In Alberta one of the posts had an efficient way of refrigerating buffalo meat, which enabled the hunters to kill enough buffalo in the fall when the animals were in prime condition and have this top-quality meat to eat in the spring, when some posts had to resort to killing bulls in rather poor condition. Paul Kane, a wandering artist, described the meat storage pit:
This is made by digging a square hole, capable of containing 700 or 800 buffalo carcasses. As soon as the ice in the river is of sufficient thickness, it is cut into square blocks of uniform size with saws; with these blocks the floor of the pit is regularly paved, and the blocks cemented together by pouring water between them and allowing it to freeze solid. In like manner, the walls are solidly built up to the surface of the ground. The head and feet of the buffalo, when killed are cut off, and the carcase, without being skinned, is divided into quarters, and piled in layers in the pit as brought in, until it is filled up, when the whole is covered with a thick coating of straw, which is again protected from the sun and rain by a shed. In this manner the meat keeps perfectly good through the whole summer, and eats much better than freshly killed meat, being more tender and better flavored.
Although Alexander Henry did not describe his meat storage at the Pembina post, it probably was constructed on a similar pattern, but he kept his meat only to June 1. After that the bulls around his post were in good condition again. At his post the meat for immediate use was divided into twenty standard pieces as it was carved from the carcass: two hump pieces, two strips of back fat, two shoulders, two upper shoulders, two fillets, two thighs, two sides, one belly, one rump, one brisket, one backbone, one neck, and one heart. The tongue was usually kept by the hunter, or was bought separately. The hunter could also keep the tripe, liver, kidneys, and sweetbreads if he chose.
At Pembina each winter a number of buffalo were killed almost at the gates of the post, usually when a herd moved by in a snowstorm seeking shelter in the woods to the north. Here are a few extracts from Henry's diary:
On the 22d (Dec.) the plains were covered with buffalo in every direction. I went hunting on foot with one of my men; we killed three cows. My people killed three bulls within 100 yards of the stockades, which served for our dogs.
Jan. 14th. At daybreak I was awakened by the bellowing of buffaloes…. On my right the plains were black, and appeared as if in motion, S. to N…. Our dogs were confined within the fort, which allowed the buffalo to pass within a few paces.
Jan. 15th. The plains were still covered with buffalo moving slowly northward.
Similar entries can be found each winter until about 1810, when the herds changed their pattern and wintered farther to the west.
The Red River Valley is the bed of an ancient lake, flat and treeless, with rich alluvial soil, a truly astounding place to a person raised in the barren Scottish Highlands. When Thomas Douglas, the earl of Selkirk, heard of these thousands of acres lying ready for the plow, he decided that here he would establish a colony for the many poor Scots being evicted from their Highland crofts to make way for bigger sheep runs. For ten shillings he bought the whole valley from the Hudson's Bay Company, which held the land under its charter from Charles II.
Recruiting the Scots was an easy task, but getting them out to their new land was quite another matter. Lord Selkirk brought the first contingent from Scotland to Hudson Bay, then up the Nelson River and across Lake Winnipeg, taking most of a year for the trip. He finally had the men on the land by the summer of 1812. The second contingent had a more difficult time on account of the war in Europe, and severe sickness and unnecessary hardships along the way. These Scots farmers were hardy people and willing workers, but they suffered from a lack of tools and supplies, and did not have a working knowledge of the soils and climate of this new land.
Their troubles were intensified by the enmity of the Northwest Company, which disputed the claim of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Red River Valley. Over the next few years the Northwesters shot down twenty-one of the Scots and burned some of their homes. But the Scots held on, barely surviving at times, their crops twice entirely destroyed by locusts, and their new homes swept away in a great flood. To save themselves from starvation the Scots turned to the buffalo herds for food, and with some help from the Indians many of them became skilled hunters, able to bring large supplies of dried meat, grease, and pemmican to the settlements from the herds, which now pastured far to the southwest.
The new colony received unexpected and unwelcome reinforcements from the west and north: métis. Most of them half white, half Indian, the métis were the children produced by the Northwest Company men and their Indian wives. These unfortunate people were considered a nuisance around a trading post, for they expected all the prestige and social status of their white fathers and all the privileges of spoiled Indian children. They could not settle down with their mothers' tribes because they were unwilling to conform to tribal customs, and many of the second-generation métis had métis mothers with no tribal ties. A small group of métis from the Red River Valley gathered near the new Scots settlement and the fur post at Pembina. Soon other métis came to visit them, some of them from posts several hundred miles away. They liked the place, settled, and eventually made up about half the total population.
At first the Hudson's Bay Company encouraged the métis to concentrate in one place, and offered land to those interested in settling down and learning farming, but the call of the roving life on the open plains was too strong. The métis seemed to have buffalo hunting in their blood, so they and their children and their grandchildren followed the buffalo, but not their great-grandchildren, for by that time the buffalo herds had disappeared.
Once the Hudson's Bay Company resolved its differences with the Northwest Company by absorbing it, the officers were able to make plans for the development of the Red River settlements. They wanted some industry that could use local raw materials to manufacture goods for sale in Europe at a profit. With thousands of buffalo hides going to waste each year, and tons of buffalo wool to be had for the gathering, they decided to form the Buffalo Wool Company, to weave high-grade cloth for the European upper class and to tan all the extra buffalo hides into leather.
The basic idea was sound, but gross mismanagement depleted the entire working capital in a year or so, with very few tanned hides and very few yards of woolen cloth for the market. Neither of these could be sold at a profit when produced by such wasteful methods. The cloth was warm and durable, but it could not be sold at a premium, for it was woven from dark-brown wool and could not be dyed in the fashionable shades. The project did benefit the colony, even in failure, for it brought in a supply of ready cash in wages for the settlers.
One of the Red River métis saw an opportunity for a nice profit. He went south to the Mississippi Valley near Fort Snelling and bought a herd of 300 cattle from the American settlers there. He was able to bring the animals safely to the settlement and sell them at a good profit, and in this way provided the breeding stock for both dairy and beef herds, which throve on the rich grass.