The Metis trappers and traders in the western fur trade had to travel long distances to company headquarters in the east and they needed a food that would not spoil during the journey. Pemmican was the ideal food. Dried buffalo meat mixed with fat and wild berries became a commodity which the Metis sold to the fur trading companies. Buffalo hunting, which yielded the main ingredients for the easily-transported Pemmican, replaced trapping and fur trade activity as an important source of income for many Metis people.

When compared with foods such as domestic meats (beef, pork, mutton) and agricultural produce, the use of pemmican afforded certain advantages. First, since it was produced locally, the Company avoided the high cost of importing large quantities of foodstuffs from England and the Red River Settlement. Moreover, pemmican, in relation to its bulk, was more nutritious than the other foods available. This meant that the more profitable cargoes of the canoes and York boats (such as furs and trade goods) could be increased without sacrificing the nutritional quality and quantity of the provisions. The major advantage of using pemmican, however, was it would keep for years without going bad. Because pemmican can be kept for lenthy periods of time witout perishing, large amounts of this food were stored at various points along the river routes and at the northern posts to be used as the need arose. Finally, pemmican was a type of instant food: it did not require any preparation or cooking and was consequently ideal for the voyageurs.

The Metis involved in the buffalo hunts and Pemmican trade became known as free traders. They opened trade routes to St. Paul, Minnesota. Their Red River carts became the trademark of these freight trains, squealing their way along a variety of trails. The freighters treks south were family affairs similar to the buffalo hunts and provided much the same atmosphere for camaraderie to develop among its members as the magnificant buffalo hunts. Every driver was expected to handle several carts at once and thus tied each ox or horse to the cart ahead, allowing one man to drive as many as ten carts at a time. By 1856 trains of two to three hundred carts were busy transporting goods to and from St. Paul and the Red River area. These trains carried furs, pemmican, dried buffalo meat, moccasins and skin garments. On their return north they brought groceries, tobacco, liquor, dry goods, ammunition and farm implements, as well as luxury goods such as windows glass and even pianos.

Pemmican is a highly nutritious food that did not spoil and was compact and easy to carry on long trips. It was the first instant food in Canada. One pound was equal in food value to four pounds of fresh meat. The Red River Metis supplied the Hudson's Bay Company with buffalo products, especially pemmican. The Company, in turn, used these goods for the provisioning of its northern posts and York boat brigades. Although pemmican was not the only type of food used by the voyageurs who manned the brigades, it was, nonetheless the major item in their diet. No abetter food could be found to carry along with you. No fire was needed to prepare it for eating, a small amount would go a long way and it could be eaten for weeks at a time in order to sustain energy and health. It could be stored for times of famine as successfully in Manitoba as it could in Texas.

The Metis produced pemmican, dried meat and other buffalo products on a large scale. This involved a great deal of careful preparation and hard work. The meat, when taken to the hunter's camp, is cut up by the women into long strips about a quarter of an inch thick. The strips are hung upon a lattice-work of willow bows to dry. This lattice-work is formed of small bows interlaced and supported by wooden uprights. In a few days the meat is thoroughly desiccated, bent and broken into equal lengths, and tied into bundles of sixty or seventy pound weights for transport. This is called dried meat (viande seche). Other portions that are to be made into pemmican are exposed to heat from a fire. They become brittle and dry and are easily pounded into flakes and powder using a mortal and pestle. The dry powder is placed on a buffalo hide and hot melted fat, or tallow, is poured onto the pile of pounded meat. Paddles are used to work the mixture together then it is pressed, while still warm, into bags made of the buffalo skin about the size of a pillow case. The end of the bag was sewn shut. Before the contents became hard from cooling, it was walked upon to flatten it to about six or seven inches. A single sack or piece weighed close to ninety pounds. It was pieces such as these that were traded at forts and trading posts. Shaped in the flat rectangles, they could be placed across small logs or rocks in order to be kept up off of the damp ground. In forts they could be stacked and stored similar to cord wood which conserved space in the often small, establishments. Seed pemmican had the addition of wild cherries, saskatoon or buffalo berries added to the meat and fat mixture. While the addition of berries made the pemmican more palatable, they also increased the chance of spoilage. Encased in its rawhide bag, pemmican could last for many years, up to thirty have been reported.

As with any food prepared, it will taste according to its means of preparation. Some experienced good pemmican while others, bad. Those who tasted it after eating modern foods all their lives usually found it to be rather too much. Indian and Metis continue to make pemmican to this day, usually from moose or elk. I have tasted pemmican and found it very rich.

The Metis satisfied the needs for pemmican, dried meat, frozen meat, buffalo tongues and fat for the Canadian and American governments. Dried meat, pemmican, grease and buffalo tongues were key trade goods at Fort Edmonton. Provisions from Edmonton and the Saskatchewan District helped sustain brigades throughout the Hudson's Bay Company territory. In addition, provisions were often requested for special situations such as Arctic exploration parties and the military garrison at Red River in the 1840s. Oliver Hazard Peary, who discovered the North Pole, used pemmican on his arctic expeditions and stated it was the only food which could be eaten twice daily for a year and taste as good at the last bite as it did with the first. After a days long march he savored his half-pound ration of pemmican stating that "By the time I had finished the last morsel I would not have walked around the igloo for anything that chefs of the St. Regis, the Blackstone or the Palace Hotel could have put before me." In 1846, the Saskatchewan District supplied 1100 bags of pemmican weighing 90 pounds each, as well as an immense quantity of grease, dried meat (23,900 lbs) and buffalo tongues (6225 lbs.). Fort Edmonton assembled at least one third of this total.

The Metis dominated the huge enterprise of supplying first the NorthWest Company and after 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company with dried buffalo meat and pemmican: both of these were sold on a scale that would support the community for a year. In the 1850s and 1860s, the Metis battled the Cree in the Qu'Appelle Valley over the right to hunt buffalo. The Metis were successful and by the end of the 1860s they completely dominated the pemmican market to become the most important suppliers of that commodity for the Hudson's Bay Company. The Battle of Seven Oaks was one of many skirmishes on the Plains to control and regulate the trade of Pemmican. The buffalo hunt was an important element in shaping the Metis into a cohesive political and military unit.

The acceleration of changes to the way of life in the new world were to have a huge impact on the Metis way of life when the railroads began to replace the Metis trade routes. The next few years saw the decimation of the buffalo and the way of life of all Aboriginal people changed forever. Go on to learn about the waste and wanton slaughter of the North American buffalo.