The most esteemed fruit of the country however is the produce of the Aronia ovalis.  Under the name of meesasscootoomena it is a favourite dish at most of the Indian feasts and, mixed with pemmican, it renders that greasy food actually palatable.  A great variety of currants and gooseberries are also mentioned by the natives under the name of sappoommeena but we only found three species in the neighbourhood of Cumberland House.  The strawberry, called by the Crees oteimeena, or heart-berry, is found in abundance and rasps are common on the sandy banks of the rivers.  The fruits hitherto mentioned fall in the autumn but the following berries remained hanging on the bushes in the spring and are considered as much mellowed by exposure to the colds in winter.  The red whortleberry (Vaccinium vitis idea) is found everywhere but is most abundant in rocky places.  It is aptly termed by the Crees weesawgummeena, sour-berry.  The common cranberry (Oxycoccos palustris) is distinguished from the preceding by its growing on moist sphagnous spots and is hence called maskoegomeena, swamp-berry.  The American guelder rose whose fruit so strongly resembles the cranberry is also common.  There are two kinds of it (Viburnum oxycoccos and edule) one termed by the natives peepoonmeena, winter-berry, and the other mongsoameena, moose-berry.  There is also a berry of a bluish white colour, the produce of the white cornel tree, which is named musquameena, bear-berry, because these animals are said to fatten on it.  The dwarf Canadian cornel bears a corymb of red berries which are highly ornamental to the woods throughout the country but are not otherwise worthy of notice for they have an insipid farinaceous taste and are seldom gathered.

The Crees extract some beautiful colours from several of their native vegetables.  They dye their porcupine quills a beautiful scarlet with the roots of two species of bed-straw (Galium tinctorium and boreale) which they indiscriminately term sawoyan.  The roots, after being carefully washed, are boiled gently in a clean copper kettle, and a quantity of the juice of the moose-berry, strawberry, cranberry, or arctic raspberry, is added together with a few red tufts of pistils of the larch.  The porcupine quills are plunged into the liquor before it becomes quite cold and are soon tinged of a beautiful scarlet.  The process sometimes fails and produces only a dirty brown, a circumstance which ought probably to be ascribed to the use of an undue quantity of acid.  They dye black with an ink made of elder bark and a little bog-iron-ore, dried and pounded, and they have various modes of producing yellow.  The deepest colour is obtained from the dried root of a plant which from their description appears to be cowbane (Cicuta virosa).  An inferior colour is obtained from the bruised buds of the Dutch myrtle and they have discovered methods of dyeing with various lichens.

The quadrupeds that are hunted for food in this part of the country are the moose and the reindeer, the former termed by the Crees mongsoa, or moosoa, the latter attekh.  The buffalo or bison (moostoosh) the red-deer or American stag (wawaskeeshoo) the apeesee-mongsoos, or jumping deer, the kinwaithoos, or long-tailed deer, and the apistat-chaekoos, a species of antelope; animals that frequent the plains above the forks of the Saskatchewan are not found in the neighbourhood of Cumberland House.