After the New Year had come, all thoughts were directed to preparations for the journey of 700 miles or thereabouts to the interior. A number of boats were required for transportation of the colonists and their effects. Captain Macdonell insisted on his boats being made after a different style from the boats commonly used at that time by the Company. His model was the flat boat, which he had seen used in the Mohawk River in the State of New York. The workmanship displayed in the making of these boats very much dissatisfied Captain Macdonell, and he constantly complained of the indolence of the workmen. In consequence of this inefficiency the cost of the boats to Lord Selkirk was very great, and drew forth the objections of the leader of the colony. Captain Macdonell had the active assistance of Mr. Cook, the officer in charge of York, and of Mr. Auld, the Commander of Churchill, the latter having come down to York to make arrangements for the inland journey of the colonists. By July 1st, 1812, the ice had moved from the river, and the expedition started soon after on the journey to Red River. The new settlers found the route a hard and trying one with its rapids and portages. The boats, too, were heavy, and the colonists inexperienced in managing them. It was well on toward autumn when the company, numbering about seventy, reached the Red River. No special preparation had been made for the colonists, and the winter would soon be upon them. Some of the parties were given shelter in the Company fort and buildings, others in the huts of the freed men, who were married to the Indian women, and settled in the neighbourhood of the Forks, while others still found refuge in the tents of the Indian encampment in the vicinity. Governor Macdonell soon selected Point Douglas as the future centre of the colony and what is now Kildonan as the settlement. On account of the want of food the settlers were taken sixty miles south to Pembina and there, by November, a post, called Fort Daer from one of Lord Selkirk's titles, was erected for the shelter of the people and for nearness to the buffalo herds. The Governor Joined the colony in a short time and retired with them early in 1813 to their settlement.