These being scarce, the chief food of the settlers for all that summer through was the "Prairie turnip." This is a variety of the pea family, known as the Astragalus esculenta, which with its large taproot grows quite abundantly on the dry plains.

An old-time trader, who was lost for forty days and only able to get the Prairie turnip, practically subsisted in this way.

Along with this the settlers gathered quantities of a very succulent weed known as "fat-hen," and so were kept alive.

The Colonists knowing now what the soil could produce obtained small quantities of grain and even with their defective means of cultivation, in the next year demonstrated the fertility of the soil of the country.
It was somewhat distressing to the Colonists again in 1813 to make the journey of sixty miles to Pembina, trudging along the prairie trail, but there was no other resource.

The treatment of the Colonists by the "Nor'-Westers" had not thus far been unfriendly and the Canadian traders had even imported a few cattle, pigs, and poultry for the use of the settlers, and for these favors Governor Macdonell expressed his hearty thanks to the Montreal Company.