Manitoba: its infancy, growth and present condition ... With maps and illustrations

Front matter

MANITOBA LONDON : FRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE. THOMAS DOUGLAS, 5TH EARL OF SELKIRK, F.R.S., ETC. (From posthumous Bust by Charatry.) [Frontispiect MANITOBA: ITS INFANCY, GROWTH, AND PRESENT CONDITION BY THE Rev. PROFESSOR BRYCE, M.A., LL.B. Head of Manitoba College, Delegue de V 1 7isut\tioiL Ethnograpkiqite de Paris, Corrc spending Secretary Manitoba Historical Society, &*c. WITH MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS. iLontloii : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON CROWN BUILDINGS, l88, FLEET STREET. 1882. [All rights reserved. ]

Preface

. " ALSO after the manner of the farmer let me follow the crooked plough, while the oxen break up the fields that are lying ready to be worked," said Tibullus the ancient in one of his Elegies. At the present time the name of Manitoba suggests such thoughts as these of Tibullus to thousands of those with whom the world is going hard in Great Britain and Ireland. One object in view in this work is to make it some what real to those who are looking towards Manitoba, the great prairie land. The writer is neither a Government emigration agent, a special corre spondent, nor a candidate for political honours, but simply one who has led a most busy life in connexion with the educational and social improvement of the Canadian North-West for the last ten years, and has tried to keep his eyes open during that eventful period.

One object of the present work is to collect together the various recollections connected with the names, Hudson's Bay Territory, Rupert's Land, Assiniboia, Red River Settlement, and Selkirk Colony — names that have been mainly swallowed up in the Manitoba of to-day. Many unsolved problems Preface. VI of interest are touched upon ; many disputed points necessarily referred to, and the actions of many different persons pronounced upon, under many trying circumstances ; while a description of the country, its resources, and prospects will be found shining through all the discussions. The author has tried to be just, has sought "nought to extenuate, nor aught set down in malice." He has endeavoured to call things by their true names. He does not disguise the fact that he seeks to reverse an opinion, held by some, "that the Earl of Selkirk was not worthy of confidence as a colonizer."

The feeling of reverence shown by the Selkirk colonists in Manitoba till the present day for the memory of their patron was the first thing that directed the attention of the writer to the matter, and further investigation has shown that justice has been too long delayed to the memory of one of whom Sir Walter Scott, an intimate friend, says, " I never knew in my life a man of a more generous and dis interested disposition." The author has to return thanks to the present Earl of Selkirk and Lady Isabella Hope, only survivors of the family of the late Earl, for supplying many of the materials of the work. The immediate cause of the present work is in its having given recreation and a change of subject to the mind of the writer, overtaxed with assisting others in the heavy task of laying the foundations in education and religion, in what was called at the beginning of the last decade " The Great Lone Land." CONTENTS.

Chapter I

A GOOD MAN AND A NOBLE WORK. In the little fishing village of Helmsdale, on the east coast of the Scottish county of Sutherland, a band of colonists were waiting the arrival of the vessel in which they were to begin their journey and cross the tempes tuous North Atlantic, to a new home in America. It was seventy years ago, and the vessels that went round the stormy coasts of the North of Scotland, and there faced the billows of the Pentland Frith, were no doubt staunch and well tried. Manned with the hardy coastmen and the islanders from Orkney, the trim little vessels rose and fell with the waves as if en dowed with life. Yet who would now think of facing the dangers of the great sea in such craft ! Those were not the days of the Allan liners, and for weeks these small sailing-vessels of the older days danced about the Atlantic with a westward trend, until at length the new world was reached.

The village grave-yard spoke of many a daring mariner B Manitoba. 2 who had at last fallen a prey to the stormy North Sea, and been dashed in some hurricane upon the shore: but the sea was the means of livelihood to the fishermen, and though they knew that sooner or later the water wraith would appear on its weird mission of death, yet for wife and hungry bairns the dangers must be faced — and familiarity lessens fear. But the colonists were not fishermen. Along the coast of Sutherlandshire and the north-east of Scot land there live side by side two distinct races. The fishermen are of Norwegian descent, are chiefly known by the blue eye of the Norse nations, and speak a Teutonic language. The people living by farming — to whom the colonists belonged — had the colour of the Celt, the language of the Celt, and the Highland pride of the mountaineer.

Woe to the luck less damsel of Highland blood, who listened to the wooing strains of any young fisher-lad. If thus she made her choice, she might ever after count on the contempt of her own people, which could remain as strong a seeling toward her and her offspring fifty years after, as on the day when she forsook the ancestral tradition by plighting troth to a fisherman lover. But sad days had fallen upon the Highlands. The " Highland Clearances " will ever glow with the lurid recollections of homes broken up, Highland thousands driven to foreign lands, and Highland hearts torn with pain at having to leave home and country. And now the exiles stand gazing at the stormy sea and their rolling vessel with failing hearts. But they must go. The company has gathered, and the bustle of needed preparation is mingled with the weeping of women, the farewells of relatives, and the wild joy of the unconscious children, who see and know only the novelty of the scene.

The colonists are going out under distinguished patronage, and no less a person than a noble of one of Scotland's oldest families is present to see the colony depart. A tall, spare man, full six feet high, with a pleasant countenance, is the Earl of Selkirk — and he is bidding his people a hearty good-bye, with a promise to come and visit them in their new homes on the prairies in the very heart of North America. Though from the South of Scotland, and without a drop of Celtic blood in his veins, his love for the Highland race had enabled him to take up their language while rambling in their beautiful glens. His lordship makes his promises to the older men, comforts their weeping spouses with those Gaelic ex pressions which are the vehicle of intensest feeling, and gives words of encouragement to the young men — the hope of the colony.

The whole number is about seventy, of this first party, but this is only the advanced guard, for in the land acquired by their patron is the room denied them in their native country — and not for them alone, but for a million of people. But to these have assembled there a goodly number of sorrowing relatives, many of whom shall follow soon, and among them several of " the men " — a remarkable ciass of Highland worthies — having counterparts nowhere else, so far as we know. They were men of a superior sort, noted for their sanctity, who seem to have taken the place in the Highland mind of the bards and wizards of their Celtic fore- B Manitoba. 4 fathers. It was said that by their superior goodness some of them had acquired a peculiar faculty, some thing bordering on the gift of prophecy, by which they could foretell certain events — that indeed they possessed the " second sight."

On the present occasion it is related that a family had as one of its members a weak and helpless babe. They feared to adventure themselves upon the deep with the sick child, and were anxious to delay their voyage. But one of " the men " professed to have it shown him that after so many days out on the voyage a change would take place, and the infant recover: The parents embarked, and truly enough after being a few days at sea the child revived, but we shall leave our readers to judge whether the recovery was from natural causes, and to speculate if they choose whether the prophet would have lost his fame had another result followed. We have no doubt that these lay prophets caused their spiritual overseer, the parish minister, many an hour of anxiety, for without fail they would claim to make up in piety for his superiority over them in information and college lore.

Lord Selkirk had wished to send with the colonists a spiritual guide, and had come to terms with the son of the parish minister of Resolis ; but the young man desired to remain a year to perfect himself in the native language of his people, and so one of "the men" had been selected to go — a man who afterwards bore himself irre proachably, and who had much influence in the colony. The colonists had for their expedition and their subsequent establishment been put under the care of an experienced leader, whom Lord Selkirk had selected from those met by him in the new world on a former visit — one acquainted with the region to which his colonists were proceeding. And now the ship — as staunch and well manned as any afloat — is ready : and the farewells have been taken, and the enterprise is consecrated by the strong features of Christian song and reverent supplication.

There is in these songs of the Highlanders what Professor Blackie calls, " The quiver of the weird old psalm tunes, streaming like a choir of spirits through the breezy air of the mountains, and making them most suitable for such occasions as this." No doubt those tunes are memorials of that time of heroic venturing, when a body of Ross and Sutherlandshire men went over to fight the battles of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years' War, and brought back these plaintive melodies so constantly used by the plaided people of the mountains, which became a part of their national life, as the name Gustavus is still found in the Highlands. And with the commendation to Him who rules the winds and the waves by their faithful and kind-hearted pastor, the journey is begun, and that ship-load become the founders of a new-world province.

After going around the North of Scotland and past the Hebrides, they land at Sligo, in North-Western Ireland, where they are joined by less than a score of Celts like themselves, but different in language and customs and sympathies. Once more out upon the open Atlantic their prow is turned northward, for they are searchers for a home that must be reached by the dangerous and unpromising route followed by the seekers for the north-west passage. Through Manitoba. 6 the icebergs drifting southward from Davis Straits they pass successfully, then thread their way through Hudson's Straits, and in the autumn of 1811 reach Fort Churchill on the north-west shore of the great inland sea of Hudson's Bay. Here they must stay the winter. They are provided with daily supplies of food ; and anxiously await the spring when they may journey southward to the land of promise, on the Red River of the North ; the spot now the centre of the fertile province of Manitoba — the cyno sure of many eyes.

Lord Selkirk's attempt to colo nize this district so early in the present century, and, as we shall see, in the midst of opposing influences, was a daring enterprise. This region was a part of the fur country, and the undertaking brought the colonizer into conflict with the determined Canadian merchants and traders, and hastened a hand-to-hand encounter between the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company of London, who favoured Selkirk's scheme, and the North-West Fur Company of Montreal, who, from the first, were hostile. The life of the fur-trader is one of romance ; it is out of the ordinary course, and he becomes, in conse quence, a man of mark. It affords great opportunities for gain, and so very often the fur-trader becomes wealthy. But this king of the solitudes needs an em pire for his operations, an empire in extent, though it must have for his purposes not human beings, but foxes, as its inhabitants.

The beaver is one of his most valued subjects ; but the beaver hates and flees from the face of man. From long journeys and dreary wastes, and undisturbed and lonesome spots, civilized man shrinks; but the native trapper, clad with leathern coat and leggings, stalks on snow-shoes gleefully from place to place, to gather the " catch" from his traps. The trader himself speeds as if in sport over the frozen plains in winter, with dogs as his horses, dragging the sliding cariole, in which he is encased in fur, and a native runner behind him, as his driver, brings up the rear. Although the trading-post, far from standing in sepulchral silence, is the abode of merriment and jollity, yet for all this the trader seeks to keep the territory a solitude, that he and his dependents may rejoice in it undisturbed.

Not to the same extent has this exclusive disposition been the characteristic of all the fur-traders. The Hud son's Bay Company has, on account of the conditions of its licence to trade, been more inclined to improve the native, and to foster civilizing influences, than the companies originating in the new world itself. The early French Canadian fur-trader modestly regarded the northern half of the North American Continent as little enough for his sole use. In the days of Champlain and Frontenac, and Beauharnois, Canada and New York State were held as the heaven-bestowed gift of the trapper; and since that time Oregon and Columbia, and Minnesota and the Mississippi country have been tenaciously withheld from the settler as long as possible. Nevertheless, the colonizer, armed with plough, and axe, and hammer, has steadily encroached on the trapper's retreat, until what we may call the fur-trader's isothermal, has receded fully twenty degrees to the northward ; and a country has been reached which, from its rocky Manitoba. conformation and severe climate — lying, as it does, north of Lakes Winnipeg and Athabasca, and pro ducing the finest varieties of fur — may well be regarded as reserved by nature for the trapper alone.

At the time of which we write, the fur-traders from Montreal came as far south as parallel 490, after they had passed the Grand Traverse from Lake Superior ; and they were as tenacious of their hold of the country through which they passed, as a fur pre serve, as they were enterprising and successful in their trade. They looked with intense jealousy on rivals from any quarter whatever, and had at one time, it is said, 5000 employes between the Atlantic and Pacific. These daring forest and prairie-rangers were exceedingly formidable in case of disagreement ; the more so, that the law in the wilderness solitude was simply the pleasure of the strongest in arms. The elysium of bears, and wolves, and foxes, must not be invaded by the unwelcome feet of rival merchants, much less of settlers and colonists.

It will be our task to follow out, to some extent, these North-Westers in their efforts to retain the country for themselves. Suffice it now to say that in the second decade of this century, the distinguished nobleman of whom we write, with every appearance of right that legal opinion and firm belief in the justice of his claim could give, undertook to settle his colony in the very heart of the fur-traders' country, upon land obtained by him from the Hudson's Bay Company, but which unquestionably had for years been traversed by the energetic agents of the Com pany from Montreal. The fiercest of struggles resuited, and bloodshed and litigation were the outcome. The events of that troubled period, from 181 1 to 1820, are a series of complicated issues. The historic mate rials of the time are evidently given on both sides as the product of such violent partisanship, that the most thorough research and calmest judgment are neces sary to gain the truth.

It is to the interest of no one now to keep back the facts. Sixty years may well suffice to have let the fires of party-spirit die away. The motives which Lord Selkirk had in founding the colony on the banks of Red River, underly the whole discussion. The Nor'-Westers did not hesitate to accuse him of the grossest cupidity ; and their spokesman wrote, warning all against " land-jobbing speculators, a class of persons well known in America, and of whom Lord Selkirk, from the magnitude of his operations, may be styled the chief." Sheriff Ross, a writer in thorough sympathy with Lord Selkirk, in his work on Red River, after suggesting various possible motives, ends by concluding that the Christianization of the Indians was his aim, though he has not shown how the noble earl hoped to accom plish this.

A late writer has said, " His lordship's real object in forming the colony on the Red River, appeared at the time to be the hope of getting a number of hardy men raised in the country, inured to the climate, and devoted to their patron's interest, to enter into the Hudson Bay Company's employ, and become servile tools in carrying arbitrary measures for the destruction of the North-West Company." The historian of Minnesota states Lord Selkirk's purpose to have been to effect the " colo- Manitoba. 10 nizing os British emigrants in these distant British possessions, and thus check the disposition to settle in the United States." In regard to all these reasons for Lord Selkirk's project, it must be said they are insufficient. Sad, indeed, would it have been, had any British peer been so unworthy of his order as to make the miseries of hundreds of the starving peasantry of his native country a means of gain.

Most unlikely is it that he would take families con taining women and children, by a route subject to the rigours of an Arctic climate, to rear a native race of Hudson's Bay trappers, when hundreds of Orcadians and North countrymen could be got for low wages, and shipped by whole vessel-loads to trap and hunt. Not the sending out of but a single Highland catechist (Sutherland) with his colonists, would have been his method, had Indian civilization been his object. Had Lord Selkirk only desired to check the tendency towards American emigration, with less expense and toil, he could have colonized the fertile lands of Upper Canada, then open to settlement. Why will men not take the simplest explanation when it amply meets the case ? Lord Selkirk organized a colony for the good of the colonists, who were in miserable circumstances in their native country ; placed his colony where it would be unaffected by contact with what he considered hurtful influences ; and spent time and thought, and money — even his own life being worn out in the struggle — to advance the interests of his people.

Why will men attribute sordid, impure, interested motives, when pure patriotism or noble philanthropy are simple explanations, lying ready to hand ? Those so hard to convince that human actions may be unselfish, are surely not the truest lovers of their kind. Baltimore and Penn stand worthy of remembrance as new world philanthropists ; and Selkirk, if we rightly read his life, may with them make up an honourable trio. Public sentiment has recognized Lord Selkirk as worthy of honour. The name of Selkirk has been indelibly fixed in the Canadian North-West. The metropolitan county of Manitoba bears his name ; the spot below the rapids of the Red River has also been named after him. Fort Daer, remembered by the Selkirk refugees in their early winterings, situated in the angle of the Red and Pembina Rivers, on the south side of the latter, bore one of their patrons titles.

In the city of Winnipeg the site is still pointed out at the base of the peninsula of Point Douglas, of Fort Douglas, commemorative of the family name of the colonizer. In estimating truly the character of a man, about whom there is conflicting evidence, his life must be taken as a whole. It is only by seizing the salient points of a character under varying circumstances, and at different times, that we truly interpret it. To this end the leading features of Lord Selkirk's life, before he had any connexion with the Hudson's Bay Company, and, indeed, of his early manhood, as well as of his family history, may, with profit, be considered. Thomas Douglas — fifth Earl of Selkirk, Baron Daer and Shortcleugh, Fellow of the Royal Society — was born in June, 1771, and lived an eventful life of forty- Manitoba. 12 nine years.

The familyseat of St. Mary's Isle, in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, at the mouth of the Dee, on a peninsula, formerly isolated by the sea from the mainland, and looking out upon the Sohvay Frith, knew him but comparatively little in his adventurous career. He was an author, a patriot, a colonizer, and a philanthropist. Of a per fervid race, he was distinguished for enthusiastic devotion to his projects. The intrepidity of the Douglasses, the perseverance of the ancient family of Marr, and the venturesomeness of the house of Angus, were all his inheritance by blood descent. Nineteen generations back, and not less than 700 years before his time, Theobald, the Fleming — the Selkirk ancestor — had scorned the quieter pleasures of home, and gone to seek his fortunes among the Saxon peoples of old Northumbria, had bought him self a new home with the sword, and the lands of Douglas were granted to him because he had won them honourably.

The same spirit and daring, we shall see, survived in his descendant. The men of five or six centuries ago had need of persistency and grip. The surnames given to them in those days of hauberk and steel, tell well enough the kind of work men did, for Theobald's great grandson was Sir William Douglas, the hardy, and Sir William's grandson was Archibald, the grim. Sir William had the hardihood to join the unlucky Wallace, and for so doing the English conqueror harried his lands, seized his cattle, and carried off his wife and helpless bairns. The following pages will show whether the persecuted but persevering Earl of Selkirk was not a worthy scion of his race. Did Lord Selkirk, in his times of greatest difficulty, need the inspiration to be got from an ancestral succession of noble deeds, there was no lack of them.

It was one of that great house of Douglas, James, the second Earl of Douglas, who, following in the footsteps of his race, in keeping alive the fiery feuds of the Border, gained the name given him by Fordun, " the pluckiest of soldiers, and to the English ever the most obnoxious." Penetrating to the gates of York, he brought the fierce wrath of Hotspur upon him at Otterburne, and though signally defeating the English, he fell in the hardest of the fighting, mortally wounded, and thanking God that " few of his ancestors had died in chambers." To this same family also belonged the good Sir James. It was his good fortune to have lived in the auspicious days of Bruce, who reckoned him the main stay of the kingdom, and his friend. In Scott's " Lord of the Isles," said this great warrior, — Dead were my heart, and deaf mine ear, If Bruce should call nor Douglas hear.

Sir James was foremost at Bannockburn ; he headed 20,000 of an army on a sally into England ; with 200 horsemen he forced his way through the English camp to the royal tent at Stanhope Park, and well-nigh secured the person of King Edward. It was this Douglas also to whom King Robert, in dying, gave the solemn charge that his heart should be borne to Jerusalem, and laid within the holy sepulchre. By so brave and devoted a friend the charge could not be disregarded. The journey was undertaken in person. Manitoba. 14 Spain was reached, but in a conflict with the Moors his life was lost. It happened thus : seeing the Saracens, to whom he was opposed, flinching, and likely to break into confusion, he threw the casket before him, and into the midst of the enemy, exclaiming, " Pass thou onward as thou wert wont, Douglas will follow thee or die."

The chances of war were adverse ; the warrior never reached the Holy City, and the mutilated body and his master's heart in the silver casket were carried back to Scotland again. And if these examples were not enough, there stands the figure of the Earl of Selkirk's ancestor — ten generations back — Archibald, well-known as " Bell the Cat." I mean that Douglas, fifth of yore, Who coronet of Angus bore, And when his blood and heart were high, Did the third James in camp defy, And all his minions led to die On Lauder's dreary flat. It was he who was courageous enough to warn the infatuated James IV. against trying the odds of war on the disastrous field of Flodden. The sturdy old man, stung to the quick by the undeserved reply of the king, "Angus, if you are afraid, you may go home," left the field with tears of indignation — but left his two sons, to whom he was dearly attached, to perish in upholding the abused theory that "the king can do no wrong."

With such heroic blood in his veins the fifth Earl of Selkirk was born — being the seventh son of Dunbar, fourth Earl of Selkirk, who had resumed the name of Douglas. Thomas Douglas early showed the ability and industry of his race. His name is found upon the class books of the various Professors of the Edinburgh University from the year 1786 to 1790, and while pursuing his academic career there, he is known as one of a band of illustrious young men earnestly engaged in literary and learned pursuits. " The Club," number ing some nineteen in all, included among its members the young Walter Scott, about the same age as Selkirk, as well as others who afterwards rose to pro minence and fame. It is further interesting to note the influences surrounding the early years of the young noble in the connexion of the House of Selkirk with the poet Burns at this period.

The father of Thomas Douglas was not among those who refused honour to the peasant bard. On one occasion the poet being at St. Mary's Isle, and being asked to say grace, extemporized the lines found in his works, and well-known as the SELKIRK GRACE. Some ha'e meat and canna eat, An' some wad eat that want it ; But we ha'e meat, an' we can eat, An' sae the Lord be thankit. One of Burns' amusing poems, in which the intensely realistic mind of the poet shows itself in an interview between Lord Daer, the brother of young Douglas, and Burns, may be referred to. Dugald Stewart, the well-known Edinburgh Professor of moral philosophy, was spending his summer near Ayr, in the year 1786. Among the guests of the professor was Lord Daer. A Manitoba. 16 real lord from such an ancient house as that of Douglas filled the ploughman poet's mind with mis giving.

But the genial and generous interest found in this representative, as in all of the Selkirk family, disarmed the prejudice of the poet, and drew forth encomiums even from so hard a critic. This wot ye all whom it concerns, I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns, October twenty-third, A ne'er to be forgotten day, Sae far I sprachled up the brae, I dinner'd wi' a lord. Yes, wi' a lord — Stan' out my shin — A lord — a peer — an earl's son — Up higher yet my bonnet. And sic a lord — lang Scotch ells twa, Our peerage he o'erlooks them a' As I look o'er my sonnet. I sidling shelter'd in a nook, An' at his lordship stealt a look Like some portentous omen ; Except good sense and social glee, An', what surprised me, modesty, I marked nought uncommon. I watch'd the symptoms of the great, The gentle pride, the lordly state, The arrogant assuming ; The fient a pride, nae pride had he, Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,.

Mair than an honest ploughman. Then from his lordship I shall learn, Henceforth to meet with unconcern One rank as weel's another. Nae honest, worthy man need care To meet with noble, youthful Daer, For he but meets a brother. Among those who belonged to the Club of Carruber's Place were some, afterwards so well known, as William Clerk of Eldin, Sir A. Ferguson, Lord Abercrombie, and David Douglas, afterwards Lord Reston. For the young nobleman it means much to be associated with kindred spirits such as these — of healthy mind and generous culture. Adverse circumstances and the desire for distinction give stimulus sufficient to the poor and friendless scholar, but it needs some of the attrition of mind gained from such surroundings, to give the young man of family and position motive for energetic effort.