dship, provided always that the new-comer will adopt
the native system, join the hunting-camp, and live on the plains; but to
the white man as a settler, or hunter on his own account, the Crees and
Blackfeet are in direct antagonism. Ownership in any particular portion
of the soil by an individual is altogether foreign to men who, in the
course of a single summer, roam over 500 miles of prairie. In another
portion of this report I hope to refer again to the Indian question, when
treating upon that clause in my instructions which relates exclusively to
Indian matters. I have alluded here to missionary enterprise and to the
Indian generally, as both subjects are very closely connected with the
state of affairs in the Saskatchewan.

Next in importance to the native race is the half-breed element in the
population which now claims our attention.

The persons composing this class are chiefly of French descent originally
of no fixed habitation, they have, within the last few years, been
induced by their clergy to form scattered settlements along the line of
the North Saskatchewan. Many of them have emigrated from Red River, and
others are either the discharged servants of the Hudson Bay Company or
the relatives of persons still in the employment of the Company. In
contradistinction to this latter class they bear the name of "free men"
and if freedom from all restraint, general inaptitude for settled
employment, and love for the pursuits of hunting be the characteristics
of free men, then they are eminently entitled to the name they bear. With
very few exceptions, they have preferred adopting the exciting but
precarious means of living, the chase, to following the more certain`
methods of agriculture. Almost the entire summer is spent by them upon
the plains, where they carry on the pursuit of the buffalo in large and
well organized bands, bringing the produce of their hunt to trade with
the Hudson Bay Company.

In winter they generally reside at their settlements, going to the nearer
plains in small parties and dragging the frozen buffalo meat for the
supply of the Company's posts. This preference for the wild life of the
prairies, by bringing them more in contact with their savage brethren,
and by removing them from the means of acquiring knowledge and
civilization, has tended in no small degree to throw them back in the
social scale, and to make the establishment of a prosperous colony almost
an impossibility--even starva