The rest of our winter's provision consisted of geese, salted in the autumn, and of dried meats and pemmican obtained from the provision posts on the plains of the Saskatchewan.

A good many potatoes are also raised at this post and a small supply of tea and sugar is brought from the depot at York Factory.

The provisions obtained from these various sources were amply sufficient in the winter of 1819-20; but through improvidence this post has in former seasons been reduced to great straits.
Many of the labourers and a great majority of the agents and clerks employed by the two Companies have Indian or half-breed wives, and the mixed offspring thus produced has become extremely numerous.
These metifs, or, as the Canadians term them, bois brules, are upon the whole a good-looking people and, where the experiment has been made, have shown much aptness in learning and willingness to be taught; they have however been sadly neglected.

The example of their fathers has released them from the restraint imposed by the Indian opinions of good and bad behaviour; and generally speaking no pains have been taken to fill the void with better principles.

Hence it is not surprising that the males, trained up in a high opinion of the authority and rights of the Company to which their fathers belonged and, unacquainted with the laws of the civilised world, should be ready to engage in any measure whatever that they are prompted to believe will forward the interests of the cause they espouse.