Vantage Points in the Classroom – Turtle Mountain-Souris Plains Heritage Association

The Turtle Mountain Souris Plains Heritage Association provides a regional approach to heritage by working with a collection of towns, municipalities, Métis Locals, and interested citizens. Our membership (illustrated by the shaded portion of the map) includes the Municipalities of Boissevain-Morton, Brenda-Waskada, Deloraine-Winchester, Grassland, Killarney-Turtle Mountain, and Two Borders.

The following information is presented as a foundation document – a resource that teachers and researchers across southwest Manitoba can turn to when they need an overview of the general history of the communities in our region.

About a hundred million years ago southwest Manitoba was part of the Western Interior Seaway. The climate was a lot warmer than today, and huge reptiles called mosasaurs were the toughest beasts around. Then, about 66 million years ago, an asteroid crashed into southern Mexico. The blast was so strong that the dust and debris blocked the sun and slowly cooled the climate. In a short period 75 percent of all species on earth became extinct, including most of the dinosaurs.

About two million years ago we entered a series of Ice Ages. Giant glaciers covered the land, and then melted off. It was a long process and it created the landscape we know today
There were long periods between the visits of the glaciers. We’re in one of them now.

As the ice melted, material that was carried by the glaciers was deposited over Turtle Mountain. By about 12,800 years ago Turtle Mountain was free of ice. As the last glacier retreated it carved many shallow lakes and wetlands and shaped the hills. Many steep ravines were created by streams of run-off waters flowing from the high ground to the low plains.

Turtle Mountain, surrounded by the flat prairie of the Souris Plains, was one of the first things travelers to this region noticed. What is known as the Turtle’s Head, at the western end of Turtle Mountain, is the second highest point in all of Manitoba.

A traveler to the Southwest Corner can see Turtle Mountain from quite a distance. Another important feature of the region, the Souris River, is often hidden in a deep valley and might not be noticed until you are overlooking it.

Here in Manitoba we see only about a quarter of the Souris River drainage basin. It begins north of Weyburn, Saskatchewan. It travels through southeast Saskatchewan and northern North Dakota where it makes a giant U-turn (known as the Souris Loop) before entering Manitoba south of Melita. From the border to Souris the stream is gentle as it twists and turns its way through rolling hills. It then drops 480 meters in elevation by the time it empties into the Assiniboine River, picking up speed as it passes through a deep valley.

On these wide-open dry plains, the river valley offered wood, water and shelter. Plains hunters camped on the banks. They trapped and hunted the animals that also took shelter there.

In recent years, several dams have been built in an attempt to control the flooding tendencies of the Souris River but it has proven difficult to control. In recent years floods have caused a great deal of damage and expense. The Souris River is a commanding presence in Southwest Manitoba. Whether flowing mildly between its banks, or rising to threaten land and livelihood, it continues to be a central feature in the lives of those who live alongside it.

About 10,000 years ago, when the glaciers from the last ice age were melting, huge lakes were formed. Glacial Lake Hind covered the area around present-day Hartney. Huge deposits of sand formed a delta where a river ran into the still body of Lake Hind. Today they are the Lauder Sandhills.

As the climate kept changing, the land was at times marshes, lakes and sloughs, and at other times, sand dunes.
The nearby Souris River and surrounding grasslands made the hills a good place for the bison and for hunters.

Over time, trees and vegetation made this an attractive place to live.

The Lauder Sandhills Wildlife Management Area was established in 1971, originally to protect the winter habitat of the white-tailed deer.

When the glaciers that once covered all of Canada began to disappear about 12,000 years ago, they left huge lakes and rivers. Most of those lakes have disappeared, but Whitewater Lake is the last evidence of Lake Souris, which once covered the region between Turtle Mountain and the Souris River.

It is large, about 20 kilometers long, but shallow. It is fed by creeks from Turtle Mountain during heavy rains and the spring run-off.
Because it is shallow, a dry spell, or a few dry years, can really affect its size. It has gone dry on several occasions. In 1913 the lake dried up, and government engineers surveyed the land, reporting that it should be sold as farmland. But by the next spring it was a lake again! During the “Dirty Thirties” and the 1980’s the lake also disappeared and trails led across it as people made short-cuts.

The plains around Whitewater Lake were well-known to the Nakota, and later, to the Métis as a good place to find bison. The last bison anyone saw in the Turtle Mountain area was spotted just to the east of Whitewater Lake in 1883.

Fur-bearing animals, such as mink and muskrat, attracted trappers and traders to the region. The muskrat furs that came from Whitewater Lake were of especially good quality and fetched a good price.

With the arrival of homesteaders the frozen lake served as a road. Teams of horses transported loads of grain from farms on the north side of the lake to Whitewater village on the southern shore. Firewood from Turtle Mountain was hauled in caravans of sleighs to homes north of the lake, and the road across the ice often became a very busy highway.

Bird Sanctuary

Whitewater Lake was the traditional nesting grounds for the whooping cranes until their near extinction around 1880. Though the number of birds on the lake in modern times does not come close to the numbers found during settler days, it remains an important stopping place during migrations. The south shore is a popular spot among birders.

Grassland is the name of a municipality formed in 2015 when the Town of Hartney joined the Municipalities of Cameron and Whitewater. The name refers to the large prairie, between the Souris River and Turtle Mountain, that is another important geographic feature of Southwest Manitoba.

These plains were a vital resource to Aboriginal Peoples, to Métis hunters and traders, to pioneer homesteaders, and now to modern and large-scale farmers.

In the early 1880’s Killarney Lake, then called Oak Lake, was attractive to a group of settlers from Ontario. A town quickly sprang up there and the residents have always made good use of the lake for boating, fishing and swimming.

After the most recent retreat of the glaciers, humans, who had alread populated most other parts of the world, made their way to Turtle Mountain. It was the first place in the region to be free of ice. It was soon home to both the hunter and the hunted.

The Clovis Culture

The first to arrive were a group we call the Clovis Culture. That was about 12000 years ago.

They came from the south, around New Mexico and Arizona, and would have moved north slowly as the climate warmed and the ice disappeared. We know little about them, but can identify them by the tools they left behind, especially the stone points they crafted for the tips of their weapons.

Clovis points that have been found in Southwestern Manitoba were made of Knife River flint from southern North Dakota, and crafted into sharp points shaped like a willow leaf. Attached to sturdy spears, these points could be used to take down even the huge woolly mammoth.

Taking down a mammoth would take skill, teamwork, courage and the best weapon you could get. These spear points would have been very valuable.

Folsom projectile points

The next “settlers” were the Folsom people. Their spear points were smaller and thinner than the Clovis points. This may have been because they were hunting smaller animals. Mammoths had slowly become extinct. It was pre-historic buffalo that the Folsom hunters hunted.

From about 10000 to 70000 years ago the Plano people hunted buffalo and pronghorn here. Pronghorn are the only large mammals in North America to survive the coming of man. But buffalo were becoming the most important prey.

By about 6000 years ago, agriculture, which developed far to the south, had appeared in Manitoba.

The Pronghorn survived in Manitoba until about 1900, and now prefers the wide-open spaces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

There was a time when mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, and huge long-haired bison roamed the Souris Plains and sought shelter on Turtle Mountain.

Traces of them start to disappear at about the end of the last ice age – about 12000 BC, and by 6000 BC two-thirds of the species of North American mammals that weighed more than 60 kilograms at maturity had become extinct.

Could it have been that the climate was getting warmer and drier? The animals that travelled in large herds may have not been able to adapt.

Or the warmer temperatures may have disrupted breeding cycles.

If climate was the problem, why were the animals not able to move to a more suitable region?

Another possibility is that these large mammals faced a new threat – humans.

As the ice retreated, human hunters spread across the continent, continually improving and adapting their hunting practices. These humans, unlike the other predators, were able to organize and improvise. They were deadly enemies.

Perhaps the climate may have weakened the populations and the humans finished them off.

A mammoth tusk found in Southern Manitoba, on display at the Moncur Gallery in Boissevain

A mammoth skull

By about 4500 years ago the climate was similar to what we have today. In Southwestern Manitoba a series of cultures developed great skill in hunting and using the bison.

When the first European traders and explorers came to this land they found that the people here depended on the bison for nearly everything. It was their main food. The hides gave them shelter and clothing. Tools were made from the bones and sinews.

By drying the meat in strips and pounding in fat and they made pemmican – a food that was nutritious and would last a long time without spoiling.

The lifestyle was developed over hundreds of years.

The Oxbow culture were perhaps the first to stew or boil their meat by placing heated stones in a lined pit full of water, meat and bones. It was an especially good way of removing the rich marrow from cracked bison bones. They also left the first tepee rings, and they were the first to bury their dead. They lived in the region for a long time.

The McKean people continued to perfect methods for killing, processing, and using the bison. A well-known kill and butchering site at Cherry Point on Oak Lake has yielded important artifacts left there over 2000 years ago. They would drive small herds into the marsh at the edge of the lake where some would get bogged down and hunters could kill them with spears.

Cherry Point
The Pelican Lake People may have been the first to think of killing bison by driving herds over steep cliffs. They also seem to have perfected the use of the Pound – herding animals into a fenced enclosure where they could kill them with spears. They traded widely to the south and east, and crafted ornaments from the shells and copper they obtained.

The Besant-Sonata Culture was also a trading culture. Remains of their pottery have been found in dozens of sites throughout southern Manitoba, including sites along the Souris River, and at Clay Banks Buffalo Jump site near Cartwright.

The bison you might see in a zoo today would weigh no more than 1,500 kg and have a maximum height of 1.80 metres.

But its ancestors, who roamed the Souris Plains about 10000 years ago, were much bigger. Bison latifrons it was called. It was 2.5 meters high and his head held an antler more than 2.5 meters long.

An artist has imagined what the modern and the Ice-Age animals might look like side by side.

About 5000 years ago the bison cultures became the main residents of the plains. Vegetation and climate stabilized, evolving to what we know today.

Hunting practices probably evolved along with the bison.

From 1000 to 2000 years ago southwestern Manitoba was home to many seasonal camp and bison kill sites for hunter-gatherers.

Elsewhere in North America during those times Inca, Mayan and Aztec civilizations of Central and South America had erected large cities. The Anasazi, or Ancient Pueblo Peoples were building cliff dwellings in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. To the east the Iroquois and Huron civilizations flourished in their large villages.

The north-central plains were one spot in North America were agriculture wasn’t important. The climate wasn’t suitable and the huge bison herds provided nearly everything the people needed.

Of course they took advantage of other available large game, they trapped small animals, and foraged for seeds and vegetables.

They adapted to their surrounding.

The hunter / gatherer lifestyle was the logical choice for the time and place. In other places, and at other times, other strategies were needed.

Over centuries the Plains People found hunting methods that worked for them in their region. If there were steep cliffs or valleys, they might create a jump, by herding the animals over the edge.

If there were no hills they might build a pound – a fenced in area – and trap the animals inside where they could be shot by arrows.

The Brockinton Site along the Souris River near Melita, has been carefully examined and is one of many kill sites in Southwestern Manitoba.

The site was occupied by three different cultures over the last 1600 years. These occupations left behind valuable evidence about how the people lived. For instance, things like the type of pottery they used and the type of material they used for arrowheads tell us about where they traded, and how far they might have travelled.

Bison bones can easily be found today along the banks of the Souris River.

The Awesome Atlati

The spear is used all across the world.

The bow and arrow was created in Africa and the first people to arrive in North America brought them along.

They also brought along the atlati – a powerful weapon capable of sending a projectile over 120 yards and killing a wooly mammoth.

It was the first complex weapon system developed by humans. It originated in Europe over 30,000 years ago and spread wherever humans lived.

The atlatl consists of two parts: the atlatl itself and the dart. The atlatl is held in the hand, and acts as a lever to propel the dart with more force. The atlatl can be made completely of wood, bone, or both and some may incorporate weights made from stone or shell.

Projectile Points

Numerous detachable tips that were used on weapons such as arrows or spears have been collected. Stone points may be unifacial (one cutting edge) or bifacial and may be manufactured by flaking or grinding.
Projectile points are particularly useful time markers for the archaeologist because of members of a culture, often kept to a particular style.

For example, three styles of projectile points are associated with the McKean culture: McKean, Duncan and Hanna. The McKean has a concave base with no side notching, the Duncan has a similar base but includes side-notching. The Hanna point has wider corner notches.

Scrapers

Scrapers were also generally made of stone. They were used to scrape hides to remove hair and fat, and to soften skin. They were also used for cutting skin.

Scrapers are typically formed by chipping the end of a flake of stone in order to create one sharp side and to keep the rest of the sides dull so you could hang on to them.

The Turtle Mountain – Souris Plains area has been home to many cultures, and was on trading routes that connected those cultures to others far distant from here. In the past 2000 years the people living here increased their dependence on immense herds of bison.

The herds were always on the move and roamed a huge territory. To make use of them the hunters had to move with them. Permanent villages were not helpful.

By the 1700’s when explorers from New France began showing an interest in this region, it was often visited by hunters from Nakota (Assiniboine), Dakota (Sioux), Cree, and Ojibway people.

It was the Nakota, whom LaVerendrye encountered on his trips in 1838 and afterwards.

Over the centuries various cultures developed better weapons and sharper tools. They learned to use all parts of a carcass to provide food, clothing, shelter and tools. They developed hunting methods, relying on stealth, marksmanship, camouflage, and finally the mass killing fields allowed by pounds and jumps. They got really good at harvesting and using the most readily available resource on the plains.

A successful society is able to offer its people a fair chance at health and happiness. They were successful.

The Plains People were originally from the east where they had lived in villages, and existed by hunting, gathering and growing crops.

When they moved to the plains they had to be able to move with the bison. They developed portable houses called teepees.

Today we refer to descendants of these groups of people as First Nations. Their ancestors have a long history in this land.

Campsite and Villages

The Souris River and its valley had resources that both animals and humans needed. It offered a reliable source of fresh water, shelter, game, wood and wild fruit.

The river had been witness to the activities of the large-game hunting societies of the Clovis and Folsom people who closely followed the receding glaciers. These and later peoples left evidence of their travels and habitations in the area – tipi rings, fireplaces, medicine wheels, surface graves and stone circles are only some of the impressions that remain.

Turtle Mountain also afforded shelter and resources for campsites, both short and long term.

In 1805 Southwest Manitoba was mainly Assiniboine territory.

By 1877 when this map shows that the Ojibway were the main occupants of this land. The Assiniboine had moved west.

Assiniboine (Nakota) Camp, Manitoba, July 17, 1874

In the summer of 1738 a group of about 100 Assiniboine lodges camped beside Cherry Creek (near present-day Boissevain) had an interesting visitor. A group of French traders led by Sieur de la Verendrye came to them with a request.

He was looking for a route to what he referred to as a Western Sea. He knew of a tribe he called the Mandans who lived somewhere to the south. He wanted help in finding them.

Several of the Assiniboine agreed to travel with him to show him the way to the Mandan villages on the Missouri River.

The Assiniboine were good partners to the Europeans. They gained new trade goods, which made their work easier. In turn, the Assiniboine helped Europeans traders as middlemen, excellent horsemen, and providers of food to trading posts.

From the Lake of the Woods region, the Assiniboine moved west sometime before 1680. It was here on the prairies that the Assiniboine discovered the bison
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They wintered in places like Turtle Mountain where shelter and wildlife were plentiful.

In the long run, the relationship with European traders had a devastating effect on the Assiniboine. Along with trade goods the newcomers brought whiskey, guns and disease – the guns proved useful but the whiskey and disease caused great damage.

One-half to two-thirds of the population died in the smallpox epidemic of 1780-81, before being cut in half again in the 1819-20 epidemic of measles and whooping cough.

By 1865, the Assiniboine were reduced to about one-tenth their original number. They migrated west and this once dominant nation were placed on reserves in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Montana. Manitoba has no Assiniboine reserves, only individual members living off-reserve.

Only a few hundred remain today and are known by their original name – “Stoneys”.

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