Here is a memoir written by Richard Philip Ottewell in 1937 in which he recounts his “strangest Christmas”, that of 1869 when he was a prisoner of Louis Riel in Upper Fort Garry.

Richard Philip Ottewell was one of the very first settlers in Clover Bar. His life journey at times intertwined with well known events in Canada’s history. Some of his journey captured here in his own hand, and others have been gleaned from various written publications, including the community history book Cherished Memories, and also from historic research at a number of archives in the region.

 

Twenty-one-year old Ottewell had left the family home in Bruce County, Ontario the previous August to join a government survey party. The party was charged with surveying a road southeast from St. Boniface to the northwest corner of the state of Minnesota. In his memoir, Ottewell writes that the party was running a road to the northwest angle of Manitoba. As the province of Manitoba was not brought into existence until the next year, 1870, it appears that Ottewell simply made a slip, confusing Manitoba with Minnesota. He was, after all, 89 years of age when he composed his memoir.

How politically astute Ottewell was at the time of his incarceration is not known but perhaps can be surmised. After his arrival in St. Boniface the previous summer, he must have been aware of the unease amongst the Métis toward the Government of Canada and its intentions on their society and land claims. One suspects that as an Ontarian and a government employee Ottewell’s sympathies lay with the federal government and its designs on the west, and not with the local population and their fears.

By November 1869, the survey party was somewhere between St. Boniface and the border with the United States. It was in the early part of that month that Louis Riel emerged as the leader of the Métis, refusing William McDougall, the newly appointed lieutenant governor and a well known Canadian expansionist, entry into the Red River colony. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s neutrality—a good business and political move—emboldened Riel and his Métis followers to seize Upper Fort Garry on December 1, planning to use the Hudson’s Bay Company fort as a bargaining chip in what they hoped would be negotiations between Ottawa and Riel’s provisional government. Ottewell’s adventure began on December 6.

~

1937
Clover Bar Alta
This was written 22 Oct.

My Strangest Christmas

Tonight as I recline in my easy chair before the fireplace, my memory travels back to an extraordinary Christmas which I have witnessed. Never in my fifty-years of pioneering in the great west have I spent such a Christmas. From August to December 6, 1869, I was working on a Government highway between St. Boniface and the northwest angle, Manitoba. The foreman was Mr. Snow. Early in the morning of Dec. 6 a half-breed carrier who was sent by Governor William McDougall advised us to report for duty at Fort Garry as soon as possible.

So, six other men besides myself immediately set out. We made the journey in one and one half days. The weather was bitterly cold, snowy and I had the misfortune to freeze my big toes.

While we were crossing the Red River about seven p.m. Louis Reils [sic] soldiers stopped us with the command arretes [sic] – you are under arrest.

We were taken to Dr. Schultz [sic] residence which was formerly captured by the rebels. We had the pleasure of occupying that night Mr. Schultz [sic] bedroom. Next morning we were marched to Fort Garry as prisoners.

Here, we were held until January sixteenth 1870. At the time Fort Garry was the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay trading post. All free traders were permitted within one mile.

Our food in Fort Garry consisted of dry pemmican and water three times a day.

Christmas day dawned cold and gloomy. We did not lack company on this particular day as there were forty-five of us in a small room.

After a breakfast of pemmican we sang hymns, chatted about home folks and talked of our possible doom. As dinner time drew near we thought of the fat turkeys and puddings that would be gracing some tables in the past. We expected the usual fare but suddenly one of Reil’s [sic] men brought before us a steaming wash boiler of hot coffee, sugar, milk along with a clothes basket brimming with delicious buttered buns. This meal was kindly prepared by three Ladies, Mrs. Geo. Young, Mrs. C? and Mrs. Charles Major. They had received permission from Reil [sic] to make our Christmas much more cheerful. I will never forget that hot coffee. It [sic] was so refreshing and stimulating, the buns seem just to hit the right spot and this tasty meal gave us fresh courage as it let us know that some one [sic] was thinking of us and interesting themselves in our case. 

All afternoon we carried buckets of water from the Red River to the Fort for what good reason did not appear but I think to this day that the rebels made us carry it through sheer ugliness as Reil [sic] emptied each bucket of water on the ground as it came. However, that night as we went to bed on the usual damp floor we dreamed of the delicious Christmas dinner we enjoyed in Fort Garry.

Prisoner of Louis Reil [sic]
Signed by
RP Ottewell (age 89)
Oct 22, 1937

~

The prisoners languished another two-and-one-half weeks in their cell. On January 16, 1870, Riel gave the prisoners a choice: to take the oath of allegiance to his provisional government or to leave the colony within six hours, on pain of execution. In the company of two others who refused to take Riel’s oath, Ottewell hastened from the colony, heading southeast. The trip was brutal. The temperatures hovered around -40˚ F/C and howling blizzards dogged their escape. Nevertheless, it took the men only nine days to reach Fort Abercrombie in the Dakota Territory. Their story caught the attention of American railway magnate, J.J. Hill, who took “the refugees”, he called the three men, to St. Cloud, Minnesota and hence to Duluth.

Ottewell later returned to the Red River colony. Upon hearing of an expeditionary force being formed under the command of Col. Wolsley to deal with Riel’s upstart provisional government, Ottewell returned to Canada to join. While Ottewell had been in the United States, Riel had crossed a line. He had made a critical misjudgment by executing Thomas Scott in February. Canadianists were determined the Métis leader would answer for Scott’s execution. Ottewell may have been disappointed, though. As Wolsley’s militia approached, Riel and his followers slipped out of the colony to seek refuge in the United States.

Ottewell returned to his family home in Bruce County on the north shore of Lake Superior. For the next 10 years, R.P., as he later became known, worked in the sawmills and mines there, work experience that would serve him well later in his life. In 1877, he met and married Frances (Fannie) Trevillion. By the time two children, William and Ella, had been born in quick succession, R.P. was feeling restless. The lure of the west, now supposedly free of its former political tensions, was re-ignited, and R.P. left his family in the care of Fannie’s parents to move west in search of suitable farmland. A keg of Red Fife wheat seed was packed among his few belongings as he and friends Thomas Jackson, William Carscaden and Ed Langrell joined freighters heading to Edmonton in the spring of 1881.