The last census, taken in 1836, gave the population at 5,000 souls; it may now (1845) amount to 7,000.  Of this number a very small proportion is Scotch, about forty families, and perhaps 300 souls.  The Scotch carried with them the frugal and industrious habits of their country; the same qualities characterise their children, who are far in advance of their neighbours in all that constitutes the comforts of life.  These advantages they owe, under the blessing of Providence, to their own good management; yet, notwithstanding this, and notwithstanding that they are a quiet and a moral people, they are objects of envy and hatred to their hybrid neighbours; and thus my industrious and worthy countrymen, in the possession of almost every other blessing which they could desire, are still unhappy from the malice and ill-will they meet with on every side; and being so inferior in numbers, they must submit to the insults and abuse they are daily exposed to, while the blood boils in their veins to resent them.  Thus situated, many of them have abandoned the settlement and gone to the United States, where they enjoy the fruits of their industry in peace.

The French half-breeds and retired Canadian voyageurs occupy the upper part of the settlement.  The half-breeds are strongly attached to the roving life of the hunter; the greater part of them depend entirely on the chase for a living, and even the few who attend to farming take a trip to the plains, to feast on buffalo humps and marrow fat.  They sow their little patches of ground early in spring, and then set out for the chase, taking wives and children along with them, and leaving only the aged and infirm at home to attend to the crops.

When they set out for the plains, they observe all the order and regularity of a military march; officers being chosen for the enforcement of discipline, who are subject to the orders of a chief, whom they style “M. le Commandant.”  They take their departure from the settlement about the latter end of June, to the number of from 1,200 to 1,500 souls; each hunter possesses at least six carts, and some twelve; the whole number may amount to 5,000 carts.  Besides his riding nag and cart horses, he has also at least one buffalo runner, which he never mounts until he is about to charge the buffalo.  The “runner” is tended with all the care which the cavalier of old bestowed on his war steed; his housing and trappings are garnished with beads and porcupine quills, exhibiting all the skill which the hunter’s wife or belle can exercise; while head and tail display all the colours of the rainbow in the variety of ribbon attached to them.