Old Trader Nolin, one of the first on the prairies, states that a worse flood than that seen by the Selkirk Settlers took place fifty years before, and there were two other floods between these two.

Each year, according to the tale of the old settlers, the rivers of the prairies have been becoming wider by denudation, so that each flood tends to be less.

Several conditions seem to be necessary for a flood upon these prairie rivers.
These are a very heavy snowfall during the prairie winter, a late spring in which the river ice retains its hold, and a sudden period in the springtime of very hot weather, these being modified as the years go on by the ever-widening river channel.
The winter of 1825-6 was one of the most terrific ever known in the history of the Selkirk Settlement.

Just before Christmas the first woe occurred.

The snow drove the herds of buffaloes far out upon the prairies from the river encampments and the wooded shelter.