Part 3 (omitted from the text-only and some portable reader versions)

is a set of digital images of the manuscript made from photocopies provided by the Toronto Reference Library, the holder of the Nelson papers. The size of the images is reduced to make them suitable for on-line use; resolution is kept adequate for direct comparison with the transcription.

An added table of contents provides links (in the hypertext versions) to sections or pages in each of the three parts. Page numbering preserves that of the manuscript for reference purposes.

Certain sections of the this e-text may display poorly on some e-book readers: (1) References to World Wide Web resources may be longer than can be contained on normally formatted lines. To simplify correct copying of the references, the lines have not been split. (2) In Part 2, the line by line transcription of the handwritten manuscript, Nelson sometimes made additions or corrections increasing the number of words on a line of text. The length of the transcribed text line was increased to maintain the line correspondence between the manuscript and the e-text.

The Nelson manuscript was made available courtesy of the Toronto Public Library. I would like to thank the staff of the Baldwin Room Manuscripts Collection at Toronto Reference Library for their assistance in making the material available for digitization. I would also like to express thanks to my wife, Susan O'Donovan, for the hours spent proofing text and clarifying many fine details of the language.

I HEAR THE SPIRIT SPEAKING TO US [Transcription of an Objibwa song scroll]

I hear the spirit speaking to us. I am going into the medicine lodge. I am taking (gathering) medicine to make me live. I give you medicine, and a lodge, also. I am flying into my lodge. The Spirit has dropped medicine from the sky where we can get it. I have the medicine in my heart.

Midē Song Scroll. Collection and translation by W. H. Hoffman, 1885-1886. _The Midē´wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa_ Project Gutenberg E-book #19368.

GEORGE NELSON'S FUR TRADING WORLD [Transcriber's Note: Western North America Map: Lake Superior to Alberta]

George Nelson's Postings and Employing Companies

1802/1803 Yellow River (Fort Folle Avoine), Wisconsin, XY Company (XYC) 1803/1804 Lac du Flambeau, Chippewa River, Wisconsin, XYC 1804/1805 Red River area, Manitoba, XYC / North West Company (NWC) 1805/1806 Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, NWC 1806/1811 Dauphin River, Manitoba, NWC 1811/1812 Tête au Brochet (Jack Head), Manitoba, NWC 1813/1816 Long Lake, Ontario area, NWC 1818/1819 Tête au Brochet, Manitoba, NWC 1819/1821 Moose Lake, Manitoba, NWC / Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) 1821/1822 Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, HBC 1822/1823 Lake la Ronge, Saskatchewan, HBC

Nelson's experiences and accounts come from his life and work with Ojibwa / Saulteau cultures around Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg and contact in his later career with the Cree of Lake Winnipeg, the Saskatchewan Delta, Cumberland House and Lake la Ronge. He makes reference to the Beaver Indians (Dane-zaa) who, until the nineteenth century, lived as far east as the Slave and Clearwater Rivers bringing them and other Athabaskan cultures into contact with fur trading at Ile à la Crosse, the administrative centre for Nelson's post at Lake la Ronge.

His journal of 1802/1803 was instrumental in leading to the rediscovery of the Folle Avoine posts of the XY Company and North West Company in 1969 by Harris and Frances Palmer with assistance of local residents. Subsequent archaeological work was undertaken and the forts were reconstructed and have been operated as the Forts Folle Avoine Historical Park by the Burnett County Historical Society since 1989. The Society provides tours, displays and programs on the fur trade and aboriginal culture of the area.

Nelson recalled many accounts of Ojibwa practices in the Lake Superior area in his 1823 La Ronge journal.

GEORGE NELSON'S FUR TRADING WORLD, 1822-23 [Transcriber's Note: Map of Lake La Ronge area]

Lake la Ronge was the site of some twenty trading posts dating from 1779. Nelson's Hudson's Bay Company post was a reestablishment in 1821 of an earlier North West Company post. According to _The Atlas of Saskatchewan_, it was the only fort on the Lake over the winter of 1822/1823. The location is likely a known archaeological site in the area shown on the map identified in the Atlas as Lac la Ronge II.

In 1947, the road network reached La Ronge townsite founded in the early 1900's, and Stanley Mission, which dates from 1851, in 1978.

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