The Night of the Buffalo

My grandfather, Piotr Bryski, was born in 1867, the year Canada became a country. He served in the army of Franz Joseph the First as a conscript. He returned home to his family and was successful at his job in a brewery plus he farmed a small amount of land. Because he was from a large family of mainly brothers, the share of land he had received upon his father's death, was barely enough from which to scratch out a living. He saved his money from the brewery and in 1899, he emigrated to Canada with his family which consisted of his pregnant wife and 5 young children. They came to the end of their journey in Saltcoats in the District of Saskatchewan in the Northwest Territories. With a few other Polish families they headed out cross country with their team of newly purchased oxen and wagon and supplies to last them a winter. 30 kilometres later they arrived at the quarter section of land that they had purchased from the Canadian government for the magnificent sum of $10 and which they were going to homestead.Then they literally dug in for the winter.
My Aunt Susan recounted how they survived that first year in this rich yet seemingly inhospitable land. They dug a large hole into the side of a hill beside what was then a large pond on a creek with slowly moving water that was on its way to the Assiniboine River about 12 miles away. Over this hole they built a slightly slanted roof with poplar saplings. Over the saplings, they laid sod which they had hacked out of the surrounding prairie. There were no windows and the door consisted of a large square of canvas. 
Cooking was done over an outdoor fire-pit. This consisted of two forked sticks supporting a horizontal pole from which a cooking pot or a kettle was suspended over an open fire.
Bread was made from the lowest and cheapest grade of flour purchased from the Dominion government. It was a sourdough bread made by leaving some dough from the previous batch to act as yeast in the next batch. Bread was baked as "pliatsky" or dough which had been flattened and baked on flat stones placed in the fire.
Prairie chickens and rabbits provided meat. Rabbits were caught with conventional snares placed along traveled paths while horsehair snares were used to catch prairie chickens. A series of nooses were strung together and feed placed around them. As the birds fed, they would put their feet in these loops, tightening the nooses as they walked around. A large number could be caught at one time. Piotr's muzzle loader also helped to provide food for the table, a table made of roughly hewn poplar poles.
One day in late fall there had been a slight snow fall. According to Aunt Susan, so the family legend goes, the family was having their evening meal around the table which was lit by a coal-oil or kerosene lamp. Suddenly they heard the sounds of something very large moving overhead on their sod covered roof.  There was a crash as wood splinters and pieces of sod rained down onto the table followed by the sudden appearance of a large leg with a split hoof. The leg thrashed and then just as suddenly was drawn back up through the hole in the roof.
My grandfather quickly grabbed his muzzleloader and proceeded to load it. It was always unloaded because of the presence of young children in the dugout home. By the time he loaded it and got his warm coat on and had lit a lantern, several minutes had passed. He knew that what had been on the roof was a prairie bison or buffalo, some of whom were still left on the prairies, and that it was roaming the area, foraging and probably seeking water in the nearby slough. If he could shoot this large animal, he and his family and many other families would have a large supply of hard to get meat for the winter.
He ventured out with his lamp and his muzzleloader and found the trail of the buffalo which indeed did lead to the still unfrozen slough. But it was gone, probably spooked by the break-through on the roof and by the screams of the young children from below. It had probably swum across the slough and went on its way. Because there was only one set of large hoof prints, Piotr surmised it was either an old bull or else a large yearling that had somehow become separated from the others during the snow fall.
For many weeks and indeed, many years after, the family would recall with great amusement about the unexpected guest who almost "dropped in" for dinner.