Original - North Central Michigan College Library

antistrating that several persons had passed thatway the day before. These were the first marksof other human feet than our own which wehad seen since our leaving Cumberland House;and it was nuich to feel that we had fellowcreaturesin the wide waste surrounding us.In the evening we reached the fort. 54At Fort des Prairies I remained several days,hospitably entertained by my friends, whocovered* their table with the tongues and marrowof wild bulls. The quantity of provisionswhich I found collected here exceeded everythingof which I had previously formed anotion. In one heap I saw fifty tons of beef,so fat that the men could scarcely find a sufficiencyof lean.I had come to see the plains, and I had yet aserious journey to perform in order to gratifymy curiosity. Their southern boundary Ihave already named; and I understood thatthey stretched northward to the sixtieth degreeof north latitude and westward to the feet ofthe Rocky Mountains, or Northern Andes, ofwhich the great chain pursues a northwesterlydirection. The mountains seen in high latitudeswere regarded as part of this chain, and said tobe inhabited by numerous bands of Indians.64This fort was "about twelve miles in an air line"below the forks pf the Saskatchewan, on the site of anolder fort established by the French in 1753. Here acentury later the Hudson's Bay Company had Fort a laCorne, named in honor of the builder of the originalFrench fort, M , de la Corne. Editor.265