Diversified economies provided relative economic security for a number of
Indian bands during the early reserve transition era ( 1870-1914). For sev-
eral decades, Indians from around lakes Winnipeg, Manitoba, St. Martin,
and Winnipegosis were active participants in a rapidly changing economy --
an economy quite different from the fur trade regime. Wage labour and a
wide variety of subsistence and commercial resources combined to create
remarkably flexible and innovative approaches to providing for family needs.
Specialization developed among bands within the region and between mem-
bers of the same band. Indian participation in commercial fishing, lumber-
ing, and wage labour was not welcomed by the Hudson's Bay Company
since its monopoly over Indian labour power was eroded. Similarly, the
Department of Indian Affairs was ambivalent about Indian involvement in
the booming regional economy. Although diversified incomes meant that
the department was spared the expense of rations and relief, policies tended
to stress isolation of Indians and reserve agriculture.

In the post- 1870 period, involvement in commercial fishing, lumbering,
and reserve agriculture were not the only changes in the Native economy. A
variety of other activities (farm labour, commercialized gathering, and wage
labour) represented a further diversification of the Native economy. Indian
Agent Swinford described the diversity and security in the Manitowapah
agency:

A lot of money is earned by the Indians of all the reserves at fishing during
the winter, there is also a good deal earned at hunting, trapping, digging
seneca root, picking berries and working as boatmen on the lakes. Many of
them work for settlers during haying, harvest and threshing time; others work
at the sawmill at Winnipegosis, and in the lumber woods, and this year a

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