On this date in 1867, the Fort Ransom military post was established. The fort stood atop Grizzly Bear Hill, also known as the Bears' Den which is now a ski slope near the present-day town of Fort Ransom.
Grizzly bears were once numerous in the Sheyenne River Valley, and not uncommon in the Pembina Hills, Red River Valley, and Turtle Mountain areas.
Fur trader Alexander Henry noted that "grizzly bears are to be seen in droves along the Sheyenne River." He wrote that a large grizzly was killed just a mile from his fort at Pembina, and included grizzly bear pelts in his trade inventory. He added: "Near Devils Lake they are very common - as common as the black bear is here and very malicious. On the banks of the Sheyenne River, they are also very numerous and seldom molested by the hunters... so there they breed and multiply in security."
Henry called the area "a veritable nursery" for grizzlies.
John Tanner, the white captive who traded at Pembina with his Native family recalled in his autobiography that one of their hunters was killed by a grizzly on the prairie near Pembina.
Another hunter was "well known throughout the territory" for a desperate encounter with three grizzlies on the plains west of Pembina. Henry Schoolcraft met him in Michigan and documented the story.
That hunter was Little Thunder, son of Chief Old Wild Rice, who appears in the Pembina fur trade journals of both Alexander Henry and Charles Chaboillez.
While hunting buffalo west of Pembina with a Red River cart train of Chippewa and Métis, Little Thunder was away from camp on foot when he was charged by three grizzlies: a mother and her yearlings.
He managed to kill the sow but was severely mauled. The yearlings continued to attack until he lost consciousness. A search party later found him walking back to camp, so badly shredded that they were left speechless. They summoned a priest.
Expected to die within the hour, Little Thunder refused emergency baptism and last rites. According to his great-grandson, tribal historian Pat Gourneau, Catholic converts afterward feared him as "a devil, a demon, a sorcerer, and a magician."
He doctored himself, but the attack left him so disfigured that his appearance frightened others for the rest of his life.
At age 56, Little Thunder converted to Christianity and was baptized Joseph Gurneau.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- New York: Francis P. Harper, 1897. Elliot Coues, Editor. New Light on the Early History of the Grater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry and of David Thompson, 1799-1814, Volume 1. The Red River of the North. Cambridge University Press Library Collection, Page 121 and 145.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1956. A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (U.S. Interpreter at Saut De Ste. Marie) During Thirty Years Residence Among the Indians in the Interior of North America. Prepared for the Press by Edwin James, M.D. Editor of an Account of Major Long's Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains.
- Pat Gourneau letters, 1956.
- Philadelphia: Lippincott, Gramblo and Co.,1851. Henry Row Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers: with brief notices of passing events, facts, and opinions, A.D. 1812 to A.D. 1842. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Gramblo and Co.,1851.
