fur Trader, Arctic Traveller and former
Inspecting Officer for the Hudson’s Bay
Company.

Lone Provincial Police Officer Faces Death in Bringing the White Man‘s Law
to Disgruntled Beaver Indians of Peace River Block, Angered by Invasion of
Their Ancient Hunting Grounds by Pioneer Settlers and Government Surveyors.

THE BARBARIC throbbing of a score of
oainted tom-toms reverberated through the
ourple shadowed valley, the night air was
pungent with the smoke of lodge-fires and
from the window of the trading-post I could
see the triangular glow of a hundred dimly
lighted tepees scattered about the river flat.
_ The untamed Beaver Indians had arrived
from their Rocky Mountain haunts and
were celebrating the event in true redskin
style, with a round of feasting, gambling and
pony-racing. It was the spring of 1912 and
Fort St. John in the Peace River Block had
cast aside its winter torpor. Down at the
Hudson’s Bay fort beside the swift-flowing
Peace, Factor F. W. Beatton was busy day
and night bartering tea, tobacco and am-
munition for beaver, lynx and fox skins.
At the “French Fort,” as the Revillon Freres
post was known, I, too, was up to my neck
in catering to the thousand and one wants
of this aboriginal visitation.

For days there had been much nai talk
around the stores and lodge-fires, about the
“white dogs,” as they called the Government
survey parties headed by Brenot, Aikins and
Graham, cutting down the Beavers’ trees and
sticking iron posts into the land that Chief
Montaignais’ tribesmen looked on as their
own. At first these diminutive and swarthy
tribesmen — cousins of the blood-thirsty
Apaches of the Southwest—had looked upon
the activities of the surveyors as just an-
other example of paleface stupidity and
asked if they expected the iron stakes to
grow! At last, however, the truth was
beginning to dawn on them that the acquisi-
tive whites were actually preparing to take
possession of their tribal hunting-grounds.
Hardly a day now passed but some sinewy
young brave, his blue-black locks bedecked
with dyed eagle-down and porcupine quills,
would fondly handle the haft of the huge
buffalo-knife at his waist in its brass-studded
scabbard and boast of the day when the
mighty Tennesaw would drive us “white
dogs” into the swirling waters of the Peace.

They were a wild crowd, these Beavers,
and bore a far from savoury reputation. In
earlier days they had burned down the
original Fort St. John near the mouth of
the South Pine, looted the post and mas-
sacred Guy Hughes, the factor, and his men.
More recently, the Wolf had raided a
party of settlers on the summit of the thou-
sand-foot hill behind the fort and sent teams,
wagons and supplies hurtling down into the

WINTER EDITION

ravine, where moss- covered wheels and
skeletons can still be seen.

Accustomed to the peaceful Crees of
Hudson Bay, I paid little attention to what
I considered the empty threats of the
Beavers, though the malevolent looks I
received when I refused them all the debt
they wanted sometimes made me wonder.
To my ‘astonishment I found that Mr.
Beatton-—a sort of uncrowned king amongst
the polyglot horde of Crees, Saulteaux and
Beavers who traded at the post—was not
only afraid of the Beavers, but was con-
vinced that some day they would perpetrate
some ghastly tragedy. Perhaps the fact that
the Wo’f had recently tried to stab him in
the back helped to influence his views.
Certain it is, that only the prompt action
of Chief Montaignais in turning aside the

Fort. St. John, B. G.,
was the scene of the episodes related in this article,
threatened Provincial Police and settlers.

buffalo-knife with his arm had saved the
factor’s life.

Another matter that was infuriating the
Beavers was the encroachment of their
hereditary enemies, the Crees, who were
themselves being pushed northward by
intruding settlers. So far the Crees had
been wise enough to confine themselves to
the south shore of the Amish-wenninew-Sipi
—or the Beaver Indian River as the Peace
River was called in recognition of the fact
that it constituted the southern frontier of
the Beaver tribe—and only came across to
trade. Nevertheless, the steady increase in

the number of tepees pitched across the
river was arousing the Beaver fighting blood.
Now, to make matters worse, that wizened
little runt of a medicine man, Andree, had
ridden in with a ragged entourage of Pouce
Coupe Beavers and was telling of a further
intrusion of settlers, who were raising their
sod huts along what is now known as Daw-
son Creek and straddling the wide reaches
of Grande Prairie with barbed wire and
snake fences.

The reverberations of the tom-toms, the
monotonous “A-ha! A-ha! A-ha!” of the
gamblers as they staked tobacco, horses and
guns on the palming of a bullet, and the ~
chants of the singers made sleep impossible’
and I welcomed the appearance of my red-
headed, half-breed interpreter, Reid John-
stone, suggesting I go with him to the camp

jumping off place for the American awe ehnes Construction Army,.

when the full might of the Beaver tribe

as there were big doings in the offing.
“Theyre putting on a Giving Away Dance
for Andree,” Reid’s eyes were alight. “Come
on—let’s get going.”

It was pitch dark, save for the stars that
winked in the velvety heavens, as we made
our way between the tepees towards the
spruce-walled dance-circle, the booming of
drums and the quavering songs of half a
dozen hrazen- throated braves echoing
weirdly back from the dark-shadowed hills
and ravines. Wending our way through
still more tepees and clubbing aside the slat-
ribbed curs that snapped at our moccasined

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