Pemmican
Pemmican, or Pemican, a preserved and condensed food used at one time by most North American Indians. It was commonly made of buffalo meat, cut into thin strips and dried in the sun. (It could also be made from other kinds of meat and from fish.) The dried meat, called jerky, was pounded to a powdery mass, and sometimes flavored with choke cherries or June berries. It was stuffed into bags of hide, into which melted fat was poured. Pemmican was used in winter and on long journeys; it would keep for several years.
Pemmican was also used by early trappers. It was so important to them that a minor war, the so-called Pemmican War, was fought over it in Canada in 1814–16. The fighting occurred after the Earl of Selkirk, head of the Hudson's Bay Company, established the Red River settlement (in Manitoba), directly across the rival North West Company's supply route. In more recent times, pemmican has been produced commercially for Arctic explorers and outdoorsmen.