"From Fort Garry, June 15th, 1840, the cavalcade and followers went crowding on to the public road, and thence, stretching from point to point, till the third day in the evening, when they reached Pembina (sixty miles south of Fort Garry), the great rendezvous on such occasions. When the hunters leave the settlement it enjoys that relief which a person feels on recovering from a long and painful sickness. Here, on a level plain, the whole patriarchal camp squatted down like pilgrims on a journey to the Holy Land in ancient days, only not quite so devout, for neither scrip nor staff were consecratedfor the occasion. Here the roll was called and general muster taken, when they numbered on this occasion 1,630 souls; and here the rules and regulations for the journey were finally settled. The officials for the trip were named and installed into office, and all without the aid of writing materials.
"The camp occupied as much ground as a modern city, and was formed in a circle. All the carts were placed side by side, the trams outward. Within this line of circumvallation, the tents were placed in double, treble rows, at one end, the animals at the other, in front of the tents. This is the order in all dangerous places, but where no danger is apprehended, the animals are kept on the outside. Thus the carts formed a strong barrier, not only for securing the people and their animals within, but as a place of shelter and defence against an attack of the enemy from without.
"There is another appendage belonging to the expedition, and these are not always the least noisy, viz. the dogs or camp followers. On the present occasion they numbered no fewer than 542. In deep snow, where horses cannot conveniently be used, dogs are very serviceable animals to the hunters in these parts. The half-breed, dressed in his wolf costume, tackles two or three sturdy curs into a flat sled, throws himself on it at full length, and gets among the buffalo unperceived. Here the bow and arrow play their part to prevent noise. And here the skilful hunter kills as many as he pleases, and returns to camp without disturbing the band.
"But now to the camp again—the largest of the kind, perhaps, in the world. The first step was to hold a council for the nomination of chiefs or officers for conducting the expedition. Ten captains were named, the senior on this occasion being Jean Baptiste Wilkie, an English half-breed, brought up among the French, a man of good sound sense and long experience, and withal a fine, bold-looking, and discreet fellow, a second Nimrod in his way.
"Besides being captain, in common with the others, he was styled the great war chief or head of the camp, and on all public occasions he occupied the place of president. All articles of property found without an owner were carried to him and he disposed of them by a crier, who went round the camp every evening, were it only an awl. Each captain had ten soldiers under his orders, in much the same way as policemen are subject to the magistrate. Ten guides were likewise appointed, and here we may remark that people in a rude state of society, unable either to read or write, are generally partial to the number ten. Their duties were to guide the camp each in his turn—that is day about—during the expedition. The camp flag belongs to the guide of the day; he is therefore standard bearer in virtue of his office.
"The hoisting of the flag every morning is the signal for raising camp. Half an hour is the full time allowed to prepare for the march; but if anyone is sick or their animals have strayed, notice is sent to the guide, who halts till all is made right. From the time the flag is hoisted, however, till the hour of camping arrives it is never taken down. The flag taken down is a signal for encamping. While it is up the guide is chief of the expedition. Captains are subject to him, and the soldiers of the day are his messengers; he commands all. The moment the flag is lowered his functions cease, and the captains' and soldiers' duties commence. They point out the order of the camp, and every cart as it arrives moves to its appointed place. This business usually occupies about the same time as raising camp in the morning; for everything moves with the regularity of clockwork.
"All being ready to leave Pembina, the captains and other chief men hold another council and lay down the rules to be observed during the expedition. Those made on the present occasion were:—
(1) No buffalo to be run on the Sabbath day.
(2) No party to fork off, lag behind, or go before, without permission.
(3) No person or party to run buffalo before the general order.
(4) Every captain with his men in turn to patrol the camp and keep guard.
(5) For the first trespass against these laws, the offender to have his saddle and bridle cut up.
(6) For the second offence the coat to be taken off the offender's back and to be cut up.
(7) For the third offence the offender to be flogged.
(8) Any person convicted of theft, even to the value of a sinew, to be brought to the middle of the camp, and the crier to call out his or her name three times, adding the word 'Thief' at each time.
"On the 21st the start was made, and the picturesque line of march soon stretched to the length of some five or six miles in the direction of south-west towards Côte à Pique. At 2 p.m. the flag was struck, as a signal for resting the animals. After a short interval it was hoisted again, and in a few minutes the whole line was in motion, and continued the route till five or six o'clock in the evening, when the flag was hauled down as a signal to encamp for the night. Distance travelled, twenty miles.
"The camp being formed, all the leading men, officials, and others assembled, as the general custom is, on some rising ground or eminence outside the ring, and there squatted themselves down, tailor-like, on the grass in a sort of council, each having his gun, his smoking bag in his hand, and his pipe in his mouth. In this situation the occurrences of the day were discussed, and the line of march for the morrow agreed upon. This little meeting was full of interest, and the fact struck me very forcibly that there is happiness and pleasure in the society of the most illiterate men, sympathetically if not intellectually inclined, as well as among the learned, and I must say I found less selfishness and more liberality among those ordinary men than I had been accustomed to find in higher circles. Their conversation was free, practical, and interesting, and the time passed on more agreeably than could be expected among such people, till we touched on politics.
"Of late years the field of chase has been far from Pembina, and the hunters do not so much as know in what direction they may find the buffalo, as these animals frequently shift their ground. It is a mere leap in the dark, whether at the outset the expedition takes the right or the wrong road; andtheir luck in the chase, of course, depends materially on the choice they make. The year of our narrative they travelled a south-west or middle course, being the one generally preferred, since it leads past most of the rivers near their sources, where they are easily crossed. The only inconvenience attending this choice is the scarcity of wood, which in a warm season is but a secondary consideration.
"Not to dwell on the ordinary routine of each day's journey, it was the ninth day from Pembina before we reached the Cheyenne River, distant only about 150 miles, and as yet we had not seen a single band of buffalo. On July 3rd, our nineteenth day from the settlement, and at a distance of little more than 250 miles, we came in sight of our destined hunting grounds, and on the day following we had our first buffalo race. Our array in the field must have been a grand and imposing one to those who had never seen the like before. No less than 400 huntsmen, all mounted, and anxiously waiting for the word 'Start!' took up their position in a line at one end of the camp, while Captain Wilkie, with his spyglass at his eye, surveyed the buffalo, examined the ground, and issued his orders. At eight o'clock the whole cavalcade broke ground, and made for the buffalo; first at a slow trot, then at a gallop, and lastly at full speed. Their advance was over a dead level, the plain having no hollow or shelter of any kind to conceal their approach. We need not answer any queries as to the feeling and anxiety of the camp on such an occasion. When the horsemen started the cattle might have been a mile and a half ahead, but they had approached to within four or five hundred yards before the bulls curved their tails or pawed the ground. In a moment more the herd took flight, and horse and rider are presently seen bursting in among them. Shots are heard, and all is smoke, dash, and hurry. The fattest are first singled out for slaughter, and in less time than we have occupied with the description, a thousand carcases strew the plain.
"The moment the animals take to flight the best runners dart forward in advance. At this moment a good horse is invaluable to his owner, for out of the 400 on this occasion, not above fifty got the first chance of the fat cows. A good horseand an experienced rider will select and kill from ten to twelve animals at one heat, while inferior horses are contented with two or three. But much depends on the nature of the ground. On this occasion the surface was rocky, and full of badger holes. Twenty-three horses and riders were at one moment sprawling on the ground. One horse, gored by a bull, was killed on the spot, two men disabled by the fall. One rider broke his shoulder blade; another burst his gun and lost three of his fingers by the accident; and a third was struck on the knee by an exhausted ball. These accidents will not be thought over-numerous considering the result; for in the evening no less than 1,375 buffalo tongues were brought into camp.
"The rider of a good horse seldom fires till within three or four yards of his object, and never misses. And, what is admirable in point of training, the moment the shot is fired his steed springs on one side to avoid stumbling over the animal, whereas an awkward and shy horse will not approach within ten or fifteen yards, consequently the rider has often to fire at random and not infrequently misses. Many of them, however, will fire at double that distance and make sure of every shot. The mouth is always full of balls; they load and fire at the gallop, and but seldom drop a mark, although some do to designate the animal.
"Of all the operations which mark the hunter's life and are essential to his ultimate success, the most perplexing, perhaps, is that of finding out and identifying the animals he kills during a race. Imagine 400 horsemen entering at full speed a herd of some thousands of buffalo, all in rapid motion. Riders in clouds of dust and volumes of smoke which darken the air, crossing and recrossing each other in every direction; shots on the right, on the left, behind, before, here, there, two, three, a dozen at a time, everywhere in close succession, at the same moment. Horses stumbling, riders falling, dead and wounded animals tumbling here and there, one over the other; and this zigzag and bewilderingmêléecontinued for an hour or more together in wild confusion. And yet, from practice, so keen is the eye, so correct the judgment, that after getting to the end of the race, he can not only tell the number ofanimals which he had shot down, but the position in which each lies—on the right or on the left side—the spot where the shot hit, and the direction of the ball; and also retrace his way, step by step, through the whole race and recognize every animal he had the fortune to kill, without the least hesitation or difficulty. To divine how this is accomplished bewilders the imagination.
"The main party arrived on the return journey at Pembina on August 17th, after a journey of two months and two days. In due time the settlement was reached, and the trip being a successful one, the returns on this occasion may be taken as a fair annual average. An approximation to the truth is all we can arrive at, however. Our estimate is nine hundred pounds weight of buffalo meat per cart, a thousand being considered the full load, which gives one million and eighty-nine thousand pounds in all, or something more than two hundred pounds weight for each individual, old and young, in the settlement. As soon as the expedition arrived, the Hudson's Bay Company, according to usual custom, issued a notice that it would take a certain specified quantity of provisions, not from each fellow that had been on the plains, but from each old and recognized hunter. The established price at this period for the three kinds over head, fat, pemmican, and dried meat, was two pence a pound. This was then the Company's standard price; but there is generally a market for all the fat they bring. During the years 1839, 1840, and 1841, the Company expended five thousand pounds on the purchase of plain provisions, of which the hunters got last year the sum of twelve hundred pounds, being rather more money than all the agricultural class obtained for their produce in the same year. It will be remembered that the Company's demand affords the only regular market or outlet in the Colony, and, as a matter of course, it is the first supplied."
Map of Labrador and the King's domainMAP OF LABRADOR AND THE KING'S DOMAINS.Click here for larger map
MAP OF LABRADOR AND THE KING'S DOMAINS.Click here for larger map
LIFE ON THE SHORES OF HUDSON BAY AND LABRADOR.
The bleak shores unprogressive—Now as at the beginning—York Factory—Description of Ballantyne—The weather—Summer comes with a rush—Picking up subsistence—The Indian trade—Inhospitable Labrador—Establishment of Ungava Bay—McLean at Fort Chimo—Herds of cariboo—Eskimo crafts—"Shadowy Tartarus"—The king's domains—Mingan—Mackenzie—The Gulf settlements—The Moravians—Their four missions—Rigolette, the chief trading post—A school for developing character—Chief Factor Donald A. Smith—Journeys along the coast—A barren shore.
Lifeon the shores of Hudson Bay is as unchangeable as the shores and scenery of the coast are monotonous. The swampy, treeless flats that surround the Bay simply change from the frozen, snow-clad expanse which stretches as far as the eye can see in winter, to the summer green of the unending grey willows and stunted shrubs that cover the swampy shores. For a few open months the green prevails, and then nature for eight months assumes her winding sheet of icy snow.
For two hundred and fifty years life has been as unvarying on these wastes as travellers tell us are the manners and customs of living of the Bedouins on their rocky Araby. No log shanties give way in a generation to the settler's house, and then to the comfortable, well-built stone or brick dwelling, which the fertile parts of America so readily permit. The accounts of McLean, Rae, Ryerson, and Ballantyne of the middle of the nineteenth century are precisely those of Robson, Ellis, or Hearne of the eighteenth century, or indeed practically those of the early years of the Company in the seventeenth century.
The ships sail from Gravesend on the Thames with the same ceremonies, with the visit and dinner of the committee of thedirectors, the "great guns," as the sailors call them, as they have done for two centuries and a quarter, from the days of Zachariah Gillam and Pierre Esprit Radisson. No more settlement is now seen on Hudson Bay than in the early time, unless it be in the dwellings of the Christianized and civilized swampy Crees and in the mission houses around which the Indians have gathered.
York Factory, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, retained its supremacy. However, at times, Fort Churchill, with its well-built walls and formidable bastions, may have disputed this primacy, yet York Factory was the depôt for the interior almost uninterruptedly. To it came the goods for the northern department, by way in a single season of the vessel thePrince Rupert, the successor of a long line ofPrince Ruperts, from the first one of 1680, or of its companions, thePrince Albertor thePrince of Wales. By these, the furs from the Far North found their way, as at the first, to the Company's house in London.
York Factory is a large square of some six acres, lying along Hayes River, and shut in by high stockades. The houses are all wooden, and on account of the swampy soil are raised up to escape the water of the spring-time floods. At a point of advantage, a lofty platform was erected to serve as a "look-out" to watch for the coming ship, the great annual event of the slow-passing lives of the occupants of the post. The flag-staff, on which, as is the custom at all Hudson's Bay Company posts, the ensign with the magic letters H. B. C. floats, speaks at once of many an old tradition and of great achievements.
Ballantyne in his lively style speaks of his two years at the post, and describes the life of a young Hudson's Bay Company officer. The chief factor, to the eye of the young clerk, represents success achieved and is the embodiment of authority, which, on account of the isolation of the posts and the absence of all law, is absolute and unquestioned. York Factory, being a depôt, has a considerable staff, chiefly young men, who live in the bachelors' hall. Here dwell the surgeon, accountant, postmaster, half a dozen clerks, and others.
In winter, Ballantyne says, days, if not weeks, passed without the arrival of a visitor, unless it were a post from theinterior, or some Cree trader of the neighbourhood, or some hungry Indian seeking food. The cold was the chief feature of remark and consideration. At times the spirit thermometer indicated 65 deg. below zero, and the uselessness of the mercury thermometer was then shown by a pot of quicksilver being made into bullets and remaining solid. Every precaution was taken to erect strong buildings, which had double windows and double doors, and yet in the very severe weather, water contained in a vessel has been known to freeze in a room where a stove red hot was doing its best. It is worthy of notice, however, that even in Arctic regions, a week or ten days is as long as such severe weather continues, and mild intervals come regularly.
On the Bay the coming of spring is looked for with great expectation, and when it does come, about the middle of May, it sets in with a "rush;" the sap rises in the shrubs and bushes, the buds burst out, the rivers are freed from ice, and indeed, so rapid and complete is the change, that it may be said there are only two seasons—summer and winter—in these latitudes.
As summer progresses the fare of dried geese, thousands of which are stored away for winter use, of dried fish and the white ptarmigan and wood partridge that linger about the bushes and are shot for food, is superseded by the arrival of myriads of ducks and geese and the use of the fresh fish of the Bay. In many of the posts the food throughout the whole year is entirely flesh diet, and not a pound of farinaceous food is obtainable. This leads to an enormous consumption of the meat diet in order to supply a sufficient amount of nourishment. An employé will sometimes eat two whole geese at a meal.
In Dr. Rae's celebrated expedition from Fort Churchill, north along the shore of Hudson Bay, on his search for Sir John Franklin, the amount of supplies taken was entirely inadequate for his party for the long period of twenty-seven months, being indeed only enough for four months' full rations. In Rae's instructions from Sir George Simpson it is said, "For the remaining part of your men you cannot fail to find subsistence, animated as you are and they are by a determination to fulfil your mission at the cost of danger, fatigue, and privation. Whenever the natives can live, I can have no fears with respect to you, more particularly as you will have the advantage of the Eskimos, not merely in your actual supplies, but also in the means of recruiting and renewing them."
The old forts still remained in addition to the two depôt posts, York and Moose Factory, there being Churchill, Severn, Rupert's House, Fort George, and Albany—and the life in them all of the stereotyped description which we have pictured. Besides the preparation in summer of supplies for the long winter, the only variety was the arrival of Indians with furs from the interior. The trade is carried on by means of well-known standards called the "castor" or "beaver." The Indian hands his furs over to the trader, who sorts them into different lots. The value is counted up at so many—say fifty—castors. The Indian then receives fifty small bits of wood, and with these proceeds to buy guns, knives, blankets, cloth, beads, or trinkets, never stopping till his castors are all exhausted. The castor rarely exceeds two shillings in value.
While resembling in its general features the life on the Bay, the conduct of the fur trader on the shore of Labrador and throughout the Labrador Peninsula is much more trying and laborious than around the Bay. The inhospitable climate, the heavy snows, the rocky, dangerous shore, and the scarcity in some parts of animal life, long prevented the fur companies from venturing upon this forbidding coast.
The northern part of Labrador is inhabited by Eskimos; further south are tribes of swampy Crees. Between the Eskimos and Indians deadly feuds long prevailed. The most cruel and bloody raids were made upon the timid Eskimos, as was done on the Coppermine when Hearne went on his famous expedition.
McLean states that it was through the publication of a pamphlet by the Moravian missionaries of Labrador, which declared that "the country produced excellent furs," that the Hudson's Bay Company was led to establish trading posts in Northern Labrador. The stirring story of "Ungava," written by Ballantyne, gives what is no doubt in the main a correct account of the establishment of the far northern post called "Fort Chimo," on Ungava Bay.
The expedition left Moose Factory in 1831, and after escaping the dangers of floating ice, fierce storms, and an unknown coast, erected the fort several miles up the river running into Ungava Bay. The story recalls the finding out, no doubt somewhat after the manner of the famous boys' book, "The Swiss Family Robinson," the trout and salmon of the waters, the walrus of the sea, and the deer of the mountain valleys, but the picture is not probably overdrawn. The building of Fort Chimo is plainly described by one who was familiar with the exploration and life of the fur country; the picture of the tremendous snowstorm and its overwhelming drifts is not an unlikely one for this coast, which, since the day of Cortereal, has been the terror of navigators.
McLean, a somewhat fretful and biassed writer, though certainly not lacking in a clear and lively style, gives an account of his being sent, in 1837, to take charge of the district of North Labrador for the Company. On leaving York Factory in August the brig encountered much ice, although it escaped the mishaps which overtook almost all small vessels on the Bay. The steep cliffs of the island of Akpatok, which stands before Ungava Bay, were very nearly run upon in the dark, and much difficulty was experienced in ascending the Ungava, or South River, to Fort Chimo.
The trader's orders from Governor Simpson were to push outposts into the interior of Labrador, to support his men on the resources of the country, and to open communication with Esquimaux Bay, on the Labrador coast, and thus, by means of the rivers, to establish an inland route of inter-communication between the two inlets. McLean made a most determined attempt to establish the desired route, but after innumerable hardships to himself and his company, retired, after nearly four months' efforts, to Fort Chimo, and sent a message to his superior officer that the proposed line of communication was impracticable.
McLean gives an account of the arrival of a herd of three hundred reindeer or cariboo, and of the whole of them being captured in a "pound," as is done in the case of the buffalo. The trader was also visited by Eskimos from the north side of Hudson Strait, who had crossed the rough and dangerouspassage on "a raft formed of pieces of driftwood picked up along the shore." The object of their visit was to obtain wood for making canoes. The trader states that the fact of these people having crossed "Hudson's Strait on so rude and frail a conveyance" strongly corroborates the opinion that America was originally peopled from Asia by way of Behring's Strait.
It became more and more evident, however, that the Ungava trade could not be profitably continued. Great expense was incurred in supplying Ungava Bay by sea; the country was poor and barren, and the pertinacity of the Eskimos in adhering to their sealskin dresses made the trade in fabrics, which was profitable among the Indians, an impossibility at Ungava. McLean continued his explorations and was somewhat successful in opening the sought-for route by way of the Grand River, and, returning to Fort Chimo, wintered there. Having been promoted by Sir George Simpson, McLean obtained leave to visit Britain, and before going received word from the directors of the Company that his recommendation to abandon Ungava Bay had been accepted, and that the ship would call at that point and remove the people and property to Esquimaux Bay. McLean, in speaking of the weather of Hudson Straits during the month of January (1842), gives expression to his strong dislike by saying, "At this period I have neither seen, read, nor heard of any locality under heaven that can offer a more cheerless abode to civilized man than Ungava."
Referring also to the fog that so abounds at this point as well as at the posts around Hudson Bay, the discontented trader says: "If Pluto should leave his own gloomy mansionin tenebris Tartari, he might take up his abode here, and gain or lose but little by the exchange."
But the enterprising fur-traders were not to be deterred by the iron-bound coast, or foggy shores, or dangerous life of any part of the peninsula of Labrador. Early in the century, while the Hudson's Bay Company were penetrating southward from the eastern shore of Hudson Bay, which had by a kind of anomaly been called the "East Main," the North-West Company were occupying the north shore of the St. Lawrence and met their rivals at the head waters of the Saguenay.
The district of which Tadoussac was the centre had from theearliest coming of the French been noted for its furs. That district all the way down to the west end of the island of Anticosti was known as the "King's Domains." The last parish was called Murray Bay, from General Murray, the first British governor of Quebec, who had disposed of the district, which furnished beef and butter for the King, to two of his officers, Captains Nairn and Fraser.
The North-West Company, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, had leased this district, which along with the Seigniory of Mingan that lay still further down the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was long known as the "King's Posts." Beyond the Seigniory of Mingan, a writer of the period mentioned states that the Labrador coast had been left unappropriated, and was a common to which all nations at peace with England might resort, unmolested, for furs, oil, cod-fish, and salmon.
A well-known trader, James McKenzie, after returning from the Athabasca region, made, in 1808, a canoe journey through the domains of the King, and left a journal, with his description of the rocky country and its inhabitants. He pictures strongly the one-eyed chief of Mingan and Father Labrosse, the Nestor for twenty-five years of the King's posts, who was priest, doctor, and poet for the region. McKenzie's voyage chiefly inclined him to speculate as to the origin and religion of the natives, while his description of the inland Indians and their social life is interesting. His account of the manners and customs of the Montagners or Shore Indians was more detailed than that of the Nascapees, or Indians of the interior, and he supplies us with an extensive vocabulary of their language.
McKenzie gives a good description of the Saguenay River, of Chicoutimi, and Lake St. John, and of the ruins of a Jesuit establishment which had flourished during the French régime. Whilst the bell and many implements had been dug up from the scene of desolation, the plum and apple trees of their garden were found bearing fruit. From the poor neglected fort of Assuapmousoin McKenzie returned, since the fort of Mistassini could only be reached by a further journey of ninety leagues. This North-West post was built at the end of Lake Mistassini, while the Hudson's Bay Company Fort, called BirchPoint, was erected four days' journey further on toward East Main House.
Leaving the Saguenay, McKenzie followed the coast of the St. Lawrence, passing by Portneuf, with its beautiful chapel, "good enough for His Holiness the Pope to occupy," after which—the best of the King's posts for furs—Ile Jérémie was reached, with its buildings and chapels on a high eminence. Irregularly built Godbout was soon in view, and the Seven Islands Fort was then come upon. Mingan was the post of which McKenzie was most enamoured. Its fine harbour and pretty chapel drew his special attention. The "Man River" was famous for its fisheries, while Masquaro, the next port, was celebrated for the supply of beavers and martins in its vicinity. The salmon entering the river in the district are stated to be worthy of note, and the traveller and his company returned to Quebec, the return voyage being two hundred leagues.
Since the time of McKenzie the fur trade has been pushed along the formerly unoccupied coast of Labrador. Even before that time the far northern coast had been taken up by a brave band of Moravians, who supported themselves by trade, and at the same time did Christian work among the Eskimos. Their movement merits notice. As early as 1749 a brave Hollander pilot named Erhardt, stimulated by reading the famous book of Henry Ellis on the North-West Passage, made an effort to form a settlement on the Labrador coast. He lost his life among the deceitful Eskimos.
Years afterward, Count Zinzendorf made application to the Hudson's Bay Company to be allowed to send Moravian missionaries to the different Hudson's Bay Company posts. The union of trader and missionary in the Moravian cult made the Company unwilling to grant this request. After various preparations the Moravians took up unoccupied ground on the Labrador coast, in 56 deg. 36´ N., where they found plenty of wood, runlets of sparkling water and a good anchorage. They erected a stone marked G.R. III., 1770, for the King, and another with the inscription V.F. (Unitas fratrum), the name of their sect.
Their first settlement was called Nain, and it was soon followed by another thirty miles up the coast known as"Okkak." Thirty miles south of Nain they found remains of the unfortunate movement first made by the Society, and here they established a mission, calling it "Hopedale." When they had become accustomed to the coast, they showed still more of the adventurous spirit and founded their most northerly post of Hebron, well nigh up to the dreaded "Ungava Bay." A community of upwards of eleven hundred Christian Eskimos has resulted from the fervour and self-denial of these humble but faithful missionaries. Their courage and determination stand well beside that of the daring fur traders.
The Hudson's Bay Company was not satisfied with Mingan as their farthest outward point. In 1832 and 1834, Captain Bayfield, R.N., surveyed the Labrador coast. In due time the Company pushed on to the inlet known as Hamilton Inlet or Esquimaux Bay, on the north side of which the fort grew up, known as Rigolette. Here a farm is maintained stocked with "Cattle, sheep, pigs and hens," and the place is the depôt of the Hudson's Bay Company and of the general trade of the coast. Farther up two other sub-posts are found, viz., Aillik, and on the opposite side of the Inlet Kaipokok. The St. Lawrence and Labrador posts of the Hudson's Bay Company have been among the most difficult and trying of those in any part where the Company carries on its vast operations from Atlantic to Pacific. This Labrador region has been a noble school for the development of the firmness, determination, skill, and faithfulness characteristic of both the officers and men of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Most notable of the officers of the first rank who have conducted the fur trade in Labrador is Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, the present Governor of the Company. Coming out at eighteen, Donald Alexander Smith, a well-educated Scottish lad, related to Peter and Cuthbert Grant, and the brothers John and James Stuart, prominent officers, whose deeds in the North-West Company are still remembered, the future Governor began his career. Young Smith, on arriving at Montreal (1838), was despatched to Moose Factory, and for more than thirty years was in the service, in the region of Hudson Bay and Labrador. Rising to the rank of chief trader, after fourteen years of laborious service he reached inten years more the acme of desire of every aspirant in the Company, the rank of chief factor. His years on the coast of Labrador, at Rigolette, and its subordinate stations were most laborious. The writer has had the privilege from time to time of hearing his tales, of the long journey along the frozen coast, of camping on frozen islands, without shelter, of storm-staid journeys rivalling the recitals of Ballantyne at Fort Chimo, of cold receptions by the Moravians, and of the doubtful hospitalities of both Indians and Eskimos. Every statement of Cortereal, Gilbert, or Cabot of the inhospitable shore is corroborated by this successful officer, who has lived for thirty years since leaving Labrador to fill a high place in the affairs both of Canada and the Empire. One of his faithful subordinates on this barren coast was Chief Factor P. W. Bell, who gained a good reputation for courage and faithfulness, not only in Labrador, but on the barren shore of Lake Superior. The latter returned to Labrador after his western experience, and retired from the charge of the Labrador posts a few years ago. It is to the credit of the Hudson's Bay Company that it has been able to secure men of such calibre and standing to man even its most difficult and unattractive stations.
ATHABASCA, MACKENZIE RIVER, AND THE YUKON.
Peter Pond reaches Athabasca River—Fort Chipewyan established—Starting-point of Alexander McKenzie—The Athabasca library—The Hudson Bay Company roused—Conflict at Fort Wedderburn—Suffering—The dash up the Peace River—Fort Dunvegan—Northern extension—Fort Resolution—Fort Providence—The great river occupied—Loss of life—Fort Simpson, the centre—Fort Reliance—Herds of cariboo—Fort Norman built—Fort Good Hope—The Northern Rockies—The Yukon reached and occupied—The fierce Liard River—Fort Halkett in the mountains—Robert Campbell comes to the Stikine—Discovers the Upper Yukon—His great fame—The districts—Steamers on the water stretches.(The map on page 388 should be consulted while this chapter is being read.)
Lessthan twenty years after the conquest of Canada by the British, the traders heard of the Lake Athabasca and Mackenzie River district. The region rapidly rose into notice, until it reached the zenith as the fur traders' paradise, a position it has held till the present time.
As we have seen, Samuel Hearne, the Hudson's Bay Company adventurer—the Mungo Park of the North—first of white men, touched, on his way to the Coppermine, Lake Athapuscow, now thought to have been Great Slave Lake.
It was the good fortune, however, of the North-West Company to take possession of this region first for trade.
LAKE AND RIVER ATHABASCA.
The daring Montreal traders, who had seized upon the Saskatchewan and pushed on to Lake Ile à la Crosse, having a surplus of merchandise in the year 1778, despatched one of their agents to Lake Athabasca, and "took seisin" of the country. As already stated, the man selected was the daringand afterwards violent trader Peter Pond. On the River Athabasca, some thirty miles south of the Lake, Pond built the first Indian trading post of the region, which, however, after a few years was abandoned and never afterwards rebuilt.
FORT CHIPEWYAN.
Less than ten years after this pioneer led the way, a fort was built on the south side of Lake Athabasca, at a point a few miles east of the entrance of the river. To this, borrowing the name of the Indian nation of the district, was given the name Fort Chipewyan. This old fort became celebrated as the starting-place of the great expedition of Alexander Mackenzie, when he discovered the river that bears his name and the Polar Sea into which it empties. At this historic fort also, Roderick McKenzie, cousin of the explorer, founded the famous "Athabasca Library," for the use of the officers of the Company in the northern posts, and in its treasures Lieutenant Lefroy informs us he revelled during his winter stay.
At the beginning of the century the X Y Company aggressively invaded the Athabasca region, and built a fort a mile north of Fort Chipewyan, near the site of the present Roman Catholic Mission of the Nativity.
As the conflict between the North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies waxed warm, the former Company, no doubt for the purpose of being more favourably situated for carrying on the trade with the Mackenzie River, removed their fort on Lake Athabasca to the commanding promontory near the exit of Slave River from the lake. Renewed and often enlarged, Fort Chipewyan has until recently remained the greatest depôt of the north country.
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AROUSED.
The fierceness of the struggle for the fur trade may be seen in the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company (1815) with vigour took up a site on an island in front of Fort Chipewyan and built Fort Wedderburn, at no greater distance than a single mile, and though it was not their first appearance on the lake, yet they threw themselves in considerable force into thecontest, numbering, under John Clark, afterward Chief Factor, ten clerks, a hundred men, and fourteen large canoes loaded with supplies. Many misfortunes befell the new venture of the Company. A writer of the time says, "No less than fifteen men, one woman, and several children perished by starvation. They built four trade posts on the Peace River (lower) and elsewhere in the autumn; but not one of them was able to weather out the following winter. All were obliged to come to terms with their opponents to save the party from utter destruction. That year the Athabasca trade of the North-West Company was four hundred packs against only five in all secured by the Hudson's Bay Company."
Three years afterward the old Company, with British pluck, again appeared on this lake, having nineteen loaded canoes. Trader Clark was now accompanied by the doughty leader, Colin Robertson, whose prowess we have already seen in the Red River conflict.
It will be remembered that in the year before the union of the Companies, George Simpson, the young clerk, arrived on Lake Athabasca with fifteen loaded canoes. He was chiefly found at Fort Wedderburn and a short distance up the Peace River. It is not certain that the prospective Governor ever visited Slave Lake to the north. He gives, however, the following vivid summary of his winter's experience in Athabasca: "At some seasons both whites and Indians live in wasteful abundance on venison, buffalo meat, fish, and game of all kinds, while at other times they are reduced to the last degree of hunger, often passing several days without food. In the year 1820 our provisions fell short at the establishment, and on two or three occasions I went for two or three whole days and nights without having a single morsel to swallow, but then again, I was one of a party of eleven men and one woman which discussed at one sitting meal no less than three ducks and twenty-two geese!" This winter's knowledge was of great value to the man afterwards called to be the arbiter of destiny of many a hard-pressed trader.
Other forts are mentioned as having been established by both Companies at different points on the Athabasca River, but their period of duration was short. In some cases theseabandoned forts have been followed by new forts, in recent times, on the same sites.
THE PEACE RIVER.
Soon after the arrival of the first traders in the Athabasca district, the fame of the Peace River—the Indian "Unjijah," a mighty stream, whose waters empty into the river flowing from Lake Athabasca—rose among the adventurers. An enterprising French Canadian trader, named Boyer, pushed up the stream and near a small tributary—Red River—established the first post of this great artery, which flows from the West, through the Rocky Mountains. Long abandoned, this post has in late years been re-established.
The Peace River has ever had a strange fascination for trader and tourist, and a few years after Boyer's establishment became known, a trading house was built above the "Chutes" of the river. This was afterwards moved some distance up stream and became the well-known Fort Vermilion. This fort has remained till the present day.
Farther still up the Peace River, where the Smoky River makes its forks, a fort was erected whose stores and dwelling-houses were on a larger scale than those of the mother establishment of Fort Chipewyan, having had stockaded walls, a good powder magazine, and a good well of water. This fort for a time was known as McLeod's Fort, but in the course of events its site was abandoned. Fort Dunvegan, famous to later travellers, was first built on the south side of the river, and was the headquarters of the Beaver Indians, from whom the North-West Company received a formal gift of the site. The present fort is on the opposite side of the Peace River.
It will be remembered, however, that it was from the post at the mouth of Smoky River that Alexander Mackenzie, having wintered, started on his great journey to the Pacific. In later years the Hudson's Bay Company has maintained a fort at this point as an outpost of Dunvegan.
Early in the century we find allusions to the fact that the catch of beaver was, from over-hunting, declining in the Peace River country, and that, in consequence, the North-West Company had been compelled to give up several of theirforts. Around Fort St. John's a tragic interest gathers. John McLean, in his "Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service," speaks of reaching on his journey—1833—the "tenantless fort," where some years before a massacre had taken place. It had been determined by the Hudson's Bay Company to remove the fort to Rocky Mountain Portage. The tribe of Tsekanies, to whom the fort was tributary, took this as an insult. At the time of removal the officer in charge, Mr. Hughes, had sent off a part of his men with effects of the fort intended for the new post. Hughes was shot down on the riverside by the Indians. The party of boatmen, on returning, "altogether unconscious of the fate that awaited them, came paddling towards the landing-place, singing a voyageur's song, and Just as the canoe touched the shore, a volley of bullets was discharged at them, which silenced them for ever. They were all killed on the spot." An expedition was organized by the traders to avenge the foul murder, but more peaceful counsels prevailed. Most of the fugitives paid the penalty of their guilt by being starved to death. The deserted fort was some twenty miles below the present Fort St. John's. The present fort was built in the latter half of the century, and its outpost of Hudson's Hope, together with the trade station at Battle River, below Dunvegan, was erected about a generation ago.
GREAT SLAVE LAKE.
The extension of the fur trade to Great Slave Lake dates back to within seven years after the advent of Peter Pond on the Athabasca River. The famous trader, Cuthbert Grant, father of the "Warden of the Plains," who figured in the Seven Oaks fight, led the way, and with him a Frenchman, Laurent Leroux. Reaching this great lake, these ardent explorers built a trading post on Slave River, near its mouth. A short time afterwards the traders moved their first post to Moose Deer Island, a few miles from the old site, and here the North-West Company remained until the time of the union of the Companies. The impulse of union led to the construction of a new establishment on the site chosen by the Hudson's Bay Company for the erection of their post somesix years before. The new post was called Fort Resolution, and was on the mainland two miles or more from the island. This post marked the extreme limit of the operations of the Hudson's Bay Company up to the time of the union.
When Alexander Mackenzie determined to make his first great voyage, he started from Fort Chipewyan and bravely pushing out into the unknown wilds, left Great Slave Lake and explored the river that bears his name. Here he promised the tribe of the Yellow Knife Indians to establish a post among them in the next year. The promise was kept to the letter. The new post, built at the mouth of the Yellow Knife River, was called Fort Providence. It was afterwards removed to a large island in the north arm of the lake, and to this the name Fort Rae, in honour of the celebrated Arctic explorer, John Rae, was given. Near this new station there has been for years a Roman Catholic Mission. It was from the neighbourhood of these forts on the lake that Captain Franklin set out to build his temporary station, Fort Enterprise, one hundred miles from his base of supplies. Fort Rae has remained since the time of its erection a place of some importance. It formed the centre of the northern operations of Captain Dawson, R.A., on his expedition for circumpolar observation in recent times.
After the Hudson's Bay Company had transferred Rupert's Land to Canada, a new post was opened on the Slave River, midway between Athabasca and Great Slave Lake. It was called Fort Smith, in honour of Chief Commissioner Donald A. Smith, now Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. Near the site of Fort Smith are the dangerous Noyé Rapids of Slave River, where Grant and Leroux, on their voyage to Great Slave Lake, lost a canoe and five of its occupants. From Fort Smith southward to Smith Landing a waggon or cart road has been in use up to the present time. Now this is to be converted into a tramway.
MACKENZIE RIVER.