"Only those are crown'd and saintedWho with grief have been acquaintedMaking Nations nobler, freer.""In their feverish exultations,In their triumph and their yearning,In their passionate pulsations,In their words among the nationsThe Promethean fire is burning.""But the glories so transcendentThat around their memories cluster,And on all their steps attendant,Make their darken'd lives resplendentWith such gleams of inward lustre."
"Only those are crown'd and saintedWho with grief have been acquaintedMaking Nations nobler, freer."
"In their feverish exultations,In their triumph and their yearning,In their passionate pulsations,In their words among the nationsThe Promethean fire is burning."
"But the glories so transcendentThat around their memories cluster,And on all their steps attendant,Make their darken'd lives resplendentWith such gleams of inward lustre."
SOLDIERS AND SWISS.
Many Canadian Settlements have had a military origin. It was considered a wise, strategic move in the game of national defence when Colonel Butler and his Rangers, after the Treaty of Paris, were settled along the Niagara frontier, and when Captain Grass and other United Empire Loyalists took up their holdings at Kingston and other points on the boundary line along the St. Lawrence. The town of Perth was the headquarters of a military settlement in Central Canada. Traces of military occupation can still be found in such Highland districts of Canada as Pictou, Glengarry and Zorra, in which last named township the enthusiastic Celt in 1866 declared that perhaps the Fenians would take Canada, but they could never take Zorra. Numerous examples can be found all through Canada where there is an aroma of valor and patriotism surrounding the old army officer or the families of the veterans of the Napoleonic or Crimean wars.
The settlement of the De Meuron soldiersopposite Fort Douglas gave some promise of a military flavor to Selkirk Settlement. But as we shall see it was an ill-advised attempt at colonization. It was a mistake to settle some hundred or more single men as these soldiers were without a woman among them, as Lord Selkirk was compelled to do. To these soldier-colonists he gave lands along the small winding river now called the Seine, which empties into Red River opposite Point Douglas. Many of the De Meurons spoke German, and hence for several years the little stream on which they lived was called German Creek. The writings of the time are full of rather severe criticism of these bello-agricultural settlers. Of course no one expects an old soldier to be of much use to a new country. He is usually a lazy settler. His habits of life are formed in another mould from that of the farm. He is apt to despise the hoe and the harrow and many even of the half-pay officers who came to hew out a home in the Canadian forest, never learned to cut down a tree or to hold a plough, though it may be admitted that they lived a useful life in their sons and daughters, while the culture and decision of character of the old officer or sturdy veteran were an asset of great value to the locality in which he settled.
But the De Meurons were not only bachelors, but they came from the peasantry of Austriaand Italy, they had not fought for home and country, and their life of mercenary soldiering had made them selfish and deceitful. A writer of the time speaks, and evidently with much prejudice, against the De Meurons. "They were," he says, "a medley of almost all nations—Germans, French, Italians, Swiss and others. They were bad farmers and withal very bad subjects; quarrelsome, slothful, famous bottle companions and ready for any enterprise however lawless and tyrannical." A few years later we find it stated that they made free with the cattle of their neighbors, and the chronicler does not hesitate to say that the herds of the De Meurons grew in number in exactly the same ratio as those of the Scottish settlers decreased.
Some four years after the settlement of the De Meurons a sunburst came upon them quite unexpectedly.
Lord Selkirk in the very last years of his life planned to bring a band of Protestant settlers from Switzerland. A Colonel May, late of another of the mercenary regiments, accepted the duty of going to Switzerland, issuing a very attractive invitation to settlers, and succeeded in shipping a considerable number of Swiss families to his so-called Red River paradise.
This band of Colonists, consisting as they did of "watch and clock-makers, pastry cooks andmusicians," were quite unfit for the rough work of the Selkirk Colony. In 1821 they were brought by way of Hudson Bay, over the same rocky way as the earlier Colonists came. They were utterly poverty stricken, though honest, and well-behaved. Their only possession of value was a plenty of handsome daughters. The Swiss families on arrival were placed under tents nearby Fort Douglas. As soon as possible many of the Swiss settlers were placed alongside the De Meurons on German Creek. Good Mr. West, who had just been sent out as chaplain by the Hudson's Bay Company, in place of the minister of their own faith promised to the Scottish settlers, did a great stroke of work in marrying the young Swiss girls to the De Meuron bachelors of German Creek. The description of the way in which the De Meurons invited families having young women in them to the wifeless cabins is ludicrous. A modern "Sabine raid" was made upon the young damsels, who were actually carried away to the De Meuron homesteads. The Swiss families which had the misfortune to have no daughters in them were left to languish in their comfortless tents. The afflictions of the earlier Selkirk settlers were increased by the arrival of these settlers. With the Selkirk settlers in their first decade the first consideration was always food. Till that question is settled no Colonycan advance. Probably the most alarming and hopeless feature of their new colonial life was the appearance of vast flights of locusts or grasshoppers, which devoured every blade of wheat and grass in the country. To those who have never seen this plague it is inconceivable. Some thirty-five years ago in Manitoba the writer witnessed the utter devastation of the country by these pests. Some thirteen years before the coming of the first Colonists this plague prevailed. About the end of July, 1818, these riders of the air made their attack. In this year the Selkirk Colonists were greatly discouraged by the capture and removal to Canada, by the Nor'-Westers, of Mr. James Sutherland, their spiritual guide. But their labors now seem likely to be rewarded by a good harvest. The oats and barley were in ear, when suddenly the invasion came. The vast clouds of grasshoppers sailing northward from the great Utah desert in the United States, alighted late in the afternoon of one day and in the morning fields of grain, gardens with their promise, and every herb in the Settlement were gone, and a waste like a blasted hearth remained behind. The event was more than a loss of their crops, it seemed a heaven-struck blow upon their community, and it is said they lifted up their eyes to heaven, weeping and despairing. The sole return oftheir labors for the season was a few ears of half-ripened barley which the women saved and carried home in their aprons. There was no help for it but to retire to Pembina, although there was less fear than formerly for as a writer of the day says: "The settlers had now become good hunters; they could kill the buffalo; walk on snowshoes; had trains of dogs trimmed with ribbons, bells and feathers, in true Indian style; and in other respects were making rapid steps in the arts of a savage life."
The complete loss of their crops left the settlers even without the seed-wheat necessary to sow their fields. The nearest point of supply of this necessity was an agricultural settlement in the State of Minnesota, upwards of five hundred miles away. Here was a mighty task—to undertake to cross the plains in winter and to bring back in time for the seeding time in spring the wheat which was necessary. But the Highlander is not to be deterred by rocky crag or dashing river, or heavy snow in his own land and he was ready to face this and more in the new world. And so a daring party went off on snowshoes, and taking three months for their trip, reached the land of plenty and secured some hundred bushels at the price of ten shillings a bushel.
The question now was how to transport the wheat through a trackless wilderness. Up theMississippi River for hundreds of miles the flat boats constructed for the purpose were painfully propelled, and passing through the branch known as the Minnesota River the Stony Lake was reached. This lake is the source of the Minnesota and Red rivers, and being at high water in the spring it was possible to go through the narrow lake from one river to the other with the rough boats constructed. The Red River was reached by the fearless adventurers who brought the "corn out of Egypt." They did not, however, reach the Red River with their treasure till about the end of June, 1820, and while the wheat grew well it was sown too late to ripen well, although it gave the settlers grain enough to sow the fields of the coming year. This expedition cost Lord Selkirk upwards of a thousand pounds sterling. In the following year the grasshoppers again visited the Red River fields, but by a sudden movement which, by some of the good Colonists was interpreted to be a direct interference of Providence on their behalf, the swarms of intruders passed away never to appear again in the Red River for half a century.
The presence of the grasshoppers upon the Canadian prairies is one of interest. It is known that they appeared throughout the territory of Red River a dozen years or so before the coming of the Selkirk Colonists, also duringthe period we have been describing, and then not till the period from 1868 to 1875. During the latter half of this period the writer saw their devastations in Manitoba. The occurrence of the grasshopper at times in all agricultural districts in America is very different from the grasshopper or locust plague which we are describing. The red-legged Caloptenus or the Rocky Mountain locust are provided for lofty flight and pass in myriads over the prairies, lighting whenever a cloud obscures the sun. At one time the writer saw them in such hordes that they were found from Winnipeg to Edmonton, over a region about one thousand miles in breadth. In that year they devoured not only crops and garden products but almost completely ate up the grass on the prairie to such an extent as to make it useless for hay. In the year 1875 they appeared, in the main, for the last time in Manitoba, and in that year their disappearance was as sudden as in the former case of 1821. Under the wing upon the body of each grasshopper was to be found one or more scarlet red parasites which drew all the juices from the body of the insect and produced death. For a third of a century they have been almost unknown, and the area of cultivated ground in the States of North and South Dakota, where they may supply their hunger renders it likely that Manitoba will know them no more. Itcannot be wondered at that such continuous disasters made the settler whether Scottish, De Meuron, or Swiss, extremely discontented. During the period of the scourge, the only resource was to winter at Pembina in reasonable distance from the buffalo-herds. In one of these years a number of the Selkirk Colonists did not return to their farms but emigrated to the United States. As we shall see in a few years after the grasshopper scourge the flood of the Red River took place, when the De Meurons and Swiss, with one or two exceptions, disappeared from the Colony and became citizens of the United States.
ENGLISH LION AND CANADIAN BEAR LIE DOWN TOGETHER.
That such violence and bloodshed as that about Fort Douglas, should be seen by British subjects under the flag which stands for justice and equal rights made sober-minded Britons blush. While Lord Selkirk's agents on the banks of the Red River may have been aggressive in pushing their rights, yet to the Canadians was chargeable the greater part of the bloodshed. This was but natural. To the hunter, the trapper, and the frontiersman the use of firearms is familiar. The fur trader protects himself thus from the bear and the panther. The hot blood of the Metis as he careered over the prairie on his steed boiled up at the least provocation.
But the disheartening law suits through which Lord Selkirk passed in Sandwich, Toronto, and Montreal, reflected more dishonor on the Canadians than did even the bloody violence of the Bois-Brulés. The chicanery employed by the Canadian courts, the procuringof special legislation to adapt the law to Lord Selkirk's case, and the invocation of the highest social and even clerical influence in Upper Canada for the purpose of injuring his Lordship will ever remain a blot on earlier Canadian jurisprudence. Fortunately the rights of man, whether native or foreigner, are now better understood and more fully protected in Canada than they were in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Col. Coltman's report, as already stated, was a model of truthfulness, fair play and freedom from prejudice, and Coltman was a Canadian appointee.
So grave, however, were the rumours of these events happening on the plains of Rupert's Land, as they reached Britain that the House of Commons named a committee to enquire into the troubles. This committee sat in 1819, and the result is a blue-book of considerable size which exposes the injustice most fully. The violence and bloodshed which the fur traders now heard of far and near paralyzed the fur trade carried on by both fur companies, and brought the financial affairs of both companies to the verge of destruction. Two startling events of the next year produced a great shock. These were sudden and untimely deaths of the two great opponents—Lord Selkirk at an early age in France, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie, at his estate in Scotland, he having been seizedwith sudden illness on his way from London. The two men died within a month of one another in the spring of 1820. Their passing away was surely impressive. It seemed like an offering to the god of peace in order that the vast region with its scattered and thunderstruck inhabitants from Lake Superior to the Pacific Ocean might be saved from the horrors of a cruel war of brother against brother, and a war which might involve even the cautious but hot-blooded Indian tribes.
Though the two parties were made up of daring and head-strong men, yet adversity is a hard but effective teacher.
The Hudson's Bay Company was represented by Andrew Colville, a warm friend of the house of Selkirk, the opponents by Edward Ellice, a Nor'-Wester. It seemed, indeed, the very irony of fate that Ellice should be a negotiator for peace. He and his sons the writer heard spoken of by the late Earl of Selkirk—the son of the founder—as the bear and cubs. On the other hand the burly directors of the Hudson's Bay Company possessed with all the confidence of the British Lion, and with their motto of "Skin for skin" were only brought to a state of peace by the loss of dividends. Much correspondence passed between the offices of Leadenhall Street and Suffolk Lane in London, which the two companies occupied, but articlesof agreement were not sufficient to make a union.
All such coalitions to be successful must circle around a single man.
This man was a young Scottish clerk, who had spent a year only in the far Athabasca district. He had not depended on birth or influence for his advancement, was not yet wholly immersed in the traditions or prejudices of either company, and had consequently nothing to unlearn. Montreal became the Canadian headquarters of the company, but now the annual meeting of the traders where he as Governor presided, was held at Norway House. The offices in London were united, and thus the affairs of the fur trade were provided for and outward peace at least was guaranteed. We are, however, chiefly dealing with the affairs of Assiniboia as Lord Selkirk called it, or with what was more commonly called Red River Settlement. This belonged to Lord Selkirk's heirs. The executors were, of course, Hudson's Bay Company grandees. They were Sir James Montgomery, Mr. Halkett, Andrew Colville, and his brother the Solicitor-general of Scotland. When the news came of the death of Lord Selkirk, the mishaps and disturbances of the Colony had been so many, that Hudson's Bay Company, Nor'-Westers, Settlers, and Freemen all said, "That will end the Colonynow!" To the surprise of everyone the first message from the executors was one of courage, and the announcement was made that their first aim would be to send six hundred new settlers to the banks of Red River.
SEVEN OAKS MONUMENTSEVEN OAKS MONUMENTOn Kildonan Road near Winnipeg.
The angry passions which had been rousedled the English directors to take the very wise step of sending out two representatives—one from each of the old companies to rearrange all matters and settle all disputes. The two delegates were Nicholas Garry, the Vice-Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Simon McGillivray, who bore one of the most influential names of the Nor'-Wester traders. They were not, however, equally well liked. Garry was a courteous, fair, and kindly gentleman. He won golden opinions among officers and settlers alike. McGillivray was suspicious and selfish, so the records of the time state. They came to the Red River in 1821, and Garry entered particularly into the arrangement of the Forts at the Forks. The old Fort Douglas was retained as Colony Fort, and the small Hudson's Bay Company trading house as well as Fort Gibraltar were absorbed into the new fort which was erected on the banks of the Assiniboine between Main Street and the bank of the Red River. All the letters and documents of the time speak of Governor Garry's visits as carrying a gleam of sunshine wherever he went and it was appropriate that the new fort built in the following year should bear the name Fort Garry. This was the wooden fort, which still remained in existence though superseded as a fort in 1850.
At the time of Governor Garry's visit thepopulation of the settlement may be considered to have been about five hundred. These were made up of somewhat less than two hundred Selkirk Colonists, about one hundred De Meurons, a considerable number of French Voyageurs and Freemen, Swiss Colonists perhaps eighty, and the remainder Orkney, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. The Colony was, however, beginning to organize itself. The accounts of the French settlers are very vague, an occasional name flitting across the page of history. One family still found on Red River banks, gains celebrity as possessing the first white woman who came to Rupert's Land. With her husband she had gone to Edmonton in ——, and had wandered over the prairies. In 1811, with her husband, she first saw the Forks of Red River and wintered in 1811-12 at Pembina, the winter which the first band of Colonists spent at York Factory. Lajimoniere became a fast adherent of Lord Selkirk, and made a famous and most dangerous winter journey through the wilds alone, carrying letters from Red River to Montreal, delivered them personally to Lord Selkirk in 1815.
The Lajimonieres received with great delight in 1818 the first Roman Catholic missionaries who reached Red River. These were sent through Lord Selkirk's influence, and the large gift of land known as the Seigniory lying eastof St. Boniface was the reward given to the early pioneer missionaries—Provencher and Dumoulin, men of great stature and manly bearing. In the year of their arrival James Sutherland, the Presbyterian chaplain of the Selkirk Colonists, was taken by the Nor'-Westers to Upper Canada, whither his son, Haman Sutherland, had gone in 1815 with Duncan Cameron. The Earl of Selkirk had promised to send to his Scottish Colonists a minister of their own faith. On his death in France his agent in London was Mr. John Pritchard. Seventeen days after the death of Lord Selkirk, Rev. John West was appointed to come as chaplain to the Colonists and the other Protestants of Red River. Pritchard arrived by Hudson's Bay ship at York Factory 15 Aug., 1820, having Mr. West in company with him.
And now Colville wrote to Alexander Macdonell, the Governor of the Settlement: "Mr. West goes out and takes with him persons acquainted with making bricks and pottery." Macdonell was a Roman Catholic, but Colville wrote: "I trust also that by your example and advice you will encourage all the Protestants, Presbyterians as well as others to attend divine service as performed by Mr. West. He will also open schools." As to Mr. West's support a curiosity occurs in one of Mr. West's letters written in the following year from YorkFactory. He speaks of an agreement between Lord Selkirk and the Selkirk Settlers.
"That the Settlers will use their endeavours for the benefit and support of the clergyman and shall be chargeable therewith as follows (that is to say): each settler shall employ himself, his servants, his horses, cattle, carts, carriages and other things necessary to the purpose on every day and at every place to be appointed by the clergyman to whom, or whose flock he shall belong, not exceeding at and after the rate of three days in the spring and three days in the autumn of each year."
This is a gem of ecclesiasticism.
Mr. West says: "I find that it is impracticable to carry the same into effect. This is attributable to the distance of most of the settlers and the reluctance of the Scotch Settlers."
Mr. West had made mention of this to Governor Garry.
SATRAP RULE.
"Woe to the Nation," says a high authority, "whose King is a child," but far worse than even having a child-ruler is the fate of a Kingdom or Principality whose ruler is a hireling. The Roman Empire was ruled in the different provinces by selfish and dishonest adventurers, who tyrannized over the people, farmed out the revenues, bribed their favorites and defrauded their masters. Turkish Government or Persian Rule is to-day an organized system of extortion and oppression by unscrupulous Satraps. Lord Selkirk's two governors, Miles Macdonell and Robert Semple, had been removed, the former by capture, the latter by death. Alexander Macdonell in 1816 became acting governor and was confirmed in office for five or six years afterward. In his regime the Grasshoppers came and did their destructive work, but the French people nicknamed him "Governor Sauterelle," Grasshopper Governor, for, says the historian of this decade he was so called, "because he proved asgreat a destroyer within doors as the grasshoppers in the fields."
Lord Selkirk had been a most generous and sympathetic founder to his Scottish Colony. He was not only proprietor of the whole Red River Valley, but he felt himself responsible for the support and comfort of his Colonists. He had to begin with supplying food, clothing, implements, arms and ammunition to his settlers. He had erected buildings for shelter and a store house and fort for the protection of them and their goods. He had supplied, in a Colony shop, provisions and all requisites to be purchased by his settlers and on account of their poverty to be charged to their individual accounts.
George Simpson, who was the new Governor of the United Hudson's Bay Company, was for two years Macdonell's contemporary, and he in one of his letters says: "Macdonell is, I am concerned to say, extremely unpopular, despised and held in contempt by every person connected with the place, he is accused of partiality, dishonesty, untruth and drunkenness,—in short, by a disrespect of every moral and elevated feeling."
Alexander Ross says of him, "The officials he kept about him resembled the court of an Eastern Nabob, with its warriors, serfs, and varlets, and the names they bore were hardly less pompous, for here were secretaries, assistant secretaries, accountants, orderlies, grooms, cooks and butlers."
Satrap Macdonell held high revels in his time. "From the time the puncheons of rum reached the colony in the fall, till they were all drunk dry, nothing was to be seen or heard about Fort Douglas but balling, dancing, rioting and drunkenness in the barbarous sport of those disorderly times." Macdonell's method of reckoning accounts was unique. "In place of having recourse to the tedious process of pen and ink the heel of a bottle was filled with wheat and set on the cask. This contrivance was called the 'hour glass,' and for every flagon drawn off, a grain of wheat was taken out of the hour glass, and put aside till the bouse was over."
As was to be expected this disgraceful state of things led to grave frauds in the dealings with the Colonists, and when Halkett, one of Lord Selkirk's executors, arrived on Red River to investigate the complaints, a thorough system of "false entries, erroneous statements and over-charges" was found, and the discontent of the settlers was removed, though they were all heavily in debt to the Estate.
It had been the object of Lord Selkirk from the beginning of his enterprise to give employment to his needy Colonists. Various enterprises were begun with this end in view, but they were all mere bubbles which soon burst.John Pritchard, whom Lord Selkirk had taken as his secretary to London, was largely instrumental in floating the ill-starred scheme known as the "Buffalo Wool Company." Just as on the shores of the Mediterranean, shawls were made from the long wool of the goats, so it was thought that shawls could be made of the hair or wool of the buffalo. A voluminous correspondence given in many letters of Pritchard's to Lady Selkirk and other ladies of high station and to an English firm of manufacturers exploiting this project is before us. Sample squares of the cloth made of buffalo wool were distributed and in certain circles the novelty from the Red River was the "talk of the town," in London.
On the banks of Red River the scheme took like wild-fire. All Red River people were to make fortunes. There were to be high wages and work for everybody. Wages were increased, and men were receiving nearly four dollars a day. Money became plentiful and provisions became dear and also scarce. The employees, higher and lower, became intoxicated with their success, as they now also became really intoxicated and fell into reckless habits. The work was neglected, and the enterprize collapsed. This was the earliest boom on Red River banks. Failure was sure to follow so mad a scheme. The buffalo wool cloth whichit cost some twelve dollars and a half to manufacture, partly in Red River Settlement and partly in England, was sold for little more than one dollar a yard. The £2,000 of capital was all swallowed up, £4,500 of debt to the Hudson's Bay Company was never paid, the scheme became a laughing stock in England, and failure and misery followed its collapse in the Colony.
At this time the French-Canadian settlement at Pembina was induced to remove to St. Boniface on the Red River, where they gathered around their new priest, Provencher, to whom they became much attached.
The Selkirk Trustees, in every way, continued ungrudgingly to advance the interests of the Colony, but their plans, though often mere theories failed more from extravagance and want of good men to execute them than from any other cause.
Believing that farming was the thing needing cultivation in a country with so rich a soil, the Colonizers began the Hayfield farm on the north bank of the Assiniboine River, near what is now the outskirts of the City of Winnipeg, a little above the present Agricultural College buildings. Beginning with an expensive salary for Manager Laidlaw, the promoters erected ample farm buildings, barns, yards and stables. Importations were made of well-bred cattle and horses. Several years of mismanagement and helplessness resulted from this trial of a model farm, and it was given up at a total loss to the proprietors of £3,500. The Assiniboine Wool Company was next started, but failed before the first payment of stock took place, without damage to anyone, so that, as was remarked, there was "much cry and little wool." The Flax and Hemp Company was the next unfortunate enterprise. This failed on account of there being no market, so that farmers never reaped the successful crops which they had grown. An expedition was made to Missouri, under Messrs. Burke and Campbell, to introduce sheep into the settlement. As the fifteen hundred sheep purchased had to be driven 1,500 miles to their destination on Red River, only two hundred and fifty of the whole flock survived. Failure after failure taking place did not prevent the formation of a Tallow Company, which resulted in the loss of £600 to £1,000, and a considerable sum was spent also in an abortive attempt to open up a road to Hudson's Bay, a scheme which Lord Selkirk's letters show, he had in view from the very beginning of the life of the Colony. The courage and generosity of the executors of Lord Selkirk shown to all these enterprises reflects the greatest credit upon them. True, the concession of so wide an area of fertile land was worth it, and the pledges made tothe Selkirk settlers demanded it, but as in hundreds of other enterprises undertaken by British capitalists on the American continent, the choice of men foreign to the country and its conditions, the lack of conscience and economy on the part of the agents sent out, the dissension and jealousy aroused by every such attempt, as well as the absence of the means of transport by land and sea through the methods supplied by science to-day, resulted in a series of dismal failures, which placed an undeserved stigma upon the character of the soil, climate, and resources of Assiniboia. It took more than fifty years of subsequent effort to remove this impression.
These experiences took place under those governors who succeeded Alexander Macdonell—the Grasshopper Governor. The first of them was Captain Bulger, an unfortunate martinet, though a man of good conscience and high ideals. He had a most uncompromising manner. He quarreled with the Hudson's Bay Company officer at Fort Garry on the one hand, and with old Indian Chief Peguis on the other. A whole crop of suggestions made by the Captain on the improvement of the Colony remain in his "Red River Papers." Bulger's successor was Governor Pelly, a relative of the celebrated Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. The new Governor lacked nerve and decision, and was quite unfitted for his position. His method of dealing with an Indian murderer was long repeated on Red River as a subject for humor, when he instructed the interpreter to announce to the criminal: "that he had manifested a disposition subversive of all order, and if he should not be punished in this world, he would be sure to be punished in the next." The hopelessness of carrying on the affairs of the Colony apart from those of the general affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company, was now seen, and on the suggestion of Governor Simpson, the management was placed in the hands of governors immediately responsible to the company. This change led to the appointment as Governor of Donald McKenzie. This old trader had taken part in the formation of the Astor Fur Company, and was in charge of one of the famous parties, which in 1811 crossed the continent, as described by Washington Irving. Ross Cox says of this beleaguered party: "Their concave cheeks, protuberant bones, and tattered garments indicated the dreadful extent of their privations. The old trader thus case-hardened faced bravely for eight years the worries of the Colony.
AND THE FLOOD CAME.
With fire and flood some of the greatest catastrophies of the world have been closely connected. The tradition of the Noachian deluge has been found among almost all peoples. Horace speaks of the mild little Tiber becoming so unruly that the fishes swam among the tops of the trees upon its banks. Tidal waves devastated the shores of England and France on several occasions. It is most natural that prairie rivers should exceed their banks and spread over wide areas of the land. Old Trader Nolin, one of the first on the prairies, states that a worse flood than that seen by the Selkirk Settlers took place fifty years before, and there were two other floods between these two. Each year, according to the tale of the old settlers, the rivers of the prairies have been becoming wider by denudation, so that each flood tends to be less. Several conditions seem to be necessary for a flood upon these prairie rivers. These are a very heavy snowfall during the prairie winter, a late spring in which the river ice retains itshold, and a sudden period in the springtime of very hot weather, these being modified as the years go on by the ever-widening river channel.
The winter of 1825-6 was one of the most terrific ever known in the history of the Selkirk Settlement. Just before Christmas the first woe occurred. The snow drove the herds of buffaloes far out upon the prairies from the river encampments and the wooded shelter. The horses in bands were scattered and lost, dying as they floundered in the deep snows. Even the hunters were cut off from one another, the hunters' families were driven hither and thither, and in many cases separated on the wide snowy plains. Sheriff Ross, who was a visitor from the Settlement to Pembina in the dreary winter there, describes the scene of horror. "Families here and families there despairing of life, huddled themselves together for warmth, and in too many cases, their shelter proved their grave. At first, the heat of their bodies melted the snow; they became wet, and being without food or fuel, the cold soon penetrated, and in several instances froze the whole into a body of solid ice. Some again, were found in a state of wild delirium, frantic, mad; while others were picked up, one here, and one there, overcome in their fruitless attempts to reach Pembina—some half-way, some more,some less; one woman was found with an infant on her back, within a quarter of a mile of Pembina. This poor creature must have travelled, at least, one hundred and twenty-five miles, in three days and nights, till she sunk at last in the too unequal struggle for life." Such scenes might be expected in the valleys of the Highlands of Scotland, or amid the heavy snows of New Brunswick or Quebec, but they were a surprise upon the open prairie. Some of the settlers had devoured their dogs, raw hides, leather and their very shoes. The loss of thirty-three lives cast a gloom over the whole settlement.
Anxiety had been aroused throughout the whole Colony. The St. Lawrence often overflows its banks at Montreal, the Grand River at Brantford and the Fraser at its delta, but the rarity of the Red River overflows led the people, after their winter disaster, to hope that they would escape a flood.
This was not to be.
As the Red River flows northward, the first thaw of spring is usually south of the American International Boundary line at the head waters of the river which divides Minnesota and Dakota. In these States the floods are always, in consequence, greater than they are in Manitoba. In this year the ice held very firm up to the end of April. On the second of May,the waters from above rose and lifted the ice which still held in a mass together some nine feet above the level of the day before. Indians and whites alike were alarmed. The water overflowed its banks, and still continued to rise at Fort Garry. The Governor and his family were driven to the upper story of their residence in the fort, with the water ten feet deep below that.
The whole river bank for miles was a scene of confusion and terror. Every home was an alarming scene as the flood reached it. The first thought was to save life. Amid the crying of children, the lowing of cattle and the howling of dogs, parents sought out all their children to see them safely removed. Parents and grown men and women fled in fright from their houses, and in many cases without any other garments than their working clothes. The only hope was to seek out somewhat higher spots more and more removed from the river. And with them went their cattle and horses.
To those in boats—the stronger and more venturesome men—the task now came of removing the wheat and oats, what little furniture they possessed and the necessary cooking utensils.
Blessed, on such occasions, are those who possess little for they shall have no loss.
As the waters rose, the lake became wider,and the wind blew the waves to a dangerous height. The ice broke up and the current increasing dashed this against the buildings, which at length gave way and all went floating down across the points—ice, log houses with dogs and cats frantic on their roofs. One eyewitness says: "The most singular spectacle was a house in flames, drifting along in the night, its one half immersed in water and the remainder furiously burning."
As the flood of waters widened into a great expanse it became plain that it would be some time,—if indeed less than several months,—before the waters would begin to abate, and in the absence of an Ararat on which to rest, the settlers occupied the rock-bared elevations, the highest Stony Mount, only eighty feet above the level, with the middle bluff, little Stony Mountain and Bird's Hill, east of the river. It is interesting to know that Silver Heights and the banks of the Sturgeon Creek near its mouth, were not submerged and at their various points the Colonists pitched their tents and sojourned.
In seventeen days from the first rise, the water reached its height, and hope began immediately to return. On the 22nd of May the waters commenced to assuage, and twenty days afterward the Settlers were able with difficulty to reach their homes again.
But every disaster has its side of advantage. During the escape of the Settlers to the heights, the De Meurons, losing all sense of restraint, stole the cattle of the Settlers and actually sold them meat from their own slaughtered cattle. So intense was the feeling of the Scottish Settlers against the De Meurons that the Selkirk Colonists chose another situation and moved to it
Now that the flood was over, the De Meurons and Swiss became more restless than ever. They decided to move to the United States. The Selkirk Colonists were glad to see them go, and furnished them, free of cost, sufficient supplies for their journey. They departed on the 24th of June, their band numbering 243, and the sturdy pioneers who held to their land shed no tears of sorrow at their going.
With remarkable courage and hope the Settlers returned after what was to some of them, their fourth Hegira, and immediately planted potatoes and small quantities of wheat and barley. This grew well and supplied food for them, and in the next two or three years no less than two hundred and four houses were built. The Settlement, now freed from dissension, had not gone through its fiery ordeal in vain. The news of a home for themselves and their dusky wives and half-breed children, had spread over the whole of Rupert's Land, andnow began, what Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, the first Governor of Manitoba, afterward spoke of as the floating down the rivers with their wives and children of the Hudson's Bay Company officers and men to the paradise of Red River. The great majority of the employees of the Company were Orkneymen. They gradually took up the most of the Red River lots surveyed, lying below Kildonan, and forming the Parishes of St. Paul's and St. Andrew's on Red River, down to St. Peter's Indian Reserve and St. James' and Headingly up the Assiniboine. The French half-breeds who removed from Pembina and different parts of Rupert's Land, made the great French parishes of St. Boniface, St. Norbert, St. Vital on the Red River, with St. Charles, St. Francois Xavier and Baie St. Paul on the Assiniboine. And now of Scottish Settlers with French and English half-breeds, the population of Red River Settlement had reached the number of 1,500 souls.
THE JOLLY GOVERNOR.
Great crises in the world's history generally produce the men who solve them. Cromwell, Washington, Garibaldi—each of them was the movement itself. A wider philosophy may see that the age or the Community evolves the man, but as Carlyle shows, it is the man who reacts upon the community, becomes the embodiment of its ideal, and is the mouthpiece and the right hand of the age which produces him.
That Andrew Colville, a brother-in-law of Lord Selkirk, should select a young clerk in London and send him out to Athabasca to see the great fur-region of the Mackenzie River District, is not a wonderful thing, but that after one year of active service this young man should be chosen to guide the destinies of the great united fur company, made up of the Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Wester Companies is a wonder.
This was the case with George Simpson, a Scottish youth, who was the illegitimate son of the maternal uncle of Thomas Simpson, thefamous Arctic explorer, who is known as having followed out a portion of the coast line of the Arctic Sea.
Anyone can see that from the proverbial energy that is developed in those of inferior birth, there was here one of Nature's commanding spirits, who would bring order out of chaos.
Moreover, the fact of his short service in a distant part of the fur country, left him free from prejudice, gave him an open mind, and permitted him to serve as a young man when he was yet plastic and adaptable—all this was in his favor.
Governor Simpson was short of stature, but possessed of great energy and endurance. He was keen in mind and observing in his faculties. Active and determined, he might at times seem a martinet and a tyrant, but he had at the same time an easy and pleasant manner that enabled him to attract to himself his servants and subordinates, but especially the savages with whom he had constantly to have dealings. His ardent Highland nature led him to rejoice in the picturesque and the showy, and he was fond of music and of society. Given to change, Simpson became a great traveller and made a voyage around the world before the days of steam or railway.
One of the first gatherings of the fur traders, in which the young Governor gained goldenopinions, was held at Norway House, the old resting place of the Selkirk Settlers. This meeting took place in June, 1823; the minutes of this meeting have been preserved and are interesting. Such items as, that Bow River Fort at the foot of the Rocky Mountains was abandoned; that because of prairie fires the buffaloes were far beyond Pembina; that the Assiniboine Indians had moved to the Saskatchewan for food; that trouble with the French traders had arisen on account of their determination to trade in furs; that the French half-breeds had largely moved from Pembina to St. Boniface; that the trade should be withdrawn from beyond the American Boundary line; that the Sioux Indians should be discouraged from coming to the Forts to trade; and that the company intended to take over the Colony from Lord Selkirk's trustees, all came up for consideration.
These were all important and difficult problems, but the young Governor acted with such shrewdness and skill, that he completely carried the Council with him, and was given power to act for the Council during the intervals between its meetings—a thing most unusual.
The Governor was ubiquitous.