The Canadian Civil War: Volume 3 - West to the Wall

Chapter 7

  Travel Plans

  Elise’ travel plans had been worked out for weeks. She knew exactly which ag school she would be going to each week beginning about mid-January. In the meantime she would have a few days in the office and then start heading south. The unknown was me. Elise gave me a complete itinerary for her travels, and several times in the last weeks had begun conversations with “If you wish to join me for any of these visits…”

  I had remained noncommittal and Elise had not brought up my earlier talk about travels west, but with Christmas over and final plans out on the table, there came an evening when I had to declare my intentions.

  “I need to spend the couple weeks grading a few late assignments, talking research with one of my graduate students, and writing the final chapter of the first volume of my Jolliet family biography that was due a year ago. The University of Virginia Press has been patient, but there is a limit, even with current conditions.”

  “And then?” We were standing in the kitchen, her itinerary spread out on one of the counters as it had been for days, an obvious appeal for me to read, agree, and follow. She stood near the itinerary as a reminder, but she kept her face neutral. I had to be stupid not to know what she wanted. She didn’t need to say anything directly.

  “Then I want to visit DeSmet.” I think she would have had the same reaction had I said I wanted to visit Mars. Her confusion was instant and obvious.

  “Why? What is the connection to either your interest in the Wall, or to the Jolliet family you are writing about?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I know nothing about the western tribes, and I think I should.” This drew a long silence before she finally responded.

  “DeSmet is in the northern plains. So you won’t be climbing mountains?”

  “Probably not.”

  “OK.” Another pause. “I have colleagues there. People from the Ministry. Would you like their contact information?”

  “Sure.” And that settled the matter. Elise would set up some meetings for me, I would drive out onto the western plains and study the tribes.

  “But I will see you sometime this winter, right?”

  “Yes, I promise.” And whatever tension had existed over my travels was gone. I was going to a place she knew to see people she knew, and I would eventually meet up with her in Missouri or Arkansas. At least that was the plan. And Elise was fine with it. We had an exceptionally fine dinner together and an exceptionally fine night. Elise was very pleased with my decision.

  You might wonder, why DeSmet? It is not a very large or inviting town, but it is the capital of the Dakota province, and it was about in the region where the Verendrye boys had done most of their travels. The more I read about that clan, the more I wanted to better understand why they had gone where they went, and why they had not gone farther west.

  You will recall Dad Verendrye, Pierre Gaultier. He gets named head of the Lake Superior forts when his brother is called off to massacre the Fox. By 1731 he is pushing west of Lake Superior to establish trade routes, and to collect beaver pelts. He is successful at both. He builds his first new fort on Lake of the Woods and is soon collecting half of all the pelts that make it to Quebec for sale. Five years later his son Jean Baptiste and twenty Frenchmen leave the fort at Lake of the Woods to head back to Lake Superior when they are jumped by a party of Sioux and killed to the last man. Curiously, Dad Verendrye seems to do nothing in response.

  Pierre and two other sons, Francois and Louis-Joseph, keep working west to build forts (and beaver pelt trading posts) on Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba. 1738 they head southwest for the Missouri River and stay with the Mandans, at that time a tribe of 15,000 (smallpox would take that number down to 150 within a century) living in settled villages based largely on corn cultivation and buffalo hunts. Three years later the Verendryes are back to visit and to explore west, traveling far enough to see the Rockies for the first time.

  And then the family story ends. Dad returns to Montreal where his riches let him enjoy his last years, while the boys keep trading for beaver pelts until the French and Indian War calls them back to the east to fight those pesky Americans. Do they ever cross the mountains and finally reach the Pacific? No. Why not? Are they so busy as beaver merchants they never have time to make the journey? Or is there some other reason they never go? History is silent. Even more curious, I can’t find historians of that period even asking the question – why not travel farther west? It seems a good question – one I plan to ask in DeSmet.