go to ND gov home page

Gingras Trading Post - History

Antoine Gingras C0465

In 1851 Gingras joined the Red River and Pembina Outfit.  It was a coalition of free traders organized by Norman Kittson.

Gingras owned trading stores and dwellings at Pembina and St. Joseph and near the Souris River. His personal assets were worth $60,000, according to the Dakota Territory census of 1861. Gingras’s trading relations grew through the years. In 1862 he traded weasel pelts from Fort Garry for Mandan ponies at Fort Berthold (on the Missouri River in western Dakota Territory).

Gingras made $15,000 in 1863. Along with Pascal Breland, he led a Red River cart train from Winnipeg to St. Paul.

In 1864 Reverend J.A. Gilfillan traveled with Gingras’s Red River cart brigade from Winnipeg to Fort Abercrombie. He observed the following:

“I made arrangements with Antoine Gingras, a prominent half-breed trader....He was a large, fat, jolly man. I remember he was continually singing one song on the way, the tune of which I remember perfectly well to this day.....as well as some of the words....though they were in French, of which I did not understand a word....Hearing it so incessantly, as I generally traveled with Mr. Gingras, that song, to use a modern expression, “got on my nerves.”

In 1872 and 1873 the Northern Boundary Survey parties purchased pork and other supplies from the Gingras store in St. Joseph. With the disappearance of the buffalo herds, pemmican was no longer available, so Gingras raised pigs as a supply of meat for his trading operations.

In 1873 Gingras helped charter the city of Winnipeg, and served on the Winnipeg Board of Trade.

Gingras died on September 28, 1877. His will named Bishop Tache as guardian for his children who had not yet reached the age of 21. Throughout his life, Gingras was noted for his generous contributions to St. Boniface and the Catholic churches at St. Joseph and Pembina.

Hours:
May 16 through September 15, 10 am - 5 pm daily (CDT)

Contact Us:
(701) 549-2775
shspembina@nd.gov
10534 129th Ave NE
Walhalla, ND 58282