June 21, 1793. Buried Treasure.

June 21, 1793. 227 Years Ago, To-day. Alexander MacKenzie:

       “As I was very sensible of the difficulty of procuring provisions in this country, I thought it prudent to guard against any possibility of distress of that kind on our return; I therefore ordered ninety pounds weight of pemmican to be buried in a hole, sufficiently deep to admit of a fire over it without doing any injury to our hidden treasure…”

     He is pretty sure that he will be returning this way and he knows that they will need the food even more on their way back. Burying some pemmican deep under ground will keep it safe from predators, and the fire on top of it will hide the fact. 

      It is essentially pounded dried meat mixed 1:1 with melted fat such as suet that has been rendered into tallow. In some cases, dried berries were pounded into powder and then added to the meat/fat mixture. The resulting mixture is then packed into rawhide bags and sewn shut for storage where it would cool, and then harden. A bag of bison pemmican weighed about 90 lb, and stored this way would easily keep from one to five years.

(Picture 1).

“The morning was very cloudy, and at four o’clock we renewed our voyage (6 ¼ miles) where a large river flowed in from the left, and a smaller one from the right...We then continued (6 miles), the cliffs of blue and yellow clay, displaying the same grotesque shapes as those which we passed yesterday...The latitude by observation was 52.47.51 North.“

      The large river on their left this morning is The Quesnel River, which joins the Fraser in the city of Quesnel. The smaller river on the right is today known as Baker Creek, and it also flows through the city to join the Fraser from the west. 

     Most of the journal account of this day describes in great detail his meetings and discourse with natives, and his attempt at getting information from them. I would strongly suggest that anyone interested in this topic, to fully read his account of it. He is trying to get as much knowledge as he can regarding which route he must now take in order to reach the sea. 

     “According to their account, this river, whose course is very extensive, runs toward the midday sun; and that at its mouth...white people were building houses...” Captain Cook had arrived on that south coast of what is now B.C. in 1778, 15 years before this, and by 1785 and the decade following, British merchants made a sustained attempt to develop a fur trade in the coastal area. Iron bars were traded for furs by James Hanna in 1785. The term “house” has a slightly different meaning to a fur trader than it might to us. Think of Cumberland House, or Rocky Mountain House, famous trading posts that were named that way.  

     They also described dangers that are waiting for anyone attempting to go downstream.  “...they represented its current to be uniformly strong, and that in three places it was altogether impassable, from the falls and rapids, which poured along between perpendicular rocks…” He has been warned of the lower river being impassable, and the account he was given is an accurate description of what later explorers (and us) will come to know as The Fraser Canyon. 

     “Our canoe was now become so weak, leaky, and unmanageable, that it became a matter of absolute necessity to construct a new one…” The inadequacy of their vessel is mentioned in his journals every day now, and very soon they will have to do something about this ongoing problem. Looking back at what they have been through in the last 44 days with this hand made canoe, is a testament to the intestinal fortitude and courage of these men, and also says a lot about the strength and resilience of a well made birch-bark canoe.  

Picture 2. Birchbark Canoe. Original art by Lewis Parker.