by Debra Komar
Sir George had only been thinking of his own welfare when he ordered the Finlaysons to move in, but it was soon Frances who was in need of constant care. Always fragile, she had never adapted to the ceaseless travel that was a major part of her life as Sir George’s better half. In her final days she sat, pale and consumptive, racked with a persistent cough that threatened to tear her twig-boned frame asunder. Frances was no match for the ravages of tuberculosis and died peacefully at home on March 21, 1853. She was just forty years old.
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By the mid-nineteenth century, the HBC’s monopoly was under siege on all fronts. A new wave of settlers encroached on Company-held territory after the railroad opened the American west, and many pioneers crept northward in search of arable land. Those years also saw the deaths of many of the key players in the fur trade, including Pelly, Peter Skene Ogden, and John Rowand. The changes threatened to sink Simpson, and his detractors delighted in his lost potency. Edward Ermatinger gleefully chronicled his decline: “Our old Chief, Sir George, as you describe him, tottering under the infirmities of age, has seen his best days. His light canoe, with choice of men, and of women too! can no longer administer to his gratification.” Yet despite their prognostications as to his limited future, Simpson soldiered on, so much so that “some suspected he must be in league with the powers of darkness.”
Simpson’s pact with Satan was leading him into dangerous territory with the HBC. By his own reckoning, the Company’s charter was now of little value, and Simpson argued it was best sold while others still saw some worth in its holdings. The charter was offered first to the obvious choice: the English. The British government, however, knew all too well what troubles lurked in Rupert’s Land and decided to pass, leaving Canada as the lone potential buyer. Unfortunately, in 1850, the colony could not afford to purchase the territory. It wanted the land for free, as a large and vocal segment of the Canadian populace felt the region was rightfully theirs. Those in favour of annexation waged a ruthless campaign, attacking the Company’s monopoly and its flagrant exploitation of the aboriginal people. A groundswell of support grew louder as the anti-HBC rhetoric (which included calls for the expansion of western settlement and the promise of prime farming land) found a receptive audience.
Simpson tried to stem the tide by declaring the country to be useless for agriculture or settlement by Europeans. The Governor was called before the Canadian Parliament to represent the interests of the Honourable Company, where he emphatically announced, “I do not think that any part of the Hudson’s Bay territory are well adapted for settlement.” He was even less discreet in private, telling John McTavish he was “quite disgusted with the country.”
Simpson’s clumsy defence of the Company angered its senior members and converted Dunbar Douglas, the sixth Earl of Selkirk, once an ardent Simpson supporter, into an outspoken advocate for the Governor’s retirement. Selkirk called Simpson’s lacklustre performance at Parliament a “wretched expedition,” and the lord’s displeasure was soon shared by the Committee as a whole, which came to see Simpson as “deficient in sound judgement,” and felt “his nerves had quite given way.” Conveniently forgetting his prior calls to sell off the charter, Simpson reversed his stance and began campaigning to retain the HBC’s monopoly. The sale of Rupert’s Land was temporarily shelved.
With his wife dead and the Committee no longer in his thrall, Simpson made do as best he could. He sloughed off the care of his four legitimate children to lesser mortals and resumed a punishing work schedule, but his health continued to decline. Simpson shrank in frame and persona, and his once inexhaustible dynamism was reduced to a simpering mewl. Seizures and intermittent bouts of idiopathic blindness kept him bedridden until even he was forced to concede he could no longer fulfill his professional obligations. As he had so often said of others, “’Tis high time he should make room for a better man,” even as he steadfastly maintained there were no better men than he.
Faced with the inevitable, Simpson tendered his resignation in a confidential yet surprisingly emotional letter to the Committee. He reflected on his four decades of service: “I have never been off duty for a week at a time, nor have I ever allowed Family ties and personal convenience to come in competition with the claims I considered the Company to have on me.” He also developed a strangely nostalgic view of life in Canada, fondly recalling his days in the bush. He often sighed “for the Indian Country, the squaws, and skins, and savages,” the same aboriginals he had so ruthlessly disparaged while in their domain. Following his resignation, he stepped back from the Company’s day-to-day operations, but he retained a ceremonial role that left one foot firmly planted in Rupert’s Land.
The first test of Simpson as decorous figurehead came in the summer of 1860 when he was asked to play host to the Prince of Wales during his tour of the colony. Simpson wanted the future monarch’s inspection of Île Dorval to eclipse his prior stops in the Maritimes and Montreal, visits much lauded by the press. To that end, Sir George crafted an excessive bit of pageantry grounded in his fond remembrances of a once-vibrant fur trade. He arranged for a flotilla of canoes, but as the vast majority of traditional Canadian voyageurs were now dead or retired, Simpson was forced to marshal the services of some local Iroquois. The Governor thought the aboriginals were second rate, claiming they could not hold a candle to the “dash, vivacity and song” of the Metis.
On August 29, 1860, His Royal Highness made his way toward Dorval in the imperial carriage. Three miles out, the party boarded a barge to cross to the island and Simpson’s waiting extravaganza. Rain had plagued their voyage, but as the ferry approached the dock, sunlight burst from the heavens. Taking their cue from the weather, the flotilla of canoes (each bearing twenty men) descended on the royal retinue. Frustrated by the lack of proper voyageurs, Simpson had overcompensated by dressing the men in war paint, feathers, and red serge, transforming his actual Iroquois into stereotypical “Indians” suitable for the European palate. All who witnessed the theatrics declared Simpson’s effusive display to be “a social triumph.”
For one brief moment, Sir George Simpson had reclaimed the admiration of the London Committee, and he intended to make the most of it. On September 1 he took a final victory lap through the HBC offices in Montreal, giving his former colleagues ample opportunity to congratulate him. Drenched in felicitations, Simpson then mounted his carriage and was headed to his home in Lachine when he fell violently ill. He took to his bed, where he languished for six days, drifting in and out of lucidity. One moment he thought his nurses were trying to murder him, while the next, struck by a wave of guilt-induced generosity, Simpson wrote sizable bonus cheques to his long-time employees. After his death, the executors of his estate refused to honour the drafts, claiming the very existence of such gifts proved Sir George was not of sound mind when he issued them.
John Henry Lefroy, a scientist who travelled throughout Rupert’s Land, once joked that Simpson was “a fellow whom nothing will kill,” a hyperbole that begged to be refuted. In the end, George Simpson died at half past ten on September 7, 1860, the victim of his own faulty circulatory system. His official cause of death was haemorrhagic apoplexy, with convulsion —Victorian medical speak for a massive stroke — although historian Frits Pannekoek is convinced Simpson actually succumbed to tertiary syphilis. Given the damn-the-torpedoes manner in which he lived, Governor Simpson died with far less fuss than one might expect.
This being Simpson, however, fuss was inevitable. He was laid to rest at Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal beneath a monument fit for an emperor, a job description to which he aspired and arguably ascended. He no doubt would have loved the pomp and circumstance accompanying his funeral, although his ego would not have allowed him to see that many in attendance were more jubilant than mournful. Even in death, his enemies were legion. Far more curious was the seemingly authentic display of grief from representatives of the First Nations community. As the funeral procession wended its way to the cemetery, “the Cau
ghnawaga Indians escorted the melancholy cortege…the red men and their squaws sung a wild, and doleful but solemn dirge,” a tender and somewhat remarkable show of respect for a man who had shown them nothing but contempt. The few who still harboured warm feelings for Sir George took some measure of comfort from the timing of his death. Dugald Mactavish observed: “The Little Emperor’s light has gone out, just after he basked in a final blaze of glory.”
Simpson was gone but his legacy was secure. Even his detractors conceded his reign had been a success, just as surely as “his own friends will admit that much of that success must be ascribed to his good fortune rather than to his talents.”
Over Simpson’s dead body, Canada finally purchased the rights to the Company lands, assuming ownership on December 1, 1869. Sir George Simpson and Dr. John McLoughlin helped build the Hudson’s Bay Company into one of the most profitable corporations in the world, and their creation outlasted them both. The monopoly once denounced for doing business “as if drawn by a dead horse” lives on in the venerable department stores that bear its name and still sell the iconic striped point blankets that were the currency of its trading days. Three of its largest forts became provincial capitals — Fort Garry (now Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, and Fort Victoria —while others, such as Fort Vancouver and Fort William, have been preserved as national heritage sites.
Not surprisingly, nothing remains of Fort Stikine. The fort lay abandoned until 1868, when the US military built Fort Wrangell near Stikine’s crumbling, waterlogged footprint. Those who ignore the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them, and the American soldiers experienced the same horrific conditions as their HBC predecessors. The US army gave up the site as a lost cause in 1877. The city of Wrangell rose slowly around the fort’s listing walls, although a fire in the early 1950s razed all traces of the town’s historic past. Those visiting Wrangell today would be hard pressed to find any sign of the fort, John McLoughlin Jr., or this sad chapter in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s history.
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Justice does not always look the way we want it to. John McLoughlin Jr. did not deserve to die as he did, nor did he earn the character assassination that followed. We cannot retroactively punish McPherson or Heroux, but we can amend our image of the victim. Let history record that John McLoughlin Jr., the so-called bastard of Fort Stikine, was neither a bastard by birth nor in bearing; he was simply a fatherless son. The indifferent response to his death spoke more to the damaged character of George Simpson than it did of McLoughlin’s failings. There was nothing about his death that was “justifiable.”
It bears noting this case was always solvable, for this was not a murder that lay dormant for decades, patiently awaiting the advent of new technologies in order to be resolved. No genetic testing or cutting-edge computer simulations were needed to ferret out the identity of those responsible. Ultimately, all that was required was an impartial eye and a systematic assessment of the evidence. This crime could have been solved the day it was committed, were it not for Governor Simpson, Dr. McLoughlin, and their respective agendas and personality disorders.
The mechanics of the crime are now credibly established. Urbain Heroux fired the fatal shot, at the urging of Thomas McPherson, and with the help of Pierre Kannaquassé and Antoine Kawannassé. More than 170 years on, even the question of why can be addressed with some certainty. An exhaustive search of the historical archive has yielded all the relevant information touching on the murder of John McLoughlin. What gaps remain will likely never be filled, given the capricious whims of time, but the motivation of those involved was clear.
Although Dr. John McLoughlin was quick to label what happened at Fort Stikine a mutinous conspiracy, the truth is far more mundane. It was a conspiracy, in that there were multiple perpetrators acting in concert, but it was not mutiny. In the end, Thomas McPherson did not stage a coup so much as throw a lethal temper tantrum. And so it falls to us as jurors to decide whether the killing of John McLoughlin was an act of treason or self-preservation, or the premeditated endgame of a petulant clerk and his malleable henchmen.
Perhaps the solution lies in the answer to another question: who was the real bastard of Fort Stikine? Although the epithet was first affixed to John McLoughlin, it no longer sticks. With so many reprehensible candidates on offer — Thomas McPherson, Urbain Heroux, Pierre Kannaquassé, George Simpson — it may be impossible to choose just one.
Murder is a loud word, and it easily distracts us from the second tragedy of Fort Stikine: the self-inflicted destruction of Dr. John McLoughlin. Embalmed alive by guilt and enshrouded by impotent rage, the doctor died alongside his son at Fort Stikine; it simply took him longer to lie down.
Some of us never learn to mourn, particularly great hulking “lords of the lands and the forests.” Dr. McLoughlin was a product of a time when men lived by their wits and the strength of their spines. Emotions were a luxury they could not afford, a trifle best suited to women. Dismissing McLoughlin’s inability to grieve as an artifact of his era or his sex is tempting but facile, for unprocessed sorrow can mire anyone, anytime, anywhere.
McLoughlin’s quicksand was his unacknowledged guilt. He needed the Company to assign the blame for his son’s death to Simpson so that he would not have to deal with his own culpability. He could have saved his son but he failed to act, to pay attention. This was a lifelong dynamic between the distant, demanding father and his untethered son who sought love and acceptance through his achievements.
Dr. McLoughlin demanded that the HBC, as the de facto legal system, deliver justice as he defined it, then railed when they refused to do so, a pattern that continues to manifest in courthouses to this day. Like McLoughlin, those who leave the courtroom disillusioned or bitter have entered with unrealistic expectations, narrow parameters for success, and the misguided belief that extracting their pound of flesh will alleviate their own suffering. We cannot expect the courts to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves: make peace with our circumstances.
The pain we seek to avoid cannot be foisted onto others. Protection from harm, accountability, and punishment has its place in our collective search for justice, but it is not what brings peace. In the wake of tragedy and loss, the resolution must come from within.
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks to Jennifer Keyser and Scott Rook of the Oregon Historical Society and Heidi Pierson of the National Park Service for their assistance in tracking down the only known images of John McLoughlin Jr. and his mother, among others. Thanks also to Theresa Langford, curator for the National Parks Service, for helping me search for McLoughlin’s current gravesite. My undying gratitude to the archivists at Library and Archives Canada, who worked small miracles to get me materials in whatever ridiculous timeframes I gave them — I am truly thankful. Praise and gratitude also flow to the good folks at the provincial Archives of Manitoba, home to the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. I would like to single out Sjoeke Hunter and Mandy Malazdrewich in particular for thanks. A tip of the hat is also due Kelly-Ann Turkington, permissions/licensing officer for the Royal BC Museum.
There are some lovely people up in Wrangell, Alaska, who helped track down the ghosts of Fort Stikine, including local historian Bonnie Demerjian and Carol Rushmore, economic development director of the City and Borough of Wrangell. Kay Jabusch, librarian at Irene Ingle Public Library in Wrangell, hunted down some sources. A heartfelt thanks to you all.
Words cannot express my gratitude to the wonderful people who work the reference desks at the Killam Library at Dalhousie University and the Spring Garden branch of the Halifax Public Library for all their help. As always, I am indebted to Dorothy, Ken, and Sandy at the Annapolis Royal branch of the Annapolis Valley Regional Library for their willingness to push the interlibrary loan system of the Nova Scotia library system to its limits.
Thanks also to the Eastend Arts Council, the Arts Council of Saskatchewan, and the generous citizens of Eastend, SK, for bestowing on me the Wallace Stegner A
ward for the Arts 2014. I loved every minute I spent in Wallace’s historic home, and it was the perfect place to revise this manuscript.
Photographer Dan Froese has the patience of a saint and is deserving of some sort of award for what he has to put up with when working with me, but my sincere thanks will have to suffice. I am also indebted to my literary agent, Carolyn Swayze, for helping this book series see the light of day. Thanks also to an unsung group of heroes, friends, and early readers who have offered support, a kind word, or a kick in the pants as needed: Dr. Sarah Lathrop, Paula Sarson, Dr. Stephanie Davy-Jow, Karen Fowler, Dorothy McDonald, “Richard the Fabulous,” and so many more.
I have been incredibly lucky to have found a home for this series at Goose Lane Editions. My heartfelt thanks to Susanne Alexander, Julie Scriver, Martin Ainsley, Angela Williams, Kathleen Peacock, Colleen Kitts-Goguen, Chris Tompkins, Viola Spencer, and everyone who had a hand in bringing these books to life. Special thanks are due to my editor, Sarah Brohman, and copy editor, Audrey McClellan — you both made me a better writer, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Finally, a shout-out to Dr. Kent Fowler, a master of technologies modern and ancient, for working magic with his computer and rescuing more than a week’s worth of archival research. You saved the day, Kent.
Illustration credits
1 Map of British North America, circa 1840. By author.
2 Photograph of Dr. John McLoughlin. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, image # OrHI 248.
3 Photograph of Marguerite Wadin McKay McLoughlin. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, image # OrHi 260.
4 Portrait of John McLoughlin Jr. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, image # OrHi 267.
5 Photograph of Sir George Simpson, circa 1850, photographer unknown. Courtesy of the Notman Photographic Archives, McCord Museum (Montreal), image I-78490.