The area of the National Historic Park is a treasure trove of archeological finds. Not much , if anything , is documented on the policy of death and burial in the Fur trade. With the onslaught of the epidemics that decimated the west, and with the number of deaths that probably occurred , including children, one wonders what procedure was followed. During the times that Rocky Mountain House Fort was open, Indians camped continually around the fort. It would be wise to keep in mind that this area, quite apart from the fur trade forts, is sacred to the Indians in it's own right. The confluences of rivers are sacred ground to the Indian and to be buried near a confluence is considered a great honor.

How Many?
 

It is not unusual at the site to be developing a trail , for instance, and then unearth more artifacts. Ross MacDonald, the manager at the historic site from 1990-1998, does agree that much is still there under the site, including many graves, some unearthed in recent years and then left untouched as these burial sites were not of historic significance as they pertained to the area fort history.. There is some evidence of old Indian Burial mounds in the area and of the site being used after the fort closed in 1875. Some of the old pioneers, as young children, remember visiting what they thought were Indian Graves, near the early forts. It should be remembered that at least two smallpox epidemics swept through the west when the forts were open.

Reverend Woolsey in 1858 stated in a report to the Wesleyan Missionary Notices:

".. visited one of the cities of the dead in the afternoon. It is certainly the largest burial ground I ever saw, being unenclosed, and consequently may be regarded as occupying a vast tract of country . Some few of the graves have rudely constructed pickets around them , but with one exception, that of a highlander-there is no inclination as to whose mortal remains are there..." It was also Woolsey who referred further to " a few wooden crosses proclaim the departure of some whose lives were the claimed property of the Papacy" meaning the Catholic faith.

The Seafort Burial Site
In April of 1969 the Numac oil Company was digging a trench on their property which is adjacent to the Historic park on " an old terrace" of the North Saskatchewan River situated downstream and north west of the Chimneys . From this initial disruption of the earth with a bulldozer were recovered " the bones of an adolescent Indian girl and the beads from her moccasins and a leather dress".

Life and Death During the Fur trade

Mark Skinner
Subsequent archeological excavations have revealed portions of a burial site and assumed to be part of " the city of the dead" of Woolsey's time. This is considered the burial site used at the Hudson's Bay Fort site of 1835-1865. Following is a sketch indicating the position of the burial site in relation to current fort identifications.

The burial site is situated 3/16 of a mile from the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River and 3/4 of a mile from the mouth of the Clearwater River

Skinner's map of the burial site includes " individuals of disparate racial backgrounds and quite possibly different tribal derivations. It also includes besides the location and orientation of the burials , a statement of age, sex, and possible racial origin where identifiable.

It s quite possible that the mix of people buried here is attributable to acculturation, assimilation and that these were Indian trappers in the employ of the Hudson's Bay company, manned by Europeans and maybe subject to their burial customs. The Reverend McDougall's description of a service in 1865 seems to confirm this.

Since coffins were used in the main to inter all the Indian bodies recovered from the site and since missionaries had visited the post during the period 1835-1870, namely Fathers DeSmet, Lacombe and Reverend Woolsey, It is quite possible that most of these Indians had accepted some form of Christianity.

THE TWO SKULLS

Mystery of Number 2A and 2B

These remains are indeed a mystery and their manner of dying is very inconclusive and open to conjecture They are buried together and the grave contains only two skulls! These skulls were enclosed in some form of leather bag or pouch or wrapped in a beaded cloth.

The question is why? And why would these skulls be buried together? Several possibilities are suggested by Skinner.

" Perhaps the skulls are from the platform burials of two plains Indians whose relatives thought they should be given a Christian burial." Skinner

Skinner does say that there is no evidence to support this conjecture although many of the settlers in the area as young children, remember visiting Indian Burial mounds in the vicinity of the Historic Park.

Medicine Bundle?

Schaeffer ( 1969) describes a "bundle" this way:

" A person who desired power from a spirit of the dead would retain a tooth, small bone or even the skull of a departed relative in the hope that the latter's ghost would become his tutelary ( mentor or guide)."

" Murderous Combat"

Another explanation , though less plausible, is recounted by W.F. Butler who refers to an incident that took place in 1859 near Rocky mountain House when two brothers, chiefs of a Blackfoot tribe, who traded at the fort were involved in " murderous combat"

"..At the foot of the Clearwater River, half a mile from the fort , a small clump of old pine trees stands on the north side of the stream. A few years ago ( 1859) a large band of Blood Indians camped round this clump of pines during a trading expedition to the Mountain House. They were under the leadership of two young chiefs, brothers.

One evening, a dispute about some trifling matter arose, words ran high, there was a flash of a scalping knife , a plunge and one brother reeled back with a fearful gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent and sat down silent and impassive...The wounded brother loaded his gun, and keeping the fatal wound closed together with one hand walked steadily to his brothers tent; pulling back the door casing, he placed the muzzle of his gun to the heart of his brother... and shot him dead and then fell lifeless besides his brother's body. They buried the two brothers in the same grave by the shadow of the dark trees... The reckoning of blood had been paid and the account closed...."

Butler 1868 The Great Lone Land

The remains of 2A and 2B are tentative. It is not impossible that they were the two Blackfoot males. There is a possibility that the bodies could have been disinterred sometime later , with only the skulls being buried in the " bundle" at the post which was in direct line of site and very close to the area described.

Another explanation

Father Albert Lacombe also had an altercation with Indians over the dismemberment of a young Blackfoot's body by a group of Plains Cree about two miles from the fort. William Gladstone, an employee at the fort during the years of Lacombe, confirms the incident this way :

" a few days afterwards, Father Lacombe, with his train of dogs, came to the fort and when told about the murder, was surprised and upset that nobody had taken the trouble to bury the body.

"What !" he cried. " There's a fort full of White men and no one can be found to do this act of charity. I will go myself and bury him!"
 

Of course we would not let Lacombe go alone so we brought the remains to the fort and buried them just outside the graveyard. It took us some time to find all the parts of the body...."

William Gladstone's Diary , XXII The Lethbridge Herald 1958
 

In addition Just forty years before and a few miles upstream from the first forts, a party of Bloods was ambushed by a Cree war party, killing 73 including the chiefs. Whatever the truth of 2A and 2B , it remains an unanswered puzzle.

The Seafort Burial site eventually was disinterred and removed to the site of the little cemetery near the present cairn within the National Historic Park.