The Wainwright Star WAINWRIGHT, ALBERTA   THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20th, 1910.

He Hunted Buffaloes

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Real Old "Runner" Tells of Early Days

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On the St. Boniface Side of the Red River Lives Antoine Vermette, Once a Famous Hunter of the Plains, Now a Hale Old Man of Seventy-Six

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Whole Prairie Covered With Buffalo

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Take to the open, winding road that follows the St. Boniface side of the Red River away to the south from Winnipeg and you will find peace, and calm and contentment. Before you have passed two miles along the smooth earth trail with its wooded borders, and its quaint old-fashioned market gardens on either side, you will have entered a strangely soothing atmosphere of quietness and equanimity. Behind you is the tangled web of city strife, the rush, the roar, the clangor and the smoke; before you the brown road and the country side that breathes out in its subdued sounds and colors the sentiment, “Wait awhile and rest, the day is long.”;

When you have passed beyond the two miles you enter a hidden world of historic interest, for in the early part of the century and until the eighties this was the trail that led to the outside world, via St. Paul. Along this road the pioneer French settlers squatted and hewed out a clearing in the bush behind their homes, and it was on their behalf that Riel took the field. Here the Red River carts hauled by oxen were driven to the south by the freighters, and returned laden with supplies; here the first governor of Western Canada passed on his way to Fort Garry, and here passed the railroad builders, the mounted police, and many of the men who were to become the pioneer merchants of Winnipeg. Along the river steamboats plied to and fro between Grand Forks and Winnipeg.

Seven miles along the trail where the river makes a deep bend, lives Antoine Vermette, and if you should enquire for him among the neighbors, they would say, “O yes, Antoine Vermette, the buffalo runner,” before directing you to his home. His reputation as one of the greatest hunters of the plains has stuck with him through the lapse of seasons. For forty-seven years he has lived in the same log house on the high bank of the river and cut out with his axe one hundred acres of forest. He did not touch a tree on what is probably the most beautiful point along the Red River, not excepting Elm Park. When you ask him the reason of this he will say, "Why should I, is it not beautiful?”

Antoine Vermette is a living exponent of the much maligned simple life. He is seventy-six years of age, and is still erect and strong as a man in his forties. His father lived on one of the adjoining farms, and only died recently at the great age of 104 years.

In the quiet of a Sabbath afternoon Antoine sat on a venerable old rocker beneath the single sunny window of his whitewashed kitchen, and told a vivid and graphic story of his early life when for ten years he earned his living as a buffalo runner. This was in the early sixties, so that his memory spanned half a century in the telling of the narrative. He spoke imperfect English, and the truthfulness of his asstertions was borne out by the minute details with which he surrounded every circumstance. In a manner characteristic of the French people, his voice quickened and his eyes flashed as he reached the points of spectacular action in his story. He illustrated his remarks by a movement of the arms.

“I have seen the whole prairie covered with buffalo,” he said by way of introduction, “and I have ridden after them and killed them on ponies better than the fastest ones you have at the races in Winnipeg at exhibition time. I did that for ten years, and in those days I was like iron. Now the buffalo are almost extinct and I am sorry. To us at that time there seemed to be millions of buffalo running wild on the prairie, and they seemed to increase. We thought they would never give out.

“Our horses would get just as excited and wild as we would to run after the buffalo. We could hardly hold them back and they would act just like a wild dog. We had to wait for a signal from the chief of the party to let them out and by that time the blood would be dripping from their mouths through straining at the bit. They would lay their ears back and run with their necks outstretched and mouth open, keeping up the terrific pace for mile after mile. When we caught up with the buffalo herd which had been stampeded with fear, we would drop some muzzle loaders and place a cap ready. We did not use any wadding, and supported the gun in an upright position from the saddle so that the powder could not run out.

“We always carried the lead bullets in our mouths, and as soon as we were ready to fire we dropped the wet slug down the barrel, where it stuck a little. Then we raced at breakneck speed until we were within a few feet of the buffalo. As there was nothing to protect the bullet from falling out of the barrel we had to throw our guns forward and shoot almost with one motion. It has happened that a man was a little slow in shooting and allowed the bullet to slide half way down the barrel before he pulled the trigger, then it occurred that the gun burst at the centre. We shot the shaggy buffalo through the heart, the ball entering at an angle from behind the shoulder. They would continue for perhaps twenty-five feet and then collapse in heap.”