Pemmican

a sort of food prepared by the northern Indians. Meat, chiefly that of the buffalo, was cut into bits and boiled into shreds. It was then seasoned with berries, flooded with the boiling fat of the animal, and sealed up in skin bags. This highly nutritious condensed food was taken on long journeys. It was a staple article of diet among the Indians of the Northwest, the trappers, Red River voyageurs and the drivers of the creaking trains of fur-laden Red River carts on their annual trip from Manitoba to St. Paul. Pemmican is prepared still by the Eskimo Indian. He dries his strips of musk ox, seal, venison, bear's meat, or any kind of game, then pounds it into shreds and packs it in boiling fat in skin sacks. Pemmican prepared in this way keeps indefinitely. These sacks of pemmican are the standard food on long journeys. A chunk of frozen pemmican and a can of hot tea form the regular meal of an Arctic explorer.