It was Dickson who suggested to Lord Selkirk that he return to the Atlantic coast by way of the United States. In September 1817 at Fort Daer (Pembina) Dickson met the noble lord whom, with the help of a band of Sioux, he escorted to Prairie du Chien. During the trip Selkirk decided that the route through Illinois territory to Indiana and the eastern United States was the best route for goods from England to reach Red River and that the United States was a better source of supply for many goods than either Canada or England. Upon arriving at Baltimore, Selkirk on December 22 wrote to John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State at Washington, inquiring about laws covering trade with ``Missouri and Illinois Territories.'' This traffic, he declared prophetically, ``tho' it might be of small account at first, would increase with the progress of our Settlements.''

The route which he had traveled and which he believed might develop into a trade route was followed by his settlers earlier than he might have expected. In 1819 grasshoppers again destroyed the crop at ``the Forks'' (Fort Douglas) and in December 1819, twenty men left Fort Daer for the most northerly American outpost at Prairie du Chien. It was a three month journey in the dead of winter followed by three months of labor on Mackinac boats. With these completed and ice gone from the St. Peter's River (present-day Minnesota river) their 250 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels of oats and barley and 30 bushels of peas and some chickens were loaded onto the flat-bottomed boats and rowed up the river to Big Stone Lake, across into Lake Traverse, and down the Red. They reached Fort Douglas in June 1820. This epic effort to secure seed for the colony cost Selkirk 1040. Nevertheless so short was the supply of seed that the settlers were forced to retreat to Fort Daer for food. Thereafter seed and food became more plentiful and the colony remained in the north the year round.