North Dakota State College of Science - Agawasie Yearbook (Wahpeton, ND)

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The Small Pica Staff The Small Pica is a three column tour page paper published weekly. The Pica is set up and printed by the trade students in printing. Frederick Jones is the editor, Evelyn Burbank the associate editor. The rest of the staff and the departments they cover are as follows: Music Social Athletics Personals Exchange “The Hell Box- Hazel Burnson Harry Davis David Larin Marcella Morris Evelyn Stimson Angeline Schmitt

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A awasie Department Heads DAVID LARIN Editor Associate Editor ORIX MYHRE GORDON REEDER Business Manager IIARRY DAVIS Assistant Business Manager

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THE A G A W A S I E • . O- O Wa hp e ton A Story of Fur Trading in the Northwest -o I. SOUTH FROM PEMBINA Taking a brief glance this evening from the Science School tower, we look clown upon Sixth Street, broad, smoothly paved, leading through compact rows of houses into the center of town. Yonder is the roof of the Armory; to the right the trim outlines of the Post-office and the Great Northern station; to the left, rows of houses again—smoke from the railroad yards at Breckenridge—roofs of stores—church spires—a water tower—the white dome of the courthouse. Beyond and around are groves and farmlands. The fields are smooth, newly-planted. Farmlands again to the north, smooth also, newly ploughed, black. After Easter they will be richly carpeted with velvet green. New groves surround the houses. Toward the northeast we can trace the winding course of the river, with its narrow fringe or old trees. Across the river are farms again, prairie farms extending toward a dimly visible, blue range of hills. Can imagination bring us back one hundred years, back to a time when these groves—except the river-fringe—were not; when the houses were not; when the whole plain was a vast sea of tall waving grasses. Now and then a party of Indians, less often a few white fur-traders camping along the river, or penetrating adventurously inland. If you can bring yourself back to that time you may fill in the descriptive outlines which time does not permit us to include in our little story. Fort Pembina had long been known as the largest fur-trading post in the Northwest. There was a hut built there as early as 1799, made of logs, plastered with mud and white-washed with a clay brought from the Pembina Mountains. Trying under numerous difficulties to maintain the camp-fort at Pembina, there was a motley crew of adventurous traders—French. English, American. One of the foremost of these, settled at Pembina with his family, was an American whom we shall call John Vanston. Vanston, because he dealt justly with the Indians was well liked