Hudson's Bay; or, Every-day life in the wilds of North America, during six years' residence in the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company. Second edition

Front matter

NEW WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. In One Volume Royal Post Octavo, Half -bound Morocco, Price One Guinea, NOW AND THEN. BY SAMUEL WAEEEN, F.E.S. THE SECOND EDITION. " Such is the outline of Mr Warren's present work — a vindication, in beautiful prose, of the ' ways of God to man.' A grander moral is not to be found than that which dwells upon the reader's mind when the book is closed ; conveyed, too, as it is, in language as masculine and eloquent as any the English tongue can fur nish." — The Times. " We consider this work an honour to the literature of the day. The words ' Now and Then ' will no doubt excite the curiosity of many. It is a noble and worthy theme ; for Mr Warren wishes to bring before the mind the important lesson that ' now ' in this present life, whether woe or weal betide us, ' we see through a glass, darkly;' not knowing how it may please Providence, in His own good time, to accomplish His own ends ; but that there will be a future, and ' then ' we shall see 'face to face,' and ' know even as also we are known.' It is a grave and serious book — grave with wisdom, serious with the knowledge of the highest truths." — The Morning Post.

New Editions have been lately published of PASSAGES FROM THE DIAKY OE A LATE PHYSICIAN. By Samuel Warken, F.R.S. In Two Volumes foolscap 8vo, 12s. cloth. " We know of no book in the English language so calculated to rivet the attention, and awaken the purest and deepest sympathies of the heart, as the ' Diary of a Late Physician.' The man who has not read these tales has yet to learn a lesson in the mysteries of human nature ; and though ' Ten Thousand a- Year ' may, as a literary composition, cbim precedence, we think it lacks something — a very httle — of that truthful simplicity, that trusting and religious fervour, which refines every sentiment and hallows every aspiration inspired by the elder work." — Oxford and Cambridge Review. By the same author, TEN THOUSAND A- YEAR. In Three Volumes foolscap 8vo, 18s. cloth.

" For a length of time there has not appeared in England a-work, no not even of a style professedly higher, which contains such valuable and' such striking lessons on the vain fickleness of the opinions and the infatuations of the world; on the force of example and fashion, and on the omnipotence of wealth ; on the irresistible impulse which gives increase of riches to the rich, and of poverty to the poor." — R«vue des Deux Mondes (Paris.) 11 The characters are excellent, some of them equal to the highest efforts of the highest masters ; the insight into motives is searching ; the scenes display a power of reproducing on paper what experience has taught ; some of the incidents are novel, startling, and of surprising power. The author's leading idea is to illustrate a moral order in the government of the world — a providential design even under circumstances apparently the most adverse to the cause of virtue.

Preface

. In publishing the present work, the Author rests his hopes of its favourable reception, chiefly upon the fact that its subject is comparatively new. Although touched upon by other writers in nar ratives of Arctic discovery, and in works of general information, the very nature of those publications prohibited a lengthened or minute description of that every-day life, whose delineation is the chief aim of the following pages. The illustrative wood-cuts scattered throughout the volume, are from drawings made on the spot by the Author. He originally intended giving views of eight or ten forts and establishments of

PREFACE.

. the Hudson's Bay Company, but has thought it better to reduce the number of these, and substi tute, for the remainder, representations of scenes and objects which pages of letterpress would often fail in placing correctly before the reader.

Chapter I. Appointment To The Sef

YICE OF THE HUDSON'S BAT COMPANY. Reader, — I take for granted that you are tolerably well acquainted with the different modes of life and tra velling peculiar to European nations. I also presume that you know something of the inhabitants of the East ; and, it may be, a good deal of the Americans in general. But I suspect, at least I would fain hope, that you have only a vague and indefinite knowledge of life in those wild, uncivilised regions of the northern continent of America, that surround the shores of Hudson's Bay. I would fain hope this, I say, that I may have the satis faction of giving you information on the subject, and of showing you that there is a body of civilised men who move, and breathe, (pretty cool air, by the way !) and spend their lives in a quarter of the globe as totally different, in most respects, from the part you inhabit, as a beaver, roaming among the ponds and marshes of his A native home, is from that sagacious animal when con verted into a fashionable hat.

About the middle of May eighteen hundred and forty-one, I was thrown into a state of ecstatic joy by the arrival of a letter appointing me to the enviable situation of apprentice clerk in the service of the Hon ourable Hudson's Bay Company. To describe the im mense extent to which I expanded, both mentally and bodily, upon the receipt of this letter, is impossible ; it is sufficient to know, that from that moment I fancied myself a complete man-of-business, and treated my old companions with the condescending suavity of one who knows that he is talking to his inferiors. A few days after, however, my pride was brought very low indeed, as I lay tossing about in my berth on the tumbling waves of the German Ocean, eschewing breakfast as a dangerous meal, and looking upon dinner with a species of horror utterly incomprehensible by those who have not experienced an attack of sea-sick ness.

Miseries of this description, fortunately, do not last long. In a couple of days we got into the compara tively still water of the Thames ; and I, with a host of pale-faced young ladies, and cadaverous-looking young gentlemen, emerged for the first time from the interior of the ship, to behold the beauties and wonders of the great metropolis, as we glided slowly up the crowded river. Leave-taking is a disagreeable subject, either to re flect upon or to write about, so we will skip that part of the business and proceed at once to Gravesend, where I stood (having parted from all my friends) on the deck of the good ship Prince Rupert, contemplating the boats and crowds of shipping that passed continually before me, and thinking how soon I was to leave the scenes to which I had been so long accustomed, for a far distant land.

I was a boy, however, and this, I think, is equiva lent to saying that I did not sorrow long. My future companion and fellow-clerk, Mr W , was pacing the deck near me. This turned my thoughts into another channel, and set me speculating upon his probable tem per, qualities, and age ; whether or not he was strong enough to thrash me, and if we were likely to be good friends. The captain, too, was chatting and laughing with the doctor, as carelessly as if he had not the great responsibility of taking a huge ship across a boundless waste of waters, and through fields and islands of ice, to a distant country some three thousand miles to the north-west of England. Thus encouraged, my spirits began to rise, and, when the cry arose on deck that the steamer containing the committee of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company was in sight, I sprang up the companion-ladder in a state of mind, if not happy, at least as nearly so as, under the circumstances, could be expected.

Upon gaining the deck, I beheld a small steam-boat passing close to us, filled with a number of elderly looking gentlemen, who eyed us with a very critical expression of countenance. I had a pretty good guess who these gentlemen were ; but, had I been entirely ignorant, I should soon have been enlightened by the remark of a sailor, who whispered to his comrade, " I say, Bill, them's the great guns !" I suppose the fact of their being so had a sympathetic effect upon the guns of the Company's three ships, the Prince Rupert, Prince Albert, and Prince of Wales, for they all three fired a number of blank cartridges at the steamer as she passed them in succession. The steamer then ranged alongside of us, and the elderly gentlemen came on board and shook hands with the captain and officers, smiling blandly as they observed the neat, trim appearance of the three fine vessels, which, with every thing in readiness for setting sail on the following morn ing, strained at their cables, as if anxious to commence their struggle with the waves.

It is a custom of the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company to give a public dinner to the officers of their ships upon the eve of their departure from Gravesend; and, ere the gentlemen of the committee left the vessel, one of them invited the captain and officers to attend, and, to my astonishment and delight, also begged me to honour them with my company. I accepted the invitation with extreme politeness ; and, from inability to express my joy in any other way, winked to my friend W , with whom I had become, by this time, pretty familiar. He, being also invited, winked in return to me ; and, having disposed of this piece of juvenile free masonry to our satisfaction, we assisted the crew in giving three hearty cheers as the httle steamer darted from us and proceeded to the shore. The dinner, like all other public dinners, was as good and substantial as a lavish expenditure of cash could make it ; but really my recollections of it are very indistinct.

The ceaseless din of plates, glasses, knives, forks, and tongues, was tremendous ; and this, together with the novelty of the scene, the heat of the room, and excellence of the viands, tended to render me oblivious of much that took place. Almost all the faces present were strange to me. Who were, and who were not, the gentlemen of the committee, to me was matter of the most perfect indifference ; and as no one took the trouble to address me in particular, I confined myself to the interesting occupation of trying to make sense of a conversation held by upwards of fifty pairs of lungs, at one and the same time. Nothing intelligible, however, was to be heard, except when a sudden lull in the noise gave a bald-headed old gentleman, near the head of the table, an opportunity of drinking the health of a red-faced old gentleman near the foot, upon whom he bestowed an amount of flattery perfectly bewildering ; and, after making the unfortunate red-faced gentleman writhe for half an hour in a fever of modesty, sat down amid thunders of applause.

Whether the applause, by the way, was intended for the speaker, or the speakee, I do not know ; but, being quite indifferent, I clapped my hands with the rest. The red-faced gentleman, now purple with excitement, then rose, and during a solemn silence, delivered himself of a speech, to the effect, that the day then passing was certainly the happiest in his mortal career, and that he felt quite faint with the mighty load of honour just thrown upon his dehghted shoulders by his bald-headed friend. The red-faced gentleman then sat down to the national air of Rat-tat-tat, played in full chorus, with knives, forks, spoons, nutcrackers, and knuckles, on the pohshed surface of the mahogany table. We left the dinner-table at a late hour, and after I, in company with some other youngsters, had done as much mischief as we conveniently could without risking our detention by the strong arm of the law, we went down to the beach and embarked in a boat with the captain, for the ship.

How the sailors ever found her in the darkness is a mystery to me to this day. Find her, how ever, they did, and in half an hour I was in the land of Nod. The sun was high in the heavens next morning when I awoke, and gazed around for a few moments to dis cover where I was ; but the rattling of ropes and blocks, stamping of feet over-head, and above all, a certain strange and disagreeable motion in my dormitory, soon enhghtened me on that point. We were going rapidly down the Thames, with a fair breeze, and had actually set sail for the distant shores of Hudson's Bay. What took place during the next five or six days, I know not, for the demon of sea-sickness again completely prostrated my faculties, bodily and mental. Some faint recollections I have of stormy weather, horrible noises, and hurried dinners ; but the greater part of the time is a miserable blank in my memory.

Towards the sixth day, however, the savoury flavour of a splendid salmon-trout floated past my dried-up nostrils, hke " Afric's spicy gale," and caused my collapsed stomach to yearn with strong emo tion. The ship, too, was going more quietly through the water, and a broad stream of sunshine shot through the small window of my berth into my breast, and through that into my heart, filling it with a calm but melancholy pleasure, quite indescribable. Sounds, how ever, of an attack upon the trout roused me, and with a mighty effort I tumbled out of bed, donned my clothes, and seated myself, for the first time, at the table. Our party was composed of the captain, Mr C , a chief factor in the Company's service, the doctor, two ap prentice clerks, the first and second mates, and myself ; all excellent fellows in their way.

Soon after this, we anchored in the quiet little harbour of Stornoway. The bay is surrounded by high hills, except at the entrance, where a passage, not more, I should think, than three hundred yards wide, admits vessels of any tonnage into its sheltering bosom. Stornoway, a pretty modest-looking village, apparently pleased with its lot, and con tented to be far away from the busy and bustling world, lies snugly at the bottom of the bay. Here we remained upwards of a week, engaging men for the wild Nor' west, and cultivating the acquaintance of the villagers, who were extremely kind and hospitable. Occasionally, I amused myself with fishing excursions to the middle of the bay in small boats, in which excursions I was usually accompanied by two or three very ragged httle boys from the village.

Our sport was generally good, and rendered extremely interesting by our uncertainty as to which of the monsters of the deep would first attack our hooks. Rock-codlings and flounders appeared the most voracious, and occasionally a skate or long-legged crab came struggling to the surface. Just before leaving this peaceful little spot, our cap tain gave a grand ball on board, to which were invited the elite of Stornoway. Great preparations were made for the occasion. The quarter-deck was well washed and scrubbed ; an awning was spread over it, which formed a capital ceiling ; and representatives of almost every flag that waves, formed the walls of the large and airy apartment. Oil lamps, placed upon the sky-lights, companion, and capstan, shed a mellow light upon the scene, the romantic effect of which was greatly height ened by a few flickering rays of the moon, which shot through various openings in the drapery, and disported playfully upon the deck.

At an early and very un fashionable hour on the evening of the appointed night, the guests arrived in detachments ; and, while the gentle men scrambled up the side of the vessel, the ladies, amid a good deal of blushing and hesitation, were hoisted on board in a chair. Tea was served on deck ; and, after half an hour's laughing and chatting, during which time our violin-player was endeavouring to coax his first string to the proper pitch without breaking, the ball opened with a Scotch reel. Great was the fun, numerous were the ludicrous incidents, that happened during that mirthful night ; and loud were the noise and merriment of the dancers as they went with vigorous energy through the bewildering evolutions of country-dance and reel. Immense was the dehght of the company when the funniest old gentleman there volunteered a song ; and ecstatic the mirth, when he followed it up by a speech upon every subject that an ordinary mind could possibly embrace in a quarter of an hour.

But who can describe the scene that ensued, when supper was reported ready in the cabin ! Such pushing, squeezing, laughing, shrieking, and joking, in the vain attempt made to get upwards of thirty people crammed into a room of twelve feet by ten ! Such droll, and sometimes cutting remarks as were made when they were at last requested to sup in detachments ! All this, however, was nothing to the fun that ensued after supper, when the fiddler became more energetic, and the dancers more vigorous and active. But it is useless trying to describe the merry scene, and I blush to think I have had the audacity to attempt it. The first gray streaks of morning glimmered in the east ere the joyous party tumbled down the sides and departed to their homes. There is a sweet, yet melancholy pleasure, when far away from friends and home, in thinking over happy days gone by, and dwelling on the merry scenes and pleasures that have passed, perhaps for ever.

So I thought and felt, as I recalled to mind the fun and frohc of the Stornoway ball, the graver mirth of the Graves end dinner, and the peaceful time when I lived in sweet P , surrounded by the gentle inmates of my happy home. We had now left the shores of Scotland, and were ploughing through the heaving waves of the wide Atlantic ; and, when I turned my straining eyes towards the faint blue line of the lessening hills, " a tear unbidden trembled," as the thought arose that I looked, perhaps, for the last time, upon my dear native land. The sea has been an inexhaustible subject for the pens of most classes of writers. The poet, the traveller, and the novelist, have each devoted a portion of their time and talents to the mighty ocean ; but alas ! that part of it which it has fallen to my lot to describe, is very different from those about which poets have sung with rapture.

Here, none of the many wonders of the tropical latitudes beguile the tedium of the voyage ; no glittering dolphins force the winged inhabitants of the deep to seek shelter on the vessel's deck ; no ravenous sharks follow in our wake to eat us if we chance to fall overboard, or amuse us by swallowing our baited hook ; no passing vessel cheers the passenger with the knowledge that there are others besides himself roaming over the interminable waste of waters. All was dreary and monotonous ; the same unvarying expanse of sky and water met our gaze each morning as we ascended to the deck to walk for half an hour before breakfast ; except when the topsails of our accompanying vessels fluttered for a moment on the dis tant horizon. Occasionally we approached closer to each other, and once or twice hailed with the trumpet ; but these breaks in the gloom of our existence were few and far between.

Towards the end of July we approached Hudson's Straits, having seen nothing on the way worth mention ing, except one whale, which passed close under the stern of the ship. This was a great novelty to me, being the first whale I had seen, and it gave me something to talk of and think about for the next four days. The ships now began to close in, as we neared the entrance of the straits, and we had the pleasure of sailing in company for a few days. The shores of the straits became visible occasionally, and soon we passed, with perfect confidence and security, among those narrow channels and mountains of ice that damped the ardour and retarded the progress of Hudson, Button, Gibbons, and other navigators, in days of yore. One day, during a dead calm, our ship and the Prince of Wales lay close to each other, rolling in the swell of the glassy ocean ; and, there seeming no prospect of a breeze, the captain ordered his gig to be launched, and invited the doctor, Mr C , and myself, to go on board the Prince of Wales with him.

We accepted his offer joyfully, and were soon alongside. Old Captain R , a veteran in the Company's service, received us kindly, and prevailed on our captain to stay tea. The passengers on board were Mr F , a chief factor, (the highest rank attainable in the service,) who had been home on leave of absence and was returning to end his days, perhaps, in the north-west ; and Mr John M , a young apprentice clerk, going, like myself, to try his fortune in Hudson's Bay. He was a fine, candid young fellow, full of fun and frohc, with a kind, engaging disposition, and I formed a great friendship for him the moment I saw him, which was destined to ripen into a lasting one many years after. Little did I think, when I parted from him that evening, that we should ever meet again ; yet so it was. About six years from the time I bade him farewell in Hudson's Straits, I again grasped his hand on the shores of the mighty St Lawrence, and renewed that friendship which afforded me the greatest pleasure I enjoyed in the country, and which, I trust, neither time nor distance will ever lessen.

We spent the evening delightfully, the more so that we were not likely to have such an opportunity again, as the Prince of Wales would shortly part company from us, and direct her course to Moose factory, in James's Bay, while we should proceed across Hudson's Bay to York factory. We left the ship just as a few cat's-paws on the surface of the water gave indications of a coming breeze. Ice now began to surround us in all directions, and soon after this I saw, for the first time, that monster of the Polar Seas, an iceberg. We passed quite close, and had a fine opportunity of observing it. Though not so large as they are frequently seen, it was beautifully and fantastically formed. High peaks rose from it on various places, and down its sides streams of water and miniature cataracts flowed in torrents.

The whole mass was of a greenish-white colour, and its lofty pinnacles sparkled in the moonbeams as it floated past, bending majestically in the swell of the ocean. About this time, too, we met numerous fields and floes of ice, to get through which, we often experienced considerable difficulty. My favourite amusement, as we thus threaded our way through the ice, was to ascend to the royal-yard, and there, whilst gazing on these most romantic scenes, to cogitate on the wonders of creation. It is impossible to convey a correct idea of the beauty, the magnificence, of some of the scenes through which we passed. Thousands of the most grotesque, fanciful, and beautiful icebergs and icefields, surrounded us on all sides, intersected by numerous serpentine canals, which glittered in the sun, (for the weather was fine all the time we were in the straits,) hke threads of silver, twining round ruined palaces of crystal.

The masses assumed every variety of form and size, and many of them bore such a striking resemblance to cathedrals, churches, columns, arches, and spires, that I could almost fancy we had been transported to one of the floating cities of Fairy-land. The rapid motion, too, of our ship, in what appeared a dead calm, added much to the magical effect of the scene. A hght but steady breeze urged her along, with considerable velocity, through a maze of ponds and canals, which, from the immense quantity of ice that surrounded them, were calm and unruffled as the surface of a mill-pond. Not a sound disturbed the dehghtful stillness of nature, save the gentle ripphng of the vessel's bow as she sped on her way, or the occasional puffing of a lazy whale, awakened from a nap by our unceremonious intrusion on his domains.

Now and then, however, my reveries were disagreeably interrupted by the ship coming into sudden contact with huge lumps of ice. This happened occasion ally when we arrived at the termination of one of those natural canals through which we passed, and found it necessary to force our way into the next. These con cussions were sometimes very severe, and even made the ship's bell ring ; but we heeded this little, as the vessel was provided with huge blocks of timber on her bows, called ice-pieces, and was besides built expressly for sailing in the northern seas. It only became annoying at meal-times, when a spoonful of soup would sometimes make a little private excursion of its own, over the shoulder of the owner instead of into his mouth. As we proceeded, the ice became more closely packed, and at last compelled us to bore through it.

The ship, however, was never altogether detained, though much retarded. I recollect, while thus surrounded, filling a bucket with water from a pool on the ice, to see whether it was fresh or not, as I had been rather sceptical upon this point. It was excellent, and might almost compete with the water from the famous spring of Crawley ! In a few days we got out of the ice altogether, and in this, as the ships are frequently detained for weeks in the straits, we considered ourselves very fortunate. I experienced at this time a severe disappointment in the non-appearance of the Esquimaux upon the coast. The captain said they would be sure to come off to us, as they had always been in the habit of doing, for the purpose of exchanging ivory and oil, for saws, files, needles, &c, a large chest full of which is put on board annually for this purpose.

The ivory usually procured from them is walrus tusks. These are not very large, and are of inferior quality. As we approached the shores of the straits we short ened sail and fired three or four guns, but no noisy "chimo" floated across the water in answer to our salute ; still we lingered for a while, but, as there was no sign of the natives on shore, the captain concluded they had gone off to the interior, and he steered out to sea again. I was very much disappointed at this, as it was wholly unexpected, and I had promised myself much pleasure in trading with them, for which purpose all the buttons of my old waistcoats had been amputated. It was useless, however, to repine, so I contented myself with the hope, that they would yet visit us in some other part of the straits. We afterwards learned that our guns had at tracted them to the coast in time to board the Prince Albert, (which was out of sight astern,) though too late for us.

Our passage across Hudson's Bay was stormy, but no one on board cared for this, having become quite accus tomed to it. For my part, I had become quite a sailor, and could ascend and descend easily to the truck, with out creeping through the lubber's hole. I shall not for get the first time I attempted this : our youngest apprentice had challenged me to try it, so up we went together — he on the fore, and I on the main mast. The tops were gained easily, and we even made two or three steps up the top-mast shrouds with affected indifference ; but, alas! our courage was failing, at least mine was, very fast. However, we gained the cross-trees pretty well, and then sat down for a httle to recover breath. The top-gallant-mast still reared its taper form high above me, and the worst was yet to come.

The top-gallant shrouds had no rattlins on them, so I was obliged to shin up ; and, as I worked myself up the two small ropes, the tenacity with which I grasped them was fearful. At last I reached the top, and with my feet on the small collar that fastens the ropes to the mast, and my arms circling the mast itself— for nothing but a bare pole, and the signal halyards, now rose above me — I glanced up wards. After taking a long breath, and screwing up my courage, I slowly shinned up the slender pole, and, standing on the royal-yard, laid my hand upon the truck. After a while I got accustomed to it, and thought nothing of taking an airing on the royal-yard after breakfast. About the 5th or 6th of August, the captain said we must be near the land. The deep-sea lead was rigged and a sharp look-out kept, but no land appeared.