28-Sept-1932 T.T. Selby letter to Dr Stewart, MB Historical Society
Over a number of years in the 1930's, Thomas Tresham Selby corresponded with Dr. Stewart, President of the Manitoba Historical Society. Having spent almost 50 years living in the area around Fort Ellice (St. Lazare), Thomas T. Selby had been researching the location of forts and local histories from the area. In the fall of 1932, Thomas T. Selby sent a letter to Dr. Stewart with a number of pages of information attached. Copies of these records are included below and can be found at the Archives of Manitoba.
One of the documents details the Beaver Creek Hudson Bay Post. Digitized copies of the written document are on the left and I've transcribed the text below:
26-Sept-1932 T.T. Selby letter regarding Beaver Creek Hudson Bay Post
I interviewed Ambrose Boyer, a half-breed in his 75th year. He remembers this fort, and tells me that when a boy of perhaps 8 years of age, he accompanied his father and other breeds on a buffalo hunt to the south. They secured the meat and returned to the fort to feed their old folks and cure the meat.
After resting, they started on another hunt. After proceeding five miles they arrived at the crossing on Beaver Creek, there they loosed their ponies for grass and water.
Whilst waiting, they saw a Red River cart coming down the trail at full speed. On its arrival, they saw it contained a woman (Boyer’s mother). She was crying and said an explosion had occurred at the Fort after their departure, setting fire to it and killing her brother, so she had followed to get them to return.
Boyer told me he remembers seeing his uncle lying dead when they got back, but does not remember if the man who caused the explosion was killed. It occurred through a man striking flint and steel near an open keg of powder after being warned to desist.
Granting Boyer to be about 75 years old now and at the time of the explosion, eight - the destruction of the fort must have occurred about 1865 A.D. Boyer told me the H.B.C. erected this fort in place of the one near the Cut Arm Creek, as the Blackfoot Indians were then causing great trouble there.
I think I spoke to you of a man Prichard who I under-stood claimed he was born at this fort in 1800, giving me the impression that this fort was in existence then. I now think that impression was wrong, and the site where the fort was erected afterwards was a habitat for half-breeds owing to the never failing spring & piece of open ground surrounded by bush. [Dated] 26th Sep 1932
