The land which they hoped to possess was there awaiting them, but they had no means for purchasing implements, nor were the farming requisites to be found in the country.

Horses there were, but there were only two or three individual cattle within five hundred miles of them.
If they had sung on their sorrowful leaving, "Lochaber no more," the words were now turned by their depressed Highland natures into a wail, and they sang in the words of their old Psalms of "Rouse's" version: "By Babel's streams we sat and wept, When Zion we thought on." They thought of their crofts and clachans, where if the land was stingy, the gift of the sea was at hand to supply abundant food.
But this was no time for sighs or regrets.
The Hudson's Bay traders from Brandon House were waiting for expected goods, and Messrs.

Hillier and Heney, who were the Hudson's Bay Company officers for the East Winnipeg District, had arduous duties ahead of them.

But though the orders to prepare for the Colonists had been sent on in good time, there was not a single bag of pemmican or any other article of provision awaiting the hapless settlers.

The few French people who were freemen, lived in what is now the St.Boniface side of the river, were only living from hand to mouth, and the Company's people were little better provided.