Facultative Carnivore

Better off were the posts in the buffalo country that subsisted on a fare of juicy steaks, roasts and tongues. As in the case of fish, enormous quantities of meat were required to sustain a man who ate only flesh. The daily allowance of buffalo meat at Fort George was eight pounds a man. The voyageurs who, between them, ate thirty-five whitefish a day would have required forty rabbits to get the same amount of nourishment. Two whole geese were no more than a meal for a man in the northern posts.

The prairie posts were blessed with an almost inexhaustible supply of buffalo meat that delivered itself, so to speak, to their very doors. Hunters sometimes killed entire herds and returned with nothing but the tongues. In seasons of lesser abundance, the whole carcass of the animal was utilized. The hunters cut the meat up into twenty pieces much like our standard cuts of beef for transportation to the post. The choice cuts were the hump and back meat. The tongue generally went to the hunter.

To the trader, settling down with his "family" for the long prairie winter, the sight of tons of fat meat in his icehouse or glacière must have been a comforting one. The size of his store depended on his needs; but Duncan McGillivray gives us an idea of what the average post required. In his glacière were stacked 500 thighs and shoulders the meat of 413 buffalo, weighing almost a quarter of a million pounds. Even in the elder Henry's time, the beef reserves at some of the posts were awe-inspiring. "At Fort des Prairies I remained several days," he wrote, "hospitably entertained by my friends, who covered their tables with the tongues and marrow of wild bulls. The quantity of provisions which I found collected here exceeded everything of which I had previously formed a notion. In one heap I saw fifty tons of beck, so fat that the men could scarcely find a sufficiency of lean."

While the meat of the buffalo made excellent steaks and roasts although not so delicious as those of the moose -it was the fat cuts, especially the long depouilles of back fat, that were most prized. "The Canadian voyageur's appetite for fat meat is insatiable," Franklin observed. And the bourgeois had no less a fondness for the grease and tallow that are mentioned so often and almost as a delicacy in their journals. In this they were following a sound instinct. For, as Vilhjalmur Stefansson and other arctic explorers have often pointed out, a man could live long and well on meat alone provided he got enough fat along with the lean. Without it as the rabbit and fish eaters knew by experience he was likely to become sick, and even to die, from fat starvation.

Hence, the North West Company took good care to satisfy the craving of its men for fat. Thousands of kegs of grease– really buffalo tallow – were put up at the pemmican posts" for the northern departments. In one year at Pembina, Henry kegged up almost two tons of it, and another two tons in the form of pemmican. By the traders it was called "the bread of the pays d'en haut. Henry, incidentally, has left us this list of provisions "destroyed" at his Pembina post in one winter by 17 men, 10 women, 14 children, and 45 dogs:

• 112 buffalo cows -- 45,000 pounds

• 34 buffalo bulls -- 18,000 pounds

• 3 red deer

• 5 large black bears

• 4 beavers swans

• 12 outardes geese

• 36 ducks

• 1,150 fish of different kinds

• 775 sturgeon

• 410 pounds of grease

• 140 pounds of bear meat

• 325 bushels of potatoes and an assortment of kitchen vegetables

This adds up to about a ton of meat and fish apiece for every man, woman and child in the post; but more interesting, perhaps, is the inclusion of no small quantity of potatoes, and even kitchen vegetables, at the end of the list. Not every post was as fortunate as Pembina in this respect. Only the larger establishments were able to supplement their basic fish and meat diets with potatoes, cereals, and garden truck; but some of them did so on a rather large scale.

Like Bas de la Rivière, with its fields, barns, stables and storehouses, Rainy Lake also had its cultivated fields and domestic animals. And at Pembina, Alexander Henry himself did not do badly as a farmer. In the fall of one year he reported:

The men had gathered the following crops: 1000 bushels potatoes (produce of 21 bushels); 40 bushels turnips; 25 bushels carrots; 20 bushels beets; 20 bushels parsnips; 10 bushels cucumbers; 2 bushels melons; 5 bushels squashes; 10 bushels Indian corn; 200 large heads of cabbage; 300 small and Savoy cabbages. All these vegetables are exclusive of what have been eaten and destroyed since my arrival.

The virgin prairie soil produced not only abundandy, bur spectacularly for Farmer Henry: 

I measured an onion, 22 inches in circumference; a carrot is inches long and, at the thick end, 14 inches in circumference; a turnip with its leaves weighed 25 pounds, and the leaves alone weighed 15 pounds.

The North West Company's post at Fond du Lac, on the St. Louis River, kept two horses, a cow, a bull, and a few pigs. The fort at Leech Lake had a garden that produced a thousand bushels of potatoes, thirty of oats, cabbages, carrots. beets, beans, turnips, pumpkins and Indian corn. The Concern had also brought horses to the post, "'even cats and hens."

And how, one might wonder, did the Concern succeed in transporting horses, cows, bulls and other livestock through a roadless wilderness, traversable by only canoe and dog sledge, to forts a thousand miles or more from any civilized settlement? Were they brought out in the Company's small schooners, such as the Otter and the Beaver, to the Grand Portage, and thence over the winter ice to the Interior posts? Were they even carried while young and small, perhaps, in the great canots du maître? Or, had they already been brought to the pays d'en haut by the French, in the earliest days of the fur trade? Peter Pond, writing of his trip up the Fox River, in what is now Wisconsin, says: "I ort to have Menshand that the french at ye Villeg whare we Incampt Rase fine black Cattel & Horses with Sum swine."

It is something to speculate about like so many of the Nor' westers' doings!

In addition to his garden and livestock, there were other ways a trader could vary his diet of straight meat, or fish, or a combination of both. He could, for instance, buy certain items of food from the Indians. Among these, wild rice or, as the traders often called it, wild oats was perhaps the most important. Rainy Lake was the great source of supply Growing in the water to a height of more than eight feet, the rice was harvested by the Indians, who drove their canoes through the rice beds and beat out the grain. In ordinary seasons, Harmon tells us, the North West Company bought from 1200 to 1500 bushels of wild rice from the natives; "and it constitutes a principle article of food at the posts in this vicinity."

Maple sugar, also bought from the Indians, was more than a luxury on the trader's table: it was often an important staple, and sometimes all he had to eat for long periods of time. It was made from the sap of the true and bastard maples, and even a certain variety of birch. The work of gathering the sap and boiling it down was left mostly to the women. In the spring the whole tribe went to the sugar bush, where the men cut wood for the fires and hunted game for food, while the squaws gathered and boiled the sap. The elder Henry describes one sugar-making expedition that produced 1600 pounds of sugar, besides 36 gallons of syrup not counting 300 pounds consumed on the ground. During the whole month in the bush, he tells us, sugar was the principal food. He knew Indians, he adds, who lived wholly on sugar and understandably enough grew fat.

Game was bought from the Indians, or procured by the trader's gun: venison, moose, bear, antelope, as well as ducks, geese, swans, and occasionally their eggs. By the voyageurs, if not always by the bourgeois, dogs were frequently purchased for food. A small dog, of a species specially bred for eating, was regarded as a great delicacy by the Canadians.

Nov 19: Monday — a Cold day the ice continue to run our Perogue of Hunters arrive with 32 Deer, 12 Elk & a Buffalow, all of this meat we had hung up in a Smoke house, a timeley supply. Several Indians here all day. the wind blew hard from the N.W. by W, our men move into their huts, Several little Indian aneckd" [anecdotes] told me to day 20':' 

Nov 20 Tuesday 1804 — Cap Lewis & my Self move into our hut,^ a very hard wind from the W. all the after part of the day a temperate day. Several Indians came Down to Eat fresh meat, three Chiefs from the 2*1 Mandan Village Stay all Day, they are verry Curious in examining our works.

Dec 7, 1804 - Cap Clark Set out with a hunting party Killed 8 Bulfalow & returned next day — a verry cold day wind from the NW. the Big White Grand Chief of the Village, came and informed us that a large Drove of Buffalow was near and his people was wating for us to join them in a chase. Cap Lewis took 15 men & went out joined the Indians, who were at the time he got up, Killing the Buffalow on Horseback with arrows which they done with great dexterity,^ his party killed 10 Buffalow, /x'f of which we got to the fort by the assistance of a horse in addition to what the men Packed on their backs, one cow was killed on the ice after drawing her out of a vacancey in the ice in which She had fallen, and Butchered her at the fort, those we did 

Biddle gives a more detailed account of the Indians' buffalo hunt. Gass says (p. 89) that Lewis took eleven men with him, who killed 11 buffalo, while the Indians killed 30 or 40. — Ed. 

 AT FORT MANDAN not get in was taken by the indians under a Custom which is established amongst them i e. any person seeing a buffalow lying without an arrow Sticking in him, or some particular mark takes possession, many times (as I am told) a hunter who kills many Buffalow in a chase only Gets a part of one, all meat which is left out all night falls to the wolves which are in great numbers, always in the neighborhood of the Buffalows.

13th of January Sunday 1805 -- On a Cold Clear Day, a great number of Indians move down the River to hunt. Those people Kill a Number of Buffalow near their Villages and Save a great proportion of the Meat, their Custom of making this article of life General leaves them more than half of their time without meat.

 Their Corn & Beans & they keep for the Summer, and as a reserve in Case of an attack from the Soues, [of] which they are always in dread and seldom go far to hunt except in large parties, about the Mandans nation passed this today to hunt on of Tribe.

23rd January 1805 Wednesday A Cold Day Snow fell 4 Inches deep, the occurancies of this day is as is common. I went up with one of the men to the villages. They treated us friendly and gave us victuals. After we were done eating they presented a bowlful to a buffaloe head, saying, " eat that."' Their superstitious credulity is so great, that they believe by using the head well, the living buffaloe will come, and that they will get a supply of meat. — Gass (pp. 98, 99).

[Feb. 5 and two frenchmen who together with two others, have established a small hut and resided this winter within the vicinity of Fort Mandane under our protection, visited by many of the natives today, our stock of meat which we had procured in the Months of November & December is now nearly exhausted ; a supply of this articles is at this moment peculiarly interesting as well for our immediate consumption, as that we may have time before the approach of the warm season to prepare the meat for our voyage in the spring of the year. Capt. Clark therefore determined to continue his rout down the river even as far as the River bullet' unless he should find a plenty of game nearer, the men transported their baggage on a couple of small wooden sleighs drawn by themselves, and took with them 3 pack horses which we had agreed should be returned with a load of meat to fort mandane as soon as they could procure it. no buffaloe have made their appearance in our neighbourhood for some weeks {time shorter) ; and I am informed that our Indian neighbours suffer extremely at this moment for the article of flesh. Shields killed two deer this evening, both very lean, one a large buck, he had shed his horns.

Feb 8 - the chief dined with me and left me in the evening, he informed me that his people suffered very much for the article of meat, and that he had not himself tasted any for several days.

Feb 16 — The Buffalow Seen last night proved to be Bulls. lean & unfit for to make use of as food, the Distance from Camp being nearly 60 miles and the packing of meat that distance attended with much difficulty. Determined me to return and hunt the points above, we Set out on our return and halted at an old Indian lodge 40 miles below Fort Mandan, Killed 3 Elk, & 2 Deer. 

Feb 17 — a cold Day wind blew hard from the N.W. J. Fields got one of his ears frosed determined to lay by and hunt to day killed an Elk & 6 deer, all that was fit for use [of] this meat I had Boned and put into a Close pen made of logs.

Feb 22 Capt Lewis returned with 2 Slays loaded with meat, after finding that he could not overtake the Soues War party, (who had in their way distroyed all the meat at one Deposit which I had made & Burnt the Lodges) deturmined to proceed on to the lower Deposit which he found had not been observed by the Soues. He hunted two day Killed 36 Deer & 14 Elk, Several of them so meager, that they were unfit for use, the meat which he killed and that in the lower deposit amounting to about 3000 pounds was brought up on two Slays one Drawn by 16 men had about 2400 pounds on it.

April the 2nd, Friday (Tuesday) 1805 — a cloudy day, rained all the last night we are prepareing to Set out all thing nearly ready. The 2nd Chief of the 2nd Mandan Village took a miff at our not attending to him particularly after being here about ten days and moved back to his village. The Mandans Killed twenty one elk yesterday 15 miles below this, they were So Meager that they [were] Scercely fit for use. 

Biddle describes the manner in which the Indians capture buffaloes which, trying to cross the river, have become isolated on ice-floes. Mackenzie states that the Indians on the Missouri also search eagerly for the carcasses of buffaloes and other drowned animals that float down the river in the spring season ; these, although rotten and of intolerable stench, "are preferred by the Natives to any other kind of food. ... So fond are the Mandans of putrid meat that they bury animals whole in the winter for the consumption of the spring " — Ed.

Thursday April \ith. Set out at an early hour; I proceeded with the party and Capt. Clark with George Drewyer walked on shore in order to procure some fresh meat if possible, we proceeded on about five miles, and halted for breakfast, when Capt. Clark and Drewyer joined us ; the latter had killed, and brought with him a deer, which was at this moment excep[t]able, as we had had no fresh meat for several days, the country from fort Mandan to this place is so constantly hunted by the Mountainaries that there is but little game, we halted at two P.M. and made a comfortable dinner on a venison steak and beaver tails.

Capt. Clark walked on shore this morning, and on his return informed me that he had passed through the timbered bottoms on the N. side of the river, and had extended his walk several miles back on the hills; in the bottom lands he had met with several uninhabited Indian lodges built with the boughs of the Elm, and in the plains he met with the remains of two large encampments of a recent date, which form the appearance of some hoops of small kegs, seen near them we concluded that they must have been the camps of the Assinniboins, as no other nation who visit this part of the missouri ever indulge themselves with spirituous liquor, of this article the Assinniboins are pationately fond, and we are informed that it, forms their principal inducement to furnish the British establishments on the Assinniboin river with the dryed and pounded meat and grease which they do. they also supply those establishments with a small quantity of fur, consisting principally of the large and small wolves and the small fox' skins, these they barter for small kegs of rum which they generally transport to their camps at a distance from the establishments, where they revel with their friends and relations as long as they possess the means of intoxication, their women and children are equally indulged on those occasions and are all seen drunk together, so far is a state of intoxication from being a cause of reproach among them, that with the men, it is a matter of exultation that their skill and industry as hunters has enabled them to get drunk frequently, in their customs, habits and dispositions these people very much resemble the Siouxs from whom thev have descended. The principal inducement with the British fur companies, for continuing their establishments on the Assinniboin river, is the Buffalow meat and grease they procure from the Assinniboins, and Christanoes, by means of which, they are enabled to supply provision to their engages on their return from rainy Lake to the English river and the Athabaskey country where they winter ; without such resource those voyagers would frequently be straitened for provision, as the country through which they pass is but scantily supplyed with game, and the rappidity with which they are compelled to travel in order to reach their winter stations, would leave them but little leasure to surch for food while on their voyage. while the party halted to take dinner today Capt. Clark killed a buffaloe bull ; it was meagre, and we therefore took the marrow bones and a small propor- tion of the meat only, near the place we dined, on the Lard, side, there was a large village of burrowing squirrels.

April 18th - 1805 -- Went out to hunt, Killed a young Buck Elk, & a Deer, the Elk was tolerable meat, the Deer very poor. Butchered the meat and continued untill near Sunset before Cap' Lewis and the party came up, thev were detained by the wind, which rose soon after I left the boat from the N W. & blew very hard until very late in the evening.

in the after part of the day we passed an extensive beautiful plain on the Starside which gradually ascended from the river. I saw immense quantities of buffalow in every direction, also some Elk deer and goats ; having an abundance of meat on hand I passed them without firing on them ; they are extremely gentle, the bull buffalow particularly will scarcely give way to you. I passed several in the open plain within fifty paces, they viewed me for a moment as something novel and then very unconcernedly continued to feed. 

May 5 --In the evening we saw a Brown or Grizzly bear on a sand beech, I went out with one man Geo Drewyer & Killed the bear, which was verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill. We Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him, & 5 of those Balls through his lights. This animal is the largest of the carnivorous kind I ever saw we had nothing that could weigh him, I think his weight may be stated at 500 pounds, he measured 8 feet 7 In! from his nose to the extremity of the Toe, 5 feet around the breast, i feet 11 Ins: around the middle of the arm, 3 feet 11 In! arround the neck his tallents was 4 Inches long, he was [in] good order, and appeared very different from the common black bear in as much as his claws were blunt, his tail short, his liver & lights much larger, his maw ten times as large and contained meat or flesh & fish only, we had him skined and divided, the oil fried up & put in Kegs for use. we camped on the StarSide, our men killed three Elk and a Buffalow to day, and our Dog cought an antilope a fair race, this animal appeared very pore & with young.

There were three beaver taken this morning by the party, the men prefer the flesh of this animal, to that of any other which we have, or are able to procure at this moment. I eat very heartily of the beaver myself, and think it excellent; particularly the tail, and liver.

Sent out some hunters who killed 2 deer 3 Elk and several buffalow ; on our way this evening we also shot three beaver along the shore ; these animals in consequence of not being hunted are extremely gentle, where they are hunted they never leave their lodges in the day, the flesh of the beaver is esteemed a delicacy among us ; I think the tail a most delicious morsal, when boiled it resembles in flavor the fresh tongues and sounds of the codfish, and is usually sufficiently large to afford a plentiful meal for two men.

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Page 153:

As I wish only in this part of the work to enumerate facts, with the intention of applying them in support of any arguments which I may in the conclusion employ for maintaining any particular opinions, I will not here anticipate any thing that I may then judge right to advance concerning the method of cure; let me however just observe , that during the former period of this gentleman's disease, I enjoined him a strict animal diet, with as much milk as he chose; but in the latter part of it he eat and drank almost as his fancy directed him, since it was found that none of the vegetable decoctions had for several weeks affected his urine, nor any sweetness again arisen from the use of vegetable matters, or from fermented or vinous liquors.

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The next was the case of a gentleman with whom I was afterwards upon terms of very friendly intercourse, and whose urine yielded sugar upon evaporation, in the pro portion of one ounce in sixteen or twenty. A common attack of fever first made me acquainted with him , and which, with some difficulty, gave way to the usual methods of cure : his recovery I found retarded by a frequency of micturition, which interrupted his sleep, and which had very long distressed him : he attributed it, however, to some disease either of the bladder or of the prostate gland, which he said he knew to exist, for that his water was often loaded with large quantities of mucus, and that he had been in the habit of introducing bougies for several years, to overcome a stricture which he always found seated very high in the urethra. As he recovered his strength, and was again able to pursue his professional concerns, I did not then at all suspect that there might be any additional cause of his frequent calls to void his urine: nor in truth did I ever suppose, during two or three attendances which I had afterwards upon this gentleman, that any thing more than irritation at the neck of the bladder, increased by a little occasional intemperance, was the cause of the hectic which usually attacked him, accompanied by its common symptoms of thirst, and heat of body, and costiveness. It was nearly two years afterwards, when, from a continuance of these symptoms beyond their usual period; I first suspected that something Diabetic might be connected with them; and on examining the urine I found it sweet. As he was a man of a sound understanding, I explained to him such circumstances as might best induce him to persevere strictly in a proper plan of diet and of medicine; and although he had been accustomed, from a public situation which he held , to live well, I found no difficulty in shewing him the necessity of avoiding all vinous and spirituous liquors, and of entering upon a plan of complete abstinence from all vegetable matters. He took freely and largely of milk, both night and day, to which he latterly added mutton-suet; and his more substantial meals consisted of animal food, with a very small quantity of bread. He took the sulphurated hydrogenous medicines, in very large doses, without any manifest advantage: and afterwards, for many weeks, persevered in the common green mixture of sulphat of iron, with myrrh and tartrat of potash, in the quantity of half a pint in every twenty four hours, which I was induced to press upon him from the benefit I supposed to have arisen from its use in a case above related : this gentleman's strength very much increased under this plan, which, from the relief obtained, he pursued with astonishing perseverance: his urine became much less troublesome, having sometimes but very little sugar, and occasionally none at all: the organic mischief at the neck of the bladder, of course, still continued, and his nights were still disturbed, by his being frequently obliged to make water, but he recovered his usual countenance and his strength again. He did not afterwards indulge to any immoderate extent in company, but as to food, took his milk and suet during some years, pursuing to the time of his death, in 1803, a very active employment, and undergoing great exercise, both of body and mind.

Page 160:

Hitherto I have detailed the cases that have occurred to me, more at length, per haps, than might be necessary; but if any apology may be required for it, I have only to observe, that what I have stated is almost literally written from notes which were taken when the cases were pässing under my observation : and the same apology must be offered for any imperfect statement, if such it should appear, in those which follow ; for having made up my mind with re spect to the method of treatment, from finding it in several instances successful, I was not so studious about noting all the particulars of any individual case, as I had been accustomed to be : but the truth of the matter is, that besides those which have been already, and those which are about to be mentioned, many others did occur, of which I took no note whatever, either be cause they yielded (although the symptoms were really Diabetic) in so short a time, that I had not a convenient opportunity of ascertaining the sweetness of the urine ; or because, from the very common versatility of mind attending this disease, the patients did not return to me after the first inter view : of these, therefore, as cases merely of conjecture or suspicion, I have not made any record ; considering those only as truly legitimate, whose names, with other circum stances, impossible from their notoriety to be misunderstood, I could fairly and honestly register.

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"I have had no experience myself of the Hepatised Ammonia, nor did I know whether it could be procured here or not ; and as the gentleman's stay was likely to be so short in Oxfordshire, I was not very anxious about it : but as I have seen the best effects by limiting the use of vegetables, and if possible preventing it entirely, I urged this point as much as I could, but I am afraid I was but imperfectly obeyed. Indeed, I fear we shall have but very few patients who will so perfectly comply with that part of Dr. Rollo's plan, as the patient he has described.

The three next cases may be said to be still my patients, as they continue under the regimen prescribed for them ; or if they are deviating from it, they remain as examples not merely of the efficacy of the plan, but of the durability of the cure: The first was a gentleman from Kent, who consulted me more than a year ago, for indigestion and a bilious irregularity. In March, 1809, he called upon me with every symptom of Diabetes ; and in addition to the large quantity of water, and the usual thirst and voracious appetite, he complained of a wasting of his pudenda, and of absolute impotency; circumstances which I believe to happen not unfrequently in Diabetes, notwithstanding I have not hitherto made such the subject of particular enquiry: I ordered him upon the chalybeate plan, and enjoined him the usual strict regimen with respect to diet: I was to see him again, or hear from him in case of necessity : but not hearing from him I wrote to him, expressing my anxiety about him, which brought him to London : -He then candidly acknowledged, that he had not tried the plan, for that he had taken it into his head that nothing could be of any service to him. I remonstrated with him most strongly, and shewed him his danger ; and on his return to Rochester, he commenced his plan, for his apothecary some time afterwards informed me, in a letter dated Oct. 27, 1809— “Our patient, Mr. S—, is perfectly recovered, from the plan you recommended.” 

A gentleman who resides in Surrey, up wards of sixty years of age, was also, a year ago, relieved by a similar plan; for, in about three weeks, his urine, and thirst and appetite, became natural, and his emaciation was succeeded by flesh and strength : In the following year, 1809, the symptoms returned , and the same treatment was pursued with the same fortunate result ; for his urine, which had again become sweet, soon was found, upon evaporation, to .contain not a particle of sugar, and his health, in proportion, improved. It may not be improper to mention, that I found it necessary to secure rest at night by means of ten grains of the compound powder of ipecacuanha. 

The next case is that of a gentleman's housekeeper in Portland Place, who states her complaint to have arisen six years ago. About ten years since, one of her breasts was removed, from an apprehension of cancer. Her age is above sixty. Her urine was very sweet, and in large quantity, and very frothy, and when spilled upon the ground, left an incrustation like chalk, in appearance, but which was, in reality, a saccharine crystallization. —The peculiar odour from her body and her lungs was here remarkably, characteristic of her complaint : but this, as well as the other symptoms of the disorder, admitted of a change in less than two days : She had complained of an uneasiness and weight at the stomach, which was removed by a bolus of the hydragyrus cum cretà , given for a few successive nights, and then the strict animal diet, with forbearance from all sorts of vegetables, and from fermented liquors, together with the common steel ' draught, with myrrh, three times a day, was perse vered in most accurately ; the change al most immediately took place for the better, and her health, more than could have been expected at her time of life, is manifestly improving: 

page 192:

--After persevering about three weeks, rigidly, in the plan prescribed, I indulged her with beer at her meals, and with potatoes, and had the satisfaction of finding no sugar reproduced in her urine : In a few days she used stale bread, (for she had fancied that new bread had a tendency to bring back the disease) with the same happy result : and was then directed to eat any sort of vegetables she pleased, adapting the quantity to her usual portion of animal food ; and, after a trial of ten days, she experienced no renewal of her disorder. After the expiration of two months, I saw her again, without any symptom of the complaint whatever; and again, after an absence of several more months, still continuing in a perfect state of health.

Whilst these pages were preparing for the press, I was consulted for a young lady in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, who was labouring under the worst description of saccharine Diabetes :-She certainly experienced considerable relief during several weeks from the full plan of animal diet, chalybeates, and the phosphoric acid, but: ultimately she fell a victim to her disorder: In the last stage of the disease I visited her at her father's house, and I think I never saw emaciation so extreme, nor patience so constant, nor attention to the plan of regimen so scrupulously exact; as in this amiable, and exemplary young lady. 

I was ałşo, about the same time, consulted by a gentleman near Somerset House, in the Strand : He was about sixty years of age : His skin was cold and harsh ; and his pulse small and freqüent: He made · water very often , but it was not at all sweet; and on evaporation it yielded plenty of crystallized salts , leaving a bitter and offensive residuum . His appetite was moderate, and so was his thirst, but his debility and emaciation were excessive ; and his nervous irritability, which seldom suffered him to sleep, had terminated in a slight paralysis, affecting the organs of speech, and the whole of his right side. His case seemed to me to want nothing .but the saccharine Characteristic to constitute it a true Diabetes, and I accordingly ordered him eggs instead of bread, milk and broth instead of tea, and animal food under any form he pleased, and the exclusion of all vegetable and fermented matters; and his medicine was the myrrh draught, with the sulphat of iron. Although I had not much expectation of doing him good, I had the satisfaction of finding him better in a few days; and, after visiting him, perhaps twice a week, for about a month, I requested him to remove to Hampstead, --for the benefit of the chalybeate water, and where he might have the opportunity of exercise in a fine air. This, however, he neglected to do ; and, during my absence from London at my house in the country, I found that he had deviated altogether from the plan advised for him, and that a fresh attack of palsy had terminated his existence.: A clergyman, also , from the neighbour hood of Harrow , consulted me for a dropsy. He was advancing in years, his debility was great, and his legs were much swollen : I found, however, that his appetite was very good, and his complexion clear; and that, independent of his extreme weakness. and the tumefied legs, he was apparently in health: On examination, too, it was discovered that his urine was in greater quantity than is usual, but that it neither to the taste, nor on evaporation, yielded any sugar: Still I was not convinced that his dropsy could arise from any other cause.

The mess-table has, too, other attractions than those of sociality, and of a more solidly substantial kind. The officers of the forts are all good livers, and, although accustomed to rough it on short allowances of food when necessity requires, take particular care that the home-larder shall be well stocked with all the delicacies and substantials afforded by the surrounding country. The viands are of necessity composed, in the greater part, of the wild game and fish with which the prairies and waters abound. But they are of the choicest kind, and selected from an abundant supply. One gets there the buffalo-hump-tender and juicy; the moose-nose--tremulous and opaque as a vegetable conserve; the finest and most savory waterfowl, and the freshest of fish-all preserved by the power of frost instead of salt. True, the supply of vegetables at many mess-tables is woefully deficient, and a continuous diet of wild meats, like most other things of eternal sameness, is apt to pall upon the appetite. But the list of meats is so extensive, and each requiring a particular mode of cooking that a long time may elapse without a repetition of dishes. Then, too, the climate favors the consumption of solid food, and, after short residence, the appetite becomes seasoned to the quality of the fare obtainable. Bread, as an imported article, is in many instances regarded as quite in the character of a luxury; the few sacks of flour which constitute the annual allowance of each officer being hoarded away by the prudent housewife as carefully as the jams and preserves of her more fortunate sisters. In such cases it is batted into small cakes, one of which is placed beside each plate at meal-time; the size of the cake being so regulated as to afford a single one for each meal of the year. The more common vegetables, such as potatoes and turnips, can be successfully cultivated in some places, and, wherever this occurs, enter largely into the daily menu. Fruits, either fresh or dried, seldom make their appearance upon the table; lack of transportation, also, forbidding the importation of the canned article. 

At many of the remote inland posts, however, the daily bill of fare is limited enough, and a winter season seldom passes without the garrison of some isolated station suffering extreme privation. At Jasper and Henry Houses, for example, the officers have been frequently forced to slaughter their horses in order to supplement the meagre supply of provisions. These posts are situated in the very heart of the Rocky Mountains, with the vast region marked "swampy" on the maps separating them from the depot forts. In many of the extreme Arctic stations the supply of provisions is limited the year round to reindeer-meat, and fish, and not infrequently to the latter alone. Under these circumstances, no wonder that the company's officer comes to regard the possession of flour and sugar as among the most essential requisites of life.

What is now Cannon Beach, as well as the coastal area surrounding it, is part of the traditional territory of the Tillamook tribe.

William Clark, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, journeyed to Cannon Beach in early 1805. The expedition was wintering at Fort Clatsop, roughly 20 miles (32 km) to the north near the mouth of the Columbia River. In December 1805, two members of the expedition returned to camp with blubber from a whale that had beached several miles south, near the mouth of Ecola Creek. Clark later explored the region himself.[7] From a spot near the western cliffs of the headland he saw "...the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed, in front of a boundless Ocean..." That viewpoint, later dubbed "Clark's Point of View," can be accessed by a hiking trail from Indian Beach in Ecola State Park.

Clark and several of his companions, including Sacagawea, completed a three-day journey on January 10, 1806, to the site of the beached whale. They encountered a group of Native Americans from the Tillamook tribe who were boiling blubber for storage. Clark and his party met with them and successfully bartered for 300 pounds (136 kg) of blubber and some whale oil before returning to Fort Clatsop.[8] There is a wooden whale sculpture commemorating the encounter between Clark's group and the Tillamooks in a small park at the northern end of Hemlock Street.[9]

Clark applied the name "Ekoli" to what is now Ecola Creek.[10] Ehkoli is a Chinook word for "whale".[10] Early settlers later renamed the creek "Elk Creek", and a community with the same name formed nearby.[11]

A “Monstrous Fish”

Two days after Christmas 1805, Clatsop Indians told the Corps of Discovery that a whale had washed ashore southwest of Fort Clatsop near a Tillamook village (modern day Ecola State Park.) Because of adverse weather conditions, Clark and other members of the Corps did not reach the whale until January 8. Sacagawea, who insisted on seeing “that monstrous fish” and the ocean, accompanied them.

By the time the party reached the beach, only the whale’s bones remained. The Nehalem Indians who had gathered much of the whale’s remains were reluctant to part with any of it, but Clark did manage to obtain approximately 300 pounds of blubber to add to the food supply and a few gallons of rendered oil. Lewis sampled the blubber and found it “not unlike the fat of Poark tho’ the texture was more spongey and somewhat coarser. I had a part of it cooked and found it very pallitable and tender, it resembled the beaver or the dog in flavour.”