Where the River Takes Me

by Julie Lawson

  A week before her seventy-fifth birthday, as she was about to go riding with her grandchildren, Jenna heard herself say that it was the last time they’d get her on a horse. They laughed, having heard it many times before. But on that July morning it turned out to be true.

  Did Jenna ever write her Adventure Novel? No. But she filled numerous journals, and used her notes as the fuel for dozens of stories and articles. The stories — published in four separate volumes — covered her childhood on the prairie, her young adult life in Victoria and Metchosin, her married life as a gold miner and innkeeper during the Gold Rush years, and later, as a pioneer horse rancher in the interior of British Columbia.

  The first collection of stories, published in 1880, was based on her early years growing up under the flag of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Inspired by the Company’s Latin motto Pro Pelle Cutem (roughly: a skin for a skin), she called the book Pro Pelle Cutem: Tales from Inside the Stockade. The first story, a favourite in her family, chronicled her time at Staines School in Fort Victoria. It was titled “Please, Sir — a Little Less Latin.”

  Historical Note

  A tree-gnawing rodent, a fashion craze in Europe, and two fur traders from New France — who could have known that the merging of these elements would lead to the founding of an empire? Or that this empire would one day rule over half a continent and shape the western development of Canada? Small wonder that Canada’s national animal is a beaver.

  How did it come about?

  In the early seventeenth century, the European fashion industry was booming. A huge demand for furs to trim clothing and to make hats made a waterproof beaver hat a must-have item, especially for well-heeled gentlemen.

  The beaver’s undercoat was so highly prized that early fur traders paid their best prices for furs that had been used until the long outer hairs had worn off, leaving the short barbed underhairs, which hatters shaved off the pelt and pressed into felt. This must have amused First Nations traders, who could exchange their old worn-out cloaks and get new European goods in return.

  At first the fur trade was based in the growing settlement at Montreal. Independent traders, who came to be known as voyageurs, adopted the First Nations way of canoe travel and, with Huron partners acting as middlemen, took European goods to inland tribes, exchanged the goods for furs, and sold the furs to Montreal merchants for shipment to France. The system worked well until the Iroquois invaded Huron lands and the hostile environment made travelling those lands less safe.

  Among the experienced voyageurs who traded with the First Nations were Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers. Their inland journeys had convinced them that the greatest number of furs was to be found in the northern forests. In 1659 they travelled north of Lake Superior — farther than any voyageurs before them — and spent the winter with the Cree and Ojibwa. They learned the language, and discovered that, come spring, their hosts wanted to take their furs by a different route to avoid the fighting between the Huron and the Iroquois.

  It made sense to the Frenchmen. Why travel through dangerous territory to ship furs by way of the St. Lawrence River, when the newly discovered Hudson Bay would serve as well, if not better? Such a route would make for easier travelling and enable the voyageurs to trade directly with their Cree and Ojibwa allies.

  The authorities in Montreal were not interested in the idea — in fact, they arrested and fined the two men on their return for having set forth without a license — and neither was the king of France. Undaunted, Radisson and Groseilliers went to London to put the proposal to King Charles II. The king gave them his support and, with the additional backing of Prince Rupert and a group of investors, the voyageurs set off in two British ships on June 3, 1668.

  The ship carrying Radisson, the Eaglet, was forced to turn back, but the Nonsuch, with Groseilliers on board, arrived in Hudson Bay several months after leaving England. The crew beached the Nonsuch, built a shelter and, by preserving their catches of game and fish, were able to survive the harsh winter.

  In spring, the Cree came downriver with their canoes heaped with beaver pelts. Gifts were exchanged and an alliance was formed. In mid-June the Nonsuch returned to England laden with beaver pelts. The expedition’s investors were so impressed they pooled their money to form a new company and, on May 2, 1670, King Charles II authorized a Royal Charter creating The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay. The Hudson’s Bay Company was born.

  The Royal Charter promised that the founders of the Company would be “true and absolute Lordes and Proprietors of Rupert’s Land.” In essence, they had ownership of all the land drained by all the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay — an amazing forty percent of modern Canada, stretching from what is now Quebec, to Alberta, north into today’s North West Territories and south into what is now the United States.

  FUR WARS

  The trading methods of the French voyageurs to the south and the English “Bay Men” in the north differed greatly. The Bay Men manned remote trading posts strategically placed at Hudson Bay. They did not go inland to collect the furs, but waited for brigades of Cree, Ojibwa, Chipewyan and others to bring the furs to them. Once a year, a Company ship would arrive from London, anchor at York Factory at the mouth of the Hayes River, unload its supplies and trade goods, and sail away with its cargo of furs. Given its location on the Hayes River — a virtual highway to the prime beaver country — York Factory (so named because it housed the Company’s Chief Factor of the area) was the Company’s most valuable post.

  Unlike the Bay Men, the voyageurs of New France went out to get the furs. With the coming of the HBC, however, they began to push farther inland, seeking more trading partners. Sometimes they would waylay First Nations traders and bargain for their furs, to prevent the competing Bay Men from getting them. The rivalry between the two groups intensified after the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, with New France now in the hands of Great Britain.

  British businessmen began to settle in Montreal, and young Scottish immigrants joined voyageur brigades. During the winter of 1783–84, Montreal merchants and traders banded together to fight the HBC by founding the North West Company, whose traders were commonly known as the Nor’Westers. In response, Bay Men broke with their hundred-year-old tradition and moved from the Bay into the beaver country.

  As competition between the trading companies further intensified, the well-being of First Nations people began to suffer. The arrival of the HBC with its trade goods had at first benefitted First Nations — items such as steel tools and traps and copper cooking pots had a huge impact on both men and women in making their daily lives easier — but as a trading hook in its fight against the North West Company, the HBC had turned to alcohol. The effects on a people who had no history with alcohol were devastating.

  Adding to the disastrous effects of alcohol addiction were the white men’s diseases. First Nations had no immunity to diseases such as smallpox, and the epidemics that swept the country at various times claimed a staggering toll on the local populations. In the smallpox epidemic of 1837, for instance, some three-quarters of the Plains people perished.

  Competition forced the fur trade both farther west and farther north, with each side building new trading posts and making new alliances with First Nations groups. Following the expeditions of Nor’Westers such as Peter Pond, Alexander Mackenzie, David Thompson and Simon Fraser, the North West Company established posts as far west as the Pacific Coast.

  Eventually, both companies began losing money, from supporting too many forts and buying too many pelts — mostly to keep the other side from getting them. The rivalry came to a head in 1816 when the governor of Lord Selkirk’s colony at Red River, as well as twenty settlers, were shot down by allies of the Nor’Westers during the Battle at Seven Oaks.

  Five years later the fur-trade war came to an end. Although the Nor’Westers had gone farther and fought harder, they were ultimately no match for the wealthier Hudson’s Bay C
ompany with its friends in the British government. An act of British Parliament merged the two companies in 1821, under the name The Hudson’s Bay Company, with George Simpson at its helm. In a few years, Montreal’s two-hundred-year-old fur trade died away. The HBC now had a trading empire that stretched from Labrador to the Pacific Coast — more than half the area of present-day Canada.

  NEW FORTS ON THE PACIFIC

  Although competition with the North West Company had ended with the merger, the HBC was not without its rivals. In its Columbia District (also known as the Oregon Territory), the United States was challenging British trade. American settlers were flooding into the area and, although the Oregon Territory was jointly occupied by the U.S. and Britain, there was growing concern among the British that the Americans would drive the HBC away from the Columbia River, and that once the U.S. boundary was established, British forts would end up on the American side. Fort Vancouver, established in 1825 as the HBC’s base on the Pacific, would therefore have to be replaced.

  With this in mind, Simpson sent Fort Vancouver’s Chief Factor, James Douglas, to find a suitable site on the southern end of Vancouver Island, a region Simpson had previously visited and considered promising. Within a year Douglas had found the site, located in an area he described in a letter as “a perfect Eden.”

  On the night of March 15, 1843 (and for several nights following), a spectacular comet streaked across the sky over the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Among those who witnessed the astonishing cosmic event were the Songhees (Lekwungen), a group of Coast Salish First Nations. The event may have been especially memorable for them, given that a day earlier, a small steamship named the Beaver had dropped its anchor in a sheltered harbour in Songhees territory and fired its cannon. The Songhees welcomed the Beaver and her passengers, cutting stakes and providing logs for the new fort, and supplying firewood and food such as berries and salmon. By the end of 1843, Fort Victoria, (now Victoria, B.C., named after the young queen) was established.

  Three years later, Britain yielded the Oregon Territory, including Fort Vancouver (now Vancouver, Washington), to the United States. Fort Victoria consequently became the Company’s new Pacific headquarters. In 1849 Richard Blanshard was appointed Governor of the newly established Colony of Vancouver Island and, in June of that year, James Douglas was posted to Fort Victoria as its Chief Factor.

  LIFE WITH THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY

  A Regulated Workforce

  From the beginning, the Company was run along the lines of a military establishment, though few of its employees were trained in the use of arms. They were basically divided into two classes — officers and servants — and their life was one in which everyone knew his place. The Chief Factor was the senior officer at each fort, followed by Chief Trader and Clerk. (In the case of smaller posts, the Chief Trader would assume the duties of Factor.) The Chief Factor was responsible for his post, and for trading with the First Nations, although the actual bartering for pelts was done by his Chief Trader, often assisted by a Clerk and Clerk’s apprentice.

  Unlike the officers, who were expected to have a career with the Company, servants were engaged under contract, for periods of five years (hence the term engagé when referring to the French-Canadian servants). They were then paid off and were free to return on the annual ship or sign on for an additional period. Wages for employees, whether officers or servants, were not high, but the employees did receive free board and lodging. Besides, given the remoteness of most forts, there was little to spend money on.

  The labourers, the lowest of the servant class, were employed to do the tough physical work — hauling lumber, cutting firewood, unloading supplies and trade goods from the annual ship and reloading it with pelts. The best-paid and highest-ranking servants were the skilled craftsmen and tradesmen — carpenters, joiners, boat builders, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, coopers, stewards, cooks, bakers, storekeepers — the backbone of the workforce, who produced a wide range of trade goods and supplies for the post.

  Daily life at a fort was regulated by the use of a bell to signal changes in work routine — a practice borrowed from the Royal Navy, and considered to be a symbol of a disciplined and punctual workforce.

  Pro Pelle Cutem

  Everything revolved around the fur trade. In spring, First Nations traders would arrive, their canoes filled with furs, to be greeted with great ceremony by the Chief Factor or, in smaller posts, the Chief Trader. Gifts would be exchanged. Only then would the trading begin.

  The process could take many days. Each man’s pelts were carefully examined by the Chief Trader. He noted their quality and paid the individual not in cash, but with “Made Beaver,” the currency of the fur trade and the standard by which everything else was measured. All skins were compared to a prime-quality beaver pelt properly stretched and tanned and weighing about a pound (half a kilogram), and valued accordingly.

  Made Beaver (MB) were usually given as wooden — or later, copper — tokens, and could be exchanged for items in the Company’s trade store. Two otter skins might be valued as 1 MB, but for martens, three skins would be required for 1 MB. After receiving his MB in exchange for the pelts, an individual could exchange them for goods at the trade store. He might need 9 MB for 3 yards (about 3 metres) of cloth, and 11 MB for a gun. Other popular items were kettles, beads, tobacco, tools and wool blankets — one of which could require 7 MB.

  After trading, the pelts were taken to the fur loft above the Trade Room and assembled into “pieces” — each “piece” being a bale of pelts packed within a frame and bound with cord, with a weight of about 90 pounds (40 kilograms). Once the rivers were clear of ice, brigades would set out from their forts to York Factory on Hudson Bay. Their arrival would coincide with that of the home ship, a ship that sailed from London each summer to deliver supplies and pick up the pelts.

  Although the HBC acquired posts on the Pacific after the merger, the overland route to Hudson Bay continued to be used. The supply routes were already in place and the cost of using ships to transport furs and supplies by way of Cape Horn (at the tip of South America) was deemed too expensive. As for the time involved, the return journey from the HBC’s base on the Pacific Coast, around Cape Horn, then northeast across the Atlantic to London, could take over a year.

  Many officers, however, were in favour of having the posts west of the Rockies serviced by ships. After years of discussion and various attempts to find a suitable brigade route to the coast, it was eventually decided that it was worth a try. By the late 1840s brigades from the New Caledonia District (present-day British Columbia) and the Columbia District (now northern Washington State) were travelling by pack horse and boat to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River and later, after the U.S. border was established, to Fort Langley on the Fraser, where coastal steamers would unload the European goods and supplies for the inland posts, and transport the District’s exports (furs, salmon and cranberries) to the home ship anchored at Fort Victoria.

  The route through the Rocky Mountains continued to be used as circumstances required — by employees moving to a new post, for instance, or by small parties transporting leather goods, or carrying communications such as letters or post accounts.

  Given the loads they were carrying, the men of the brigades had to travel light. They hunted for fresh game whenever possible, but depended on pemmican for food, stopping to replenish their supply at strategically-located pemmican caches. Pemmican was perfect for long journeys. It never seemed to go bad, and it could be eaten as was, made into a soup, or covered with flour and fried. It was healthy, too — especially with the addition of dried saskatoon berries to fight off scurvy.

  Both horse and boat brigades travelled on a regular schedule (or as regular a schedule as possible, depending on the weather) and, to the residents of the Company’s remote posts, they meant more than the outward transport of pelts and the inward flow of provisions, for they were a vital link to the outside world. Letters to family and friends went out with the b
rigades and replies came back the same way — six months or so later. For letters to and from London, the waiting could take over a year and a half. Mail on the Pacific Coast was carried throughout the year by coastal ships like the Beaver, and sometimes by canoes manned by First Nations paddlers.

  Partners in the Fur Trade

  For almost two hundred years the fur trade played a major role in shaping the history of Western Canada, not only economically but socially. Through a blending of First Nations and European traditions, a distinctive society developed with a set of customs unique to the fur trade. A prime example was mariage à la façon du pays (marriage in the custom of the country).

  The custom began with the early French traders, continued with the men of the North West Company and, later on, the men of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The HBC at first forbade their officers or servants to form relationships with First Nations women, but eventually they too realized what their competitors had known long ago: the success of the fur trade depended on a partnership with the First Nations, for each group had something the other wanted — furs, interpreters and guides on one side, European goods on the other. And that trading partnership could be strengthened through marriage.

  Such unions benefitted both groups. Traders were drawn into the kinship circles of their First Nations wives and could therefore build more favourable trading relationships. First Nations relatives could gain better access to the posts and trade goods. The women themselves could take advantage of the goods that made their working lives easier.

  After marriage, First Nations women continued to perform their traditional roles, their skills being crucial to the running of the fort. They made moccasins, the most practical footwear for the wilderness, and snowshoes, which made winter travel possible. They were skilled in handling canoes and helped to make them, by collecting the spruce roots and spruce gum needed for sewing the seams and for caulking. In winter, they augmented the food supply at the posts by snaring small game such as rabbits and squirrels. They played an important role in preserving food, especially in the making of pemmican, the staple of the canoe brigades and, in posts throughout the Plains, they worked to ensure that the annual quota of pemmican was met. They also made the buffalo-hide sacks needed to store and transport the pemmican, ensuring that each sack was filled with the required 90 pounds.