Mackenzie, Selkirk, Simpson

Chapter I Struggle Of The Fur Companies

" T SING arms and the hero," the words used JL by Virgil to introduce his great story of valour and heroism in the far Mediterranean may be as truly applied by us in beginning an account of deeds and men in the rise and struggles of frontier life in the far west of North America. The picturesque and heroic are not confined to any age or clime ; indeed, they are characteristic in a peculiar degree of the early days of occupation of the American continent. The conflict of the two • great fur companies, which carried on a trade covering the vast expanse of British North America, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, brings before us operations extending over distances before which Cgesar's invasions or even Alexander's great marches shrink into insignificance.

The now venerable Hudson's Bay Company, which we recognize to-day as having a history of two and a quarter centuries, had spent the first century of its rule satisfied with its place of preeminence on the shores of Hudson Bay, had declared several enormous dividends, and had begun to consider its right prescriptive to the trade brought by the Indians down the rivers, even from the

Rocky Mountains, two thousand miles to the west. It was a beautiful thing to see the fealty with which the northern Indians, the Crees and Chipewyans, and the Eskimos as well, regarded the English traders, and brought to them at York Factory and Fort Churchill the marten, fox and beaver skins caught, by their shrewdness and ceaseless energy, on the rivers and in the forests of the vast interior. The taking of French Canada by the English relieved the company for one or two decades from any show of competition which may have affected them on their southern border during the French regime.

But as Canada began to receive adventurous spirits from Scotland, England, and the American colonies, it became evident to the traders of Hudson Bay that new opponents not to be despised would have to be met and dealt with. The Scottish merchants of Montreal, many of whom had the blood and spirit of the Highland clans that had fought at CuUoden, and Englishmen, who had braved the hardships of the American frontier and had come to Canada to try their fortunes, looked towards the fur country as a new field for adventure and profit. Men of this class are proverbially men of daring and of self-confidence. In frequent contact with the Indians, encountering the big game of the woods, crossing deep rivers, and running dangerous rapids, accustomed, in short, to all the hardships of the border country, the frontiersman is full of spirit and resource. 2

HEARNE'S THIRD JOURNEY

Accordingly, a few years after the conquest, Curry, Finlay, Henry, sen., and many others whose names are well known, started from Montreal with their companies of Indians and French- Canadians, and, going up the Ottawa River and Great Lakes, fixed their eyes on the star of hope in the far north. Verendrye, a French explorer, had led the way inland from Lake Superior, thirty or forty years before, though he and his followers had never gone north of the Saskatchewan. The merchants of Montreal thought nothing of penetrating farther to the north ; so, leaving the Saskatchewan behind, they planned a flank movement on the Hudson's Bay Company, which would completely cut off from them the great bodies of Indians who came down the English River or the Saskatchewan to the forts on Hudson Bay.

True, a few years before this plan was undertaken, the Hudson's Bay Company, no doubt preparing to gird itself for the fray, had sent an ardent explorer, Samuel Heame, afterwards known as the " ' Mungo Park ' of Canada," to explore the interior, conciliate the Indians, and ascertain the possibiUty of increasing trade. After two absolute failures, Hearne gained, on his third journey from Hudson Bay, Lake Athapapuskow, probably Great Slave Lake; and, going north-eastward, he discovered the Copper Mine River, and reached the shore of the Arctic Sea. This was a worthy achievement, and it was three years after this that

&s Brandon House, Edmonton House, Carlton House, and trading-posts at the mouth of Winnipeg River, on Rainy Lake, and even in the country now included in Minnesota. The great distance of these trading-houses from each other well shows how thoroughly the Hudson's Bay Company had covered the country, for each of these centres carried with it a number of subordinate posts.

The Montreal traders were no less energetic. In fact, though the Hudson's Bay Company had a higher reputation with the Indians, and though the English company could reach the interior earlier in the spring, yet the dash and spirit and acquaintance with the country of the Canadian traders made them, in organization and trading ability, more than a match for their rivals. Finding the need of strengthening themselves, the several firms of merchants who were trading from Montreal agreed to unite in 1783-4. The prospect of peace and cooperation was, however, immediately destroyed by some of the selfish and unworthy elements of the new company breaking away from it, and with the help of other Montreal merchants organizing an opposition.

Four years afterwards a cruel murder was perpetrated in the Saskatchewan region, by Pond, the marplot who had divided the company, and so great was the fear and confusion caused by this act that the three Montreal companies effected a union in 1787 into one North- West Company. New posts and a great impulse to trade resulted from this union. 6

The trade, which at the time of union amounted to £40,000, by the end of the century had increased to three times that sum. The last quarter of the eighteenth century thus saw the English and the Canadian fur companies, side by side, occupying the vast interior of Rupert's Land, and even crossing the Rocky Mountains in search of trade.

Into the Canadian company, among the young Scotsmen who were attracted to Canada by the fur trade, entered a young Highland adventurer, Alexander Mackenzie by name. He at once rose to prominence, and became a determined and perhaps rather aggressive and irreconcilable element among the Nor'- Westers in the Protean phases of their exciting history. The nineteenth century had just dawned as Alexander Mackenzie published in London an account of his great discovery. The book had ardent readers in Great Britain. One of these was a young Scottish nobleman, Thomas, Earl of Selkirk, who had a lofty imagination and a high public spirit. The book of travels excited in the young peer the spirit of adventure, and led to his embarking on a great scheme of emigration. In a few years, to further his emigration plans. Lord Selkirk gained a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, being opposed in this by Alexander Mackenzie, who held a quantity of stock in the English company.^ Lord Selkirk organized his

^ The second part of this book narrates in detail the circumstances connected with Lord Selkirk's great project.

&s Brandon House, Edmonton House, Carlton House, and trading-posts at tlie mouth of Winnipeg River, on Rainy Lake, and even in the country now included in Minnesota. The great distance of these trading-houses from each other well shows how thoroughly the Hudson's Bay Company had covered the country, for each of these centres carried with it a number of subordinate posts.

The Montreal traders were no less energetic. In fact, though the Hudson's Bay Company had a higher reputation with the Indians, and though the EngUsh company could reach the interior earlier in the spring, yet the dash and spirit and acquaintance with the country of the Canadian traders made them, in organization and trading ability, more than a match for their rivals. Finding the need of strengthening themselves, the several firms of merchants who were trading from Montreal agreed to unite in 1783-4. The prospect of peace and cooperation was, however, immediately destroyed by some of the selfish and unworthy elements of the new company breaking away from it, and with the help of other Montreal merchants organizing an opposition.

Four years afterwards a cruel murder was perpetrated in the Saskatchewan region, by Pond, the marplot who had divided the company, and so great was the fear and confusion caused by this act that the three Montreal companies effected a union in 1787 into one North- West Company. New posts and a great impulse to trade resulted from this union. 6

The trade, which at the time of union amounted to £40,000, by the end of the century had increased to three times that sum. The last quarter of the eighteenth century thus saw the EngUsh and the Canadian fur companies, side by side, occupying the vast interior of Rupert's Land, and even crossing the Rocky Mountains in search of trade.

Into the Canadian company, among the young Scotsmen who were attracted to Canada by the fur trade, entered a young Highland adventurer, Alexander Mackenzie by name. He at once rose to prominence, and became a determined and perhaps rather aggressive and irreconcilable element among the Nor'- Westers in the Protean phases of their exciting history. The nineteenth century had just dawned as Alexander Mackenzie published in London an account of his great discovery. The book had ardent readers in Great Britain. One of these was a young Scottish nobleman, Thomas, Earl of Selkirk, who had a lofty imagination and a high public spirit. The book of travels excited in the young peer the spirit of adventure, and led to his embarking on a great scheme of emigration. In a few years, to further his emigration plans. Lord Selkirk gained a controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company, being opposed in this by Alexander Mackenzie, who held a quantity of stock in the English company.^ Lord Selkirk organized his

^ The second part of this book narrates in detail the circumstances connected with Lord Selkirk's great project.

colony under the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company, though opposed by Mackenzie and others of the Nor'- Westers. But, as we shall presently learn, colonizer and fur trader could not at all agree. Their aims, methods, and interests were not to be reconciled, and blood ran plentifully on the bleak plains of Rupert's Land to the disgrace of both parties, who claimed the shelter of the British flag.

The imperial and Canadian authorities were both compelled to interfere. Lord Selkirk, wearied and harassed by conflicts, lawsuits, and misunderstandings, returned home to die. With sympathetic interest in this conflict from the other side, Alexander Mackenzie, far away in Britain, spent his declining years, until, in the same year, (1820) the opposing leaders passed away.

The following year saw more peaceable counsels prevail, and the two companies united under the name of the older organization as the Hudson's Bay Company. Just as the union was effected a new force appeared in the trader's clerk, George Simpson, who, as governor, was destined to unite the discordant elements, and in a career of nearly forty years to raise the united companies to a position of greatest influence.

We ask the patient attention of our readers, as with some detail we set forth the life, work, and influence of these three representatives of the great fur companies, viz., Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the Earl of Selkirk, and Sir George Simpson. 8

Chapter II The Young Trader

WHY so many Scottish men of education, spirit, and daring found their way, after the conquest, to Canada, and especially to Montreal, is somewhat difficult to ascertain. Scotland is a rugged country, with a climate fitted to make a hardy race; it is very far from being a fertile country in the main ; a large portion of its people — larger than at the present time — were mountaineers, loving adventure and accustomed to the hardships of the heath and wood. It is thus possible that young and adventurous Scotsmen found in Canada a home in a northland, suited to their thought and liking.

Highland soldiers had clambered up the heights of Quebec, and the land seemed theirs by right of conquest. Some of the soldiers remained in Canada along the great St. Lawrence, while those who returned to their native valleys, as they told the tale of daring on the Plains of Abraham, and made " Evan's, Donald's fame ring in each clansman's ears," inspired the young and ambitious to seek out the land of the hunt and fur trade, and make it theirs.

Among those of better parts and respectability there came to the New World Alexander Mackenzie.

According to the statement of his own family, he was a native of Stornoway, in the island of Lewis on the west coast of Scotland, and not, as stated in the Encyclopaedia Britimnica, of Inverness. He is said to have been a scion of the old Mackenzies of Seaforth, from whom Stornoway, with the whole island, of which it is the capital, passed years ago to its present proprietors, the Mathesons, of Achany and Ardross. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, young Mackenzie was born in the year 1755, but his grandson writes to the author that his grandfather was born in 1763. The future explorer had received a fair education, and being familiar with the sea, and finding the boatman's life attractive, was well fitted for the work of the fur trade, towards which he was drawn on his arrival in Montreal at the age of sixteen.

In 1779, on his arrival in Canada, the leaders of the fur trade were Simon McTavish and the brothers Frobisher. The two companies under these leaders represented the greater part of the capital and influence of the fur trade. There were, however, restless spirits among the traders who did not acknowledge the prevaihng domination. Two Americans, Peter Pond and Peter Pangman, the latter known as Bastonnais (i.e., the American), though possessed of little capital, were plotters of the first water. They succeeded in inducing the Montreal merchants, John Gregory, an Englishman, and Alexander Norman McLeod, a proud and aggressive High- 10

THE DETROIT RIVER

lander, to unite in company and fight the strong monopolists led by McTavish.

With this nest of oppositionists Alexander Mackenzie allied himself. His keenness and daring at once attracted the attention of his employers, and his selection, after a very short experience, to lead a trading expedition to Detroit, on the lower lakes, was a remarkable example of confidence. It was no easy thing to conduct a trading party from Montreal to Detroit in those early days. The rapids of the St. Lawrence had to be faced and overcome, while the watercourses were the highways for the bands of Indians from the far west, who were rendered the more treacherous by the success of the American revolutionists.

Upper Canada, through which Mackenzie wended his way to the west, was still an uninhabited forest, for the United Empire Loyalist was only finding his way to his asylum of rest north of the lakes. Crossing the Niagara peninsula along the Niagara River, or leaving Lake Ontario at Fond du I^ac, where the city of Hamilton now stands, portaging to the Grand River, and descending it to Lake Erie, the adventurous voyageurs then coasted the shallow lake and found their way to Detroit, their destination.

Detroit had been a favourite resort of the traders under the old French regime. It is said that at the time of the conquest there were some two thousand French-Canadians or their descendants living on the banks of the Detroit River. Some have questioned this statement inasmuch as witliin twenty-five years from that date, when young Mackenzie bftook himself to Detroit, there were only seventy of these old French families. Either the former statement was incorrect, or else the migration of these borderers farther west to Michilimackinac and the shores of Lake Michigan had been very large. The latter is the more likely explanation.

The counting-house experience of five years in Montreal, and a years responsibihty at Detroit fitted the young Scottish trader for undertaking what was the joy of every Nor- Wester, the journey to the far North- West. Mackenzie was visited at Detroit by McLeod, the junior member of his house, and induced to leave quieter scenes behind and adventure himself in a land yet largely unknown to him.

Now raised to the dignity of a bourgeois,^ (1785) Mackenzie set out for the land that was to make him famous. Passing Mackinaw and Sault Ste. Marie, the new leader entered the great Lake Superior, and coasting its northern shore, reached Grand Portage, of which he speaks with some interest.

Grand Portage was the cynosure of every fur trader, whether he were coming from the interior to the stormy Lake Superior, or going westward through the upper lakes. To the imagination of the young fur trader Grand Portage made a strong

^ A partner or shareholder in the company.

GRAND PORTAGE

appeal, just as it does even now to those acquainted with the old days of the fur trade.

It lies on a most unfrequented part of the north shore of Lake Superior, some forty miles south-west of Fort William, of which it was the predecessor. A few years ago the writer paid the lonely spot a visit. After being rowed in a small boat by the keeper of a neighbouring lighthouse, in a dismal and dangerous night voyage, he reached this famous rendezvous of the old traders. The name of the place was taken from a nine-mile portage to avoid the rapids of the Pigeon River. Over the portage a wagon road was constructed, which may still be seen. A few sunken timbers only are left in the water to represent the warehouses and wharves of this once thronged and important place. These formerly faced a pretty bay made by a rocky islet standing out into the lake as a protection and shelter to it. On this island is now the dwelling of a solitary French fisherman, looking like a robber's keep. Besides the fisherman there is not a white man to be found for twenty miles. An Indian village occupies the site of Grand Portage. The village has a multitude of dogs, but neither wagon nor horse is known to be within many miles. Grand Portage was found, after the Treaty of Paris, to be on the American side of the Pigeon River, but was not given up for nearly twenty years after Mackenzie's first visit.

When Alexander Mackenzie arrived at Grand

Portage it was in its glory. Five hundred men in the employ of the fur traders assembled there, those fix)m the east who met no Indians lived on cured rations, and were called vmngeurs de lardy or porkeaters ; while the independent westerners were known as coureurs de bois or wood-runners. Into this stronghold of the old company Mackenzie and his associates had now come, representing the Gregory interests, and with the fixed determination of winning a foothold in the heart of the great fur country which extended far to the north and west.

The vigorous, if not violent, member of the company, A. N. McLeod, remained in Montreal to manage the headquarters. The members of the determined little band divided up the great territory among them. The Red River district was apportioned to Duncan Pollock, a veteran trader, the far-off Athabaska was given to John Ross, the rich Saskatchewan to Bastonnais Pangman, and the Churchill or English River to the young hourgeoisy Alexander Mackenzie, who already showed evidences of a dominancy and hifluence by and by to become supreme. With the younger company were also associated James Finlay, son of the pioneer trader to the fur country, and Alexander Mackenzie's cousin, Roderick McKenzie, who became a well-known trader, and was the historiographer of the fur traders.

The practical talent and influence of the Mackenzies showed itself in the new organization. They 14

QUARRELS BETWEEN TRADERS

laid it down as a principle that the best results from the fur trade were not to be gained by the two companies, even though they were rivals, being in a state of friction and conflict. Accordingly Alexander Mackenzie and his neighbouring bourgeois of the other company, P. Small, completed their successful winter's work by carrying their furs in company to He a la Crosse, making the river banks resound with their joyous songs. Roderick McKenzie had as his rival in the EngUsh River district one of the greatest men of the old company, William Mc- Gillivray, and they, too, after a good winter's trade carried in company their superabundant catches to the place of rendezvous.

Unfortunately this harmony did not prevail everywhere. Trader Ross had found as his rival Peter Pond, who had basely deserted Pangman, and returned to his old masters. Pond was a man of enormous energy. He had been the pioneer of the Athabaska district, but while the successful upholder of his own company, he was the terror of his rivals and the scourge of the peace-loving Indians of the Athabaska district. Five years before this time the desperate trader had, it was believed, been the cause of the death in the Athabaska country of a popular Swiss trader, M. Wadin, the agent of a rival company, and now Ross found a constant irritation being kept up between Pond's subordinates and his own. During the whole winter matters went from bad to worse, until in one of the actual quarrels of the two parties, Ross was unfortunately kiUed.

The brigades of the year, led by Alexander Mackenzie and others, had just left He k la Crosse to carry their cargoes to Grand Portage, when the sad news of the death of John Ross reached Roderick McKenzie, who had been left in charge of He k la Crosse, in the absence of the party en route for Lake Superior. McKenzie considered that the matter of Pond s violence, since it was the second occasion on which he had been charged with murder, was so serious that it was absolutely necessary that the partners at Grand Portage should know of it. Accordingly, in a light canoe manned by five voyageurSy he hastened unguided to the rendezvous and made the painful journey in a month's time.

The news of the bloodshed in Athabaska filled the minds of the members of both companies in Grand Portage with dismay. All felt the words of the wise man to be true, that the " beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water," and this being Pond's second offence no one knew to what it might grow, especially in the remote Indian territories. The matter was fully debated and canvassed among the traders, and it was decided that the union of the two companies was imperative. Accordingly the North- West Company was established (1787) with a larger membership, and the three firms, headed by McTavish, Frobisher, and Gregory respectively, became the agents for the joint ad- 16

THE NEW COMPANY

ministration of affairs at Grand Portage and Montreal.

All eyes were turned upon the rising young trader, Alexander Mackenzie, as the man to meet the emergency in Athabaska. He alone was fitted "to bell the cat." While he was, under the united company, to act ostensibly in concert with the bloodthirsty Pond, yet the understanding was that he should take the supervision, as Pond's extravagant ideas had lost for him the confidence of the traders. Masson states that Mackenzie on going to the Athabaska district, had determined to follow the course of the Hudson's Bay Company, viz., to withdraw all posts from beyond Lake Athabaska, and compel the northern Indians to trade within the precincts of a well-organized fort built upon the lake. His fear of the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, however, led him, on fuller consideration, to change his plans, and to push out agents even farther to the north than had yet been done.

In his administration of this northern district Alexander Mackenzie at once showed his surpassing ability. His surrender of preconceived opinion, and his adoption of the policy of expansion, showed him to be a man of observation and decision. The fact that he was a very young man was all in his favour in his new work. At twenty-four he had the energy of maturity and the adventurous instincts of youth. In a service such as that of the fur companies in a new country, overcaution, prejudice, and slavery to routine are deadly sins. When Simpson, a young man who had only spent a winter in the country, was chosen as governor of Rupert's Land, he succeeded because he had ability and had nothing to unlearn; so young Alexander Mackenzie proved his adaptability and his fitness for leadership.

Another mark of his foresight and good judgment was revealed in his selection of the localities which should serve as centres for future expansion. Thus early the thought of the explorer was directed to the two oceans, one to the north and the other to the west, as opening up a field for the largest speculation and enterprise.

Having decided to adopt the new policy of "advance," he selected Leroux and his party, who had been brought from Great Slave Lake, to return thither and to push the trade with vigour. Leroux not only did this, taking up a post on Great Slave Lake, but, finding the Indians indolent and careless about trade, he despatched a well-known Chipewyan leader known as the "English chief," to induce the northern Indians to come to his fort with their furs. Leroux also sent a sturdy Highland trader named Sutherland to visit distant tribes of Indians and win their good-will by a liberal distribution of presents. The good news spread far among the solitudes of the remote region beyond, so that in the following spring a large number of Indians jfrom a lake far to the west, hitherto unknown to the 18

EARLY PROMOTION

traders, came to search out the lavish monarch of the north — Leroux. The policy, open spirit, and attractive manner of Mackenzie were all found reflected in the whole body of his subordinates.

Another stroke of genius, also looking to the future, was his choice of a commanding position on Peace River, the great waterway flowing to Lake Athabaska from the west, a position which dominated even the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. To this point he despatched Boyer to found a fort and open trade on the route to the western sea. This he did at a spot where the Little Red River, a tributary from the south, flows into the Peace River.

It was the custom of the trading companies to give positions of trust only to men of ripe years and experience. Seldom was a man known to be promoted to a commissioned office while under forty years of age. That Alexander Mackenzie should be placed in charge of so difficult and important a district as Athabaska was an unheard-of thing, but it simply showed that this man, so honoured at an early age, was destined to be one of the master minds of the fur trade, though it is well to state that his sudden elevation did not free him from the jealousy afterwards manifested by some of the traders.

Chapter III Fort Chipewyan

LAKE ATHABASKA, on account of its geographical position, was the key to the far north. Vast regions inhabited by the best of fur-bearing animals were, and are to the present day, tributary to it. As already stated, the violent Peter Pond had led the way to the district, although he had not taken possession of the lake itself. It was in 1778 that Pond built his post on Elk River, or, as the French called it. Riviere a la Biche, thirty miles south of Lake Athabaska. To this point Alexander Mackenzie had come, here his broad plans were laid for the extension of the fur trade, and here the brilliant designs were conceived that were to make him famous as an explorer.

Masson, in his book on the North- West Company, depicts in a striking manner the feelings of many of the more educated and enterprising fur traders, as they contemplated the monotony and humdrum of much of a fur trader's life. He represents Alexander Mackenzie as not entirely above the tedium which he sought to relieve by bursts of bustling activity. " How do you spend your time ? " asked a young clerk of the North- West Company of a comrade of his own age, who, like himself, had received a good education. '* I rise with the sun ; I go to see the traps ; if a number of Indimis arrive I buy their furs, then I eat tollihce (white fish) three times a day. Do you see ? I find the time very long, and I fear that my constitution will be seriously injured by that kind of a life, but what can be done ? I make a dog train ; I bend some wood for snowshoes ; and with perseverance I hope to learn the use of the crooked knife."

Such a life could not satisfy Alexander Mackenzie ; his intelligent and open nature revolted from the idea of passing the best years of his life in such intellectual stagnation : now some dirty savages to receive ; some goods to exchange for furs ; some voyageurs to despatch to the interior; these for companions, men without education and sometimes of bad character! Ennui, the worst of maladies, consumed him ; he felt himself degraded and useless. His ambition demanded a wider horizon, and for his energy wider fields, and the work of seeking new regions ; in short, the desire to travel and explore was burning within him, and he resolved to do his share towards the discovery of the famous north-west passage, if it existed, and to reach the Arctic Ocean.