South Peace Historical Society

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  • Table of Contents

    • Part 1: First Nations of the Peace River Region
    • Part 2: The Fur Trade Era
    • Part 3: Transportation and Communication
    • Part 4: Old Timers and the Price of Land
    • Part 5: Dawson Creek: The Story of the Community
    • Part 6: Mysteries, Adventures and Indian Legends
    • Part 7: Arts, Crafts and Recreation
    • Part 8: Agriculture
    • Part 9: Church Histories
    • Part 10: Schools
    • Part 11: Health Care
    • Part 12: Industries and Enterprises
    • Part 13: Policing the Peace
    • Part 14: Pouce Coupe, Rolla, and Other South Peace Communities
    • Part 15: Chetwynd and the Fort St. John Area
    • Part 16: The Alberta Peace
    • Part 17: Natural History of the Peace River Region
    • Part 18: Interviews with Old Timers
    • Part 19: Remembering Our Veterans

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01-111: Indian Medicines

 
By Dorthea Calverley
 
The natives of the Peace River area had access to various medicinal salts from ancient times, but little of the lore concerning their use has reached this historian. Mrs. Caroline Beaudry, the Cree medicine woman of Dawson Creek, remembered being sent by her grandmother on a long horseback journey from Lesser Slave Mission to the Smoky River to collect various coloured crystals when she was about twelve years old. She did not disclose their use. However, Report No. 121 of the Research Council of Alberta, Geological Survey Division (1930), suggests what she may have been seeking.

The Smoky and Little Smoky Rivers, tributaries of the Peace, got their name from certain phenomena along their steep, eroded banks. At certain places, “smokes” arose from the soil and incrustations of salts formed on earth disturbed by slides. Sometimes the earth would be too hot to touch with the naked hand. Mention of these occurrences was made by the geologists, A. C. R. Selwyn and Dr. George Dawson in their reports for the years 1875 and 1879 respectively. They were explained in the above mentioned University of Alberta report of 1930, pages 52-54, as follows:

The area is underlain by the St. John formation shale which contain iron sulfide nodules which, (on exposure in slides in eroded valleys,) “oxidize and causes spontaneous combustion and visible smoke”. Water leaches the resulting salts out to form incrustations and sometimes large crystals of soluble materials, accompanied by visible “smokes” or vapors enough to fill the valleys in cold weather.

Analysis of the salts shows oxides of selenium, aluminum, iron calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and potassium. They are variously coloured: white, light yellow, or light red. Some were said to be related to the alums.

As medicines, they would have varying characteristics, producing laxative, costive, astringent, antiseptic, or caustic effects. A pharmacist, knowing their chemical components, might suggest the uses the natives might have made of them. At this time we have not yet made such inquiries. The presence of sal ammoniac and sulfur might suggest uses to physicians or veterinarians.

Another remedy still used for headache or other pains is an infusion of the bark of native willow or, less often, poplar bark. These two trees are the members of the Salicaccae family so named for the bitter, crystalline principle, salicin, in their bark. “Salicylite” is the active ingredient in “aspirin”.

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01-112: The Fur Traders and the Indians »

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