We are glad you joined us for more adventures on the Whoop-Up Trail. The Whoop-Up Trail, also known as the Macleod-Benton Trail, was a wagon road that connected Fort Benton, Montana to Fort Hamilton in Alberta. It stretched from Fort Benton towards Conrad through Power and Dutton, over the Marias River, through Whiskey Gap west of Sweet Grass, across the Canadian Line into Alberta to Fort Whoop-Up along the St Mary’s River and on to Fort Kipp. The trail was initially a trade route between Montana and the southern region of Alberta, then known as Rupert’s Land and was originally controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
(When we last left the story, Kipp had bluffed the marshal and was headin north to Canada with his load of ‘high-proof alcohol’.) Other versions of the story feature Kipp as using a gun to intimidate the marshal but according to Charles Thomas’ story as told to his daughter, there was no gun play just jesting and confident laughter as well as determined argument.
Kipp went on north to the Belly River and where he built Fort Standoff on the Canadian side of the trail and named it afterwards in honor of his triumph over the marshal. While building the fort the teams were kept busy hauling trade goods and provisions from Fort Benton. The place where the teams crossed the Milk River became known as Slide-Out Crossing. When winter came there was a big camp of Piegans, Bloods and Blackfeet around the fort.
The building of Fort Standoff really opened Canada to the American traders. In the spring when Kipp and Thomas came back to Fort Benton with huge loads of fur and hides, the Fort Benton traders, who had been having a rather dull time because of the presence of the marshal, immediately took out for Canada to cut themselves in on the rich Blackfeet trade. Healy led a group of these traders over the trail that spring and by fall many of them had decided to stay in the north that winter for the trapping and trading.
The Hudson Bay factors were not pleased about this and planned to attack Fort Standoff and clean it out. There had been trouble with the Hudson Bay dwellers in years past. A few years prior to the construction of Fort Kipp, residents of Fort Edmonton planned a raid on Fort Benton and failed only because the Piegans warned women of their tribe who were living at Fort Benton with white men, to get out before the attack. The women of course told their men and the plan miscarried.
As a result of this planned raid on Fort Benton, Thomas and Kipp bought a large bull train and wagons enough to haul huge loads. They left Fort Standoff, went on to the junction of the Belly and Old Man River and built Fort Kipp. They did not fortify this post, merely built rough log houses around three sides of the square without not even a stockade on the fourth side. The trade went merrily on there for several years. In fact, Mrs. Ingram says that her father’s last trip was made in 1900 and by that time many Mormons had settled in the McLeod country.
One trip that she particularly remembers is an example of the difficulties that are to be met on the trail. Her father had loaded one of his wagons with green brooms for trade. No brooms were to be had in the North Country before that time and he expected to make a nice profit on this novelty.
A few miles north of the line a howling blizzard hit the train. They could see nothing at all so they were obliged to unyoke and make camp. The storm lasted three days and there was so much snow that there was no feed at all for the oxen. Her father was obliged to feed the load of green brooms in order that his cattle would have the strength to take the wagons on to Fort McLeod.
She also told one version of the story of Medicine Rock. Medicine Rock was a marker on the Fort Whoop-Up trail, but before that it was a sort of shrine on the Indian Narrow Ridge Trail, which formed a stretch of the trader’s route that later became the Whoop-Up.
The Blackfeet did a lot of traveling back and forth on this Narrow Ridge Trail on hunting, expeditions, or when raiding neighboring tribes or traders’ camps. On one such raiding party two survivors were returning north. They hadn’t eaten for a long time and one of the Indians killed a rattlesnake, dressed it to eat, cooked and ate the snake. In the morning he was very ill and could not continue the journey. He knew he was dying so he asked his friend to bury him, cover him with sage and tell his father what had happened. He also told his friend to come back for him in the spring.
In the spring the friend and father of the dead warrior took a party and went to look for the body to give it a ceremonial burial. They found the grave but there were no bones there, only this huge red rock. The next morning the friend looked toward the rock and saw an Indian standing there.
He awoke the others and they too saw the Indian. The rock was gone. They went the short distance to the place to see what Indian it was, but when they reached the site only the red rock was there. The party decided that what they had seen was the spirit of the dead man and the rock was his symbol so they prayed to the rock to give them the strength and success to conquer their enemies.
They made offerings to the rock and often in later years the grounds were covered with the remains of offerings of food, arrows, pelts, etc. Even after the Blackfeet had accepted Christianity, they would still place offerings at the base of the big red sandstone rock.
This rock, still known as Medicine Rock, is part-way up the steep hill on the north bank of the Marias River about five miles from Conrad. George B Grinnell wrote about it in an article published in 1890. Fort Conrad was at the mouth of the Belly River about three miles from Fort Kipp. It was not really a fort but a small trading post. It was named for Charles Conrad, later owner of the Circle Ranch near Conrad. The Circle Ranch also had a branch outfit on the Little Bow River in Canada. Fort Conrad was built about a month after Kipp in 1872.
The Hudson’s Bay Company alarmed at the amount of fur they were losing to these posts finally persuaded the Dominion Government to help them. A large detachment of Mounted Police was sent west from Winnipeg in 1874. After that the whiskey trade no longer flourished on the north side of the line.
It was Kipp’s invasion of the North Country that led to the westward movement of the Mounties and brought law to western Canada. Then came the railroad and settlers and by 1876 there were few buffalo left north of the line.
Kipp and Thomas had not stocked up for the winter when the Mounties showed up. They knew that the trade would die out so they both came down to Montana and took up ranching. Thomas ran a few cattle and freighted smaller and smaller loads to McLeod. They dissolved the partnership in 1877. Kipp traded with the Blackfeet until the buffalo disappeared from the prairie. He died at Browning in 1913. Thomas lived until 1917 and died on the ranch near Cut Bank.
The Whoop-Up Trail was about two hundred miles in length or about eight days travel with wagons and horses, slightly longer with oxen. The chief trade goods, besides whiskey, were flour, guns, calico, traps, sugar, salt, and tea. The chief obstacles were dry seasons when the water holes were far between; wet seasons when the wagons mired in the ‘dobe mud; occasional brushes with hostile Indians; and buffalo stampedes.
Mrs. Ingram recalls that the buffalo would stampede easily and run blindly with their noses to the ground trampling any object in their path if it were small or stumbling and piling up over any large obstruction. When a buffalo stampede threatened, her father used to unyoke the oxen and space the wagons a distance apart with a team of oxen behind each oxen. An obstruction of this size would cause the herd to split like a river splitting around a rock in its force and in this way she remembers they endured several stampedes.
The Indians for the most part were friendly. A stray band of Sioux sometimes alarmed them, but there was never any serious trouble of that sort when she made the trips.”
Today the roads follow the general course of the Whoop-Up Trail. Most have little notion of the history that surrounds them as they pass through a region of seemingly endless grasslands and wheat fields. With a little imagination, though, one can visualize the lumbering freight wagons and hear the drivers’ yells and cracking whips as they made their way north toward one of the trading posts along the Whoop-Up Trail.
Now find your Whoop-Up Trail to the Library’s book sale October 8 and 9. And If you missed the Whoop-Up Trail on Sunday, you missed a fabulous time and food. Thank to all who donated, volunteered, brought food, and who showed up to eat. It was a great time to be had by all. The Wedsworth Library and Trust really appreciates all the support this community has shown us. What a great community. Thank you once again.