WITH THE NORTH-WESTERS
The chilly reception which Thompson met after his return from Lake
Athabaska was enough to quench the enthusiasm of any man. He might
have lain down under the blow. In that case he would no doubt have
ended his days as an obscure and broken-spirited trader, embittered
by his fate, but powerless so late in life to change it. Another
course, however, was open to him, if he had the courage and
self-reliance to take it. This was to throw up his post with the
Hudson's Bay Company, and seek employment in other quarters where his
talents would meet with the recognition they deserved.
In the long winter evenings at Reindeer lake, he weighed the problem
before him. Colen, his chief, had undoubtedly failed to appreciate
the value of his work. Worse still, he had hampered it, since for
the last two years he had neglected even to supply Thompson with the
_Nautical Almanac_ so necessary for his surveys. But behind Colen
stood the Company. How far had they given him the sympathy and
encouragement which he needed? The directors, he felt, might easily
have had the northern part of the continent surveyed as far as the
Pacific coast, and thus greatly extended the range of their trade.
This they could have accomplished at trifling expense, for in England
there were numbers of highly-trained naval officers on half pay, who
would have jumped at the chance of employment. But any explorations
which they had undertaken were solely at the behest of the Colonial
Office. His feelings toward the Company may not have been altogether
justified. Nevertheless, he could only conclude that there was
little or no future for him in the service. With Thompson to think
was to act. On the 28th of May, 1797, he left his post on Reindeer
lake and walked south through the bush for seventy-five miles to the
nearest house of the North-Westers. After ten days spent there, he
proceeded to Grand Portage, the headquarters of the Company at the
west end of Lake Superior, in order that he might offer his services
to the merchants from Canada.
Situated on a small bay at the mouth of Pigeon river, Grand Portage
had been for several years the general dépôt for the trader of the
North West Company, the lair from which those "sly wolves of the
North" had sallied forth to work such havoc with the trade of the
English on Hudson Bay. Along the shore ran a line of docks, which
each summer were piled high, now with the parcels of merchandise for
the interior trade, now with the packs of furs which had been
gathered from the distant trading posts for the market in the east.
Along the bay front and up the bank of the river sprawled the village
of log huts in which dwelt the half-breed families of the French
voyageurs.
The fort itself was in keeping with the dignity of the Company and
the magnitude of its operations. A palisade eighteen feet high
enclosed the great square in which stood the various
offices--storehouses, servants' quarters, and lodgings for the
clerks. In the centre of the courtyard towered the main building, a
stout log structure surmounted by a high balcony. This contained the
apartments of the partners, and the great hall, its walls covered
with portraits of the leading members of the Company in all the glory
of ruffles and scarlet coats. Here took place the grave
deliberations of the merchants, and here each evening they dined in
solemn state. The stone powder magazine, the jail with its barred
windows, and the sentry in the archway of the great gate lent a touch
of grimness to the picture of this far-flung outpost of commerce.
At Grand Portage, Thompson received a warm welcome from those of the
partners who were at the time present in the fort. On his way down
he had met Roderick Mackenzie, cousin to the famous Sir Alexander,
and Simon Fraser, soon to win distinction as the discoverer of the
Fraser river. At the post he found the Honourable William
McGillivray, prominent in the councils of the Company, and Sir
Alexander Mackenzie himself. Sir Alexander had been the first white
man to descend the Mackenzie river to its mouth, and he had blazed a
trail across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. He had but recently
returned from England, wearing the honour of knighthood which he had
earned for his explorations. All of these gentlemen impressed
Thompson as being men of enterprise and vision, and among them he
found the liberal and public spirit which in his former employers he
had sought in vain.
At that time, questions of serious import were agitating the minds of
the partners. By the treaty which closed the American Revolutionary
War, the boundary between the British dominions and the territories
of the United States had been fixed as a line drawn from the
northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods to the source of the
Mississippi, which was then thought to lie considerably north of its
true position. Nine years later, the forty-ninth parallel of
latitude had been accepted as the boundary; and by the Treaty of
Amity and Commerce subsequently passed, it had been agreed that all
British trading posts south of this line should be withdrawn. This
made it necessary for the Company to fix at once the location of
their houses on the upper Red river, and incidentally if possible to
discover the true source of the Mississippi. The partners were also
anxious to have a route surveyed to the headwaters of the Missouri
river, where there existed the villages of an Indian people who got
their living from the cultivation of the soil. The scientific spirit
of the merchants was shown by their further desire to search for the
fossil bones of prehistoric animals and any monuments which might
throw light on the earlier condition of the regions surveyed.
Finally, they wished to ascertain the courses of the rivers and the
situation of the lakes, in order that they might rearrange their
network of trading houses so as to cover more completely the
territory under their sway.
Thompson's arrival came therefore at an opportune moment. He was
promptly engaged as astronomer and surveyor to the company, and the
partners and agents all agreed to send orders to their various
trading posts that he should be given any assistance he required. In
August, the great canoes arrived from Montreal with the goods for the
Indian trade. When these were unloaded, the merchandise was assorted
and made up in parcels each of ninety pounds' weight, so that the
boatmen might be able to shoulder them over the portages. These were
then taken in charge by the various agents and their shouting crews
of voyageurs. Five days of hard labour were needed for the carry
over Grand Portage to the upper waters of Pigeon river. When all was
ready, Thompson climbed the long trail from the lake. Armed with his
precious instruments, he joined the Swan river brigade of four
canoes, and embarked on what was to be the longest, fastest and most
brilliant piece of survey in his whole career.
Progress was tedious until the party had crossed the watershed beyond
which all streams flow north-westward into Lake Winnipeg and thence
into Hudson Bay. They then made a rapid descent through Rainy lake
and the Lake of the Woods to the Winnipeg river (the mad or foaming
water of the Indians), down which they paddled and portaged to its
mouth. Coasting along the south shore of Lake Winnipeg under the
shelter of its low limestone cliffs, they came to the mouth of the
Dauphin or Little Saskatchewan river. The ascent of this stream
brought them to the waters of Lake Manitoba. They had only to paddle
to the head of this lake, and from thence the length of Lake
Winnipegosis, in order to find themselves at the mouth of the Swan
river. Twelve miles up this stream was their objective--Swan River
House.
As they approached their goal, Thompson observed that the land was
rapidly improving in character; until at Swan River House he found
himself in the heart of a fine varied country of hill and plain,
woodland and meadow--the beaver country _par excellence_. Here on
every side were to be found traces of the labours of these
industrious animals; the dammed brooks, the flooded meadows, the
dome-like huts in which they lived and the burrows to which they fled
for refuge when attacked. All this fine country was the hunting
ground of the Cree Indians, the possession of which they had from
time immemorial disputed with the beaver, the bison, and the red deer.
When the early French traders arrived, they brought with them
chisels, knives, and other implements of iron. The Indians, having
got possession of these, were able to cut through the dams, drain the
waters of the ponds, and thus expose the huts and burrows of the
beaver. Then, assisted by their small half-savage dogs, they would
chisel their way through the thick walls of the huts until they came
to the beaver. Since there was a ready market for his skin among the
French traders, they soon became rich, and for several years men,
women, and children were gay with brooches, ear-rings and beads, and
gaudy with scarlet coats.
But then the Nipissing and Iroquois Indians, who had exhausted their
own countries, spread to the north and west. Armed with their new
steel traps, they began a war of annihilation upon the beaver; and by
the year 1797, when Thompson travelled through the Swan river
district, almost the whole of that extensive region was denuded. The
short phase of prosperity was over. The greed of the white man and
the improvidence of the Indian had done their work, and while the
native might still hope to gain a bare subsistence from hunting the
deer and the bison, he was once more poor, thus to remain for ever.
Over this country, Thompson made a series of rapid excursions by
horse and canoe, in order that he might fix the location of the
various trading houses of the North West Company. In the course of
five weeks, he had crossed to the basins of the Red Deer and the
Assiniboine rivers, and surveyed each of these streams to its source.
He then descended the Assiniboine to its confluence with the Souris,
near where the city of Brandon now stands. Here toward the end of
November he put up at Assiniboine House, which was at that time kept
by a trader called John McDonnell.
McDonnell's house was the natural point of departure for the journey
across to the Mandan Villages on the upper Missouri. The trail lay
in a south-westerly direction along the south bank of the Souris
river as far as the great bend, and from thence across the open
plains to the heights of the Missouri. As the country was generally
treeless, the custom of travellers was to move from point to point
where patches of wood growing in the river bottom or at the higher
levels afforded firewood and shelter for the night.
Winter had come, and three inches of snow lay upon the ground, making
travel both disagreeable and dangerous. Worse still, the road passed
through the hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians, those wild riders
of the plains who lived by pursuit of the bison. The Sioux had
lately suffered the loss of several men at the hands of the Mandan
Indians; and these losses they blamed on the whites who had supplied
the Mandans with guns and ammunition. They were therefore in a very
menacing temper, and had determined to waylay, scalp, and plunder the
next party of traders who ventured the journey to the villages.
Thompson, however, was not to be deterred; and he made his
preparations for the dash across the plains. As guide and
interpreter, he engaged a man who had resided for eight years among
the Mandans, by name René Jussomme. He also picked up a
light-hearted Irishman, Hugh McCrachan, who had often been to the
villages for months at a time. The rest of the party was made up of
French Canadians, gay and gluttonous vagabonds, who could
nevertheless work as hard as they boasted, and hunt as much as they
ate. All these men enlisted for the expedition as free traders; that
is to say, each of them borrowed from McDonnell goods and trinkets to
the value of fifty beaver skins, which he undertook to repay on his
return. Thompson himself was supplied with two horses, and
ammunition and tobacco for trade. Jussomme had one horse; while the
men each bought two half-savage dogs from the Assiniboines. These
were to haul their sled-loads of goods across the plains.
Thus equipped, the party set forth on the 28th day of November. The
dogs were unaccustomed to hauling anything. Snapping and barking,
they dashed hither and thither in all directions, hardly restrained
by the loud _sacrés_ of the Frenchmen, reinforced by lashes freely
administered with their stout rawhide whips. The motley procession
crossed the Assiniboine on the ice, and camped that evening in a wood
by the side of the Souris river, hardly six miles from the point from
which they had set out. Meanwhile, the temperature was falling. At
eight that night Thompson observed that it was 20° below zero. By
the following morning it had dropped seven degrees more, and a
stinging west wind had sprung up which kept them in camp. Here they
remained for five days, in a temperature that sank as low as 40°
below zero; while the high wind whistled through their canvas, and
filled the tent with smoke from their fire. During this time, they
devoured the flesh of three bison which the Frenchmen had brought
into camp, while the dogs rejoiced in the offal.
The wind had by this time shifted to the north-west, and the weather
turned milder with snow. When the storm was over, they renewed their
journey, keeping close to the river in order that they might not lose
sight of the familiar landmarks, for the men neither knew the compass
nor would trust it to guide them. After making eleven miles, they
came to a grove of hardwood, in which they found five tents of
Assiniboine Indians. These gave them a hospitable welcome, but
warned them that the Sioux were on the warpath. Nevertheless, they
pressed forward, and by the following morning had reached the point
where the trail led away from the river across the wind-swept plain
to Turtle Mountain on the international frontier.
Jussomme now announced that they must prepare for an early start, as
they faced a long journey across country before they could reach the
shelter of the wooded heights. At seven the following morning they
were on their way. Mile after mile they trudged over the boundless
plain until one o'clock in the afternoon, and still no Turtle hill
was in sight. The weather had now turned threatening, and anxiety
was in every face. At this point Jussomme threw up his hands and
confessed that he had lost his way.
It was a critical moment. Springing to his horse, Thompson galloped
to the nearest knoll, from which with his glass he scanned the
horizon on every side. Not a vestige of wood was in sight, but far
to the north-west his eye caught what seemed to be the tops of a
clump of trees. On this he took a bearing with his compass, and
called to the party to follow him, which after some hesitation they
made up their minds to do. Meanwhile the wind came on with
increasing force, and the darkness closed in before they could see
whether it was really a wood to which their painful and tedious march
led. However, they kept in file and close together, and the dogs
gave no trouble. It was black night before they finally reached the
wood. Utterly wearied, the men hurriedly threw up their canvas and
sought shelter from the storm.
The blizzard continued through the next day, and the men were too
exhausted to proceed. They remained in camp with nothing but the
meat of two tough old bulls to relieve their hunger. The day
following two of the three horses went lame, their hoofs eaten away
by the hard crusty snow. Luckily they encountered a small party of
Assiniboines on their way to McDonnell's house to trade, and were
able to send the horses back with them to the fort, purchasing dogs
from the Indians in their stead. Two days later they met another
party of Indians, and from them got a good meal. These Indians
warned them that the Sioux were in waiting at the Dog Tent Hills; and
no offer would induce anyone of them to go forward with the party as
a guide.
They were now in the neighbourhood of Turtle Mountain, and Thompson
had taken sole command. Another gale, another blizzard, and another
march till nightfall brought them to the hill. On this occasion
again the compass proved a trusty guide. In the darkness, Thompson's
face brushed against the overhanging branch of a tree, and he knew
that he had guided his men safely to the wood. Thus they continued
as far as the Dog Tent Hills, near the elbow of the Souris. On
approaching the broken country, Thompson espied a long line of
horsemen descending the slope and moving off to the south. It was
the Sioux, who had made up their minds that no traveller would
venture forth in such tempestuous weather. Thompson signalled his
men to throw themselves flat on the ground. This they did, and
remained unperceived until the enemy was out of sight. They then
entered the hills, and while they rested and hunted, cut tent poles
and firewood for the dash across the barren plain. The fifty miles
that still divided them from the waters of the Missouri were passed
without adventure, and they arrived, tired but triumphant, at the
upper village of the Mandans after a journey of thirty-three days.
Thompson was now introduced by Jussomme to a chief who bore the name
of "Big White Man." To this chief he explained that his business was
not to trade, but to visit the various tribes of natives, in order to
see how they could be more regularly supplied with arms, ammunition,
and other articles which they much needed. Surprised and pleased at
this agreeable information, the chief led the white man to his own
hut, where he and his servant Boisseau were comfortably installed and
entertained with all the rites of native hospitality.
In company with Jussomme and McCrachan, Thompson then paid a visit to
each of the five villages in turn. These, he found, were all built
alike of domelike huts constructed of mud plastered over a framework
of wood, each with an aperture in the centre of the roof to carry off
the smoke of the fire and admit light to the solitary chamber of the
dwelling. In front of each house stood a porch made of stretched
bison skins, affording an approach to a doorway large enough to admit
a horse. Passing the door, one entered a circular chamber about
forty feet across, and, from the earthen floor to the aperture in the
roof, eighteen or twenty feet in height. To the left of the doorway,
sat the master of the house on a couch covered with buffalo robes.
Before him was the fire, built in a circular space hollowed out of
the floor, and surrounded by vessels of native pottery containing
maize and boiled meat, the food of the household. Around the walls
were a series of frame bunks about three feet from the ground, each
of them enclosed by hides except for the front and made comfortable
by a soft buffalo robe. To the right of the entrance were the stalls
for the two or three horses which belonged to the household, to which
every evening they were led back after pasturing on the plains. In
the smallest of these villages, Thompson counted thirty-one such
huts, in the largest one hundred-and-thirteen, each hut containing a
family of from eight to ten souls.
Surrounded as they were by fierce and violent enemies, the Mandans
had constructed their villages with an eye to defence rather than to
comfort. For this purpose a site was selected on elevated ground, so
that no attack could be made from above. The houses were then built
irregularly without regard for streets, and the whole village
surrounded by a stockade of timbers at least twelve feet in height.
On more than one occasion, Thompson learned, the Sioux had taken
advantage of a dark and stormy night to approach the villages and
fire the palisades. But the flames had no power to destroy the
earthen houses; there were no straight streets down which the enemy
could shoot; and, as a regular siege was beyond the power of any of
their foes, the Mandans had hitherto escaped destruction.
The tribe, when Thompson visited them, were already acquainted with
the use of iron. Their flint-tipped spears and arrows they gladly
laid aside, when they could, for a long spear, headed with a flat
iron bayonet nine or ten inches in length. Thus far, however, they
had been visited only irregularly by traders; and so had but few guns
among them. Iron was so precious for purposes of war that it had not
yet come into common use for agriculture. Their ploughs were made of
the shoulder blade of a deer or bison, neatly fastened by thongs to a
handle. For hoes, they used pointed sticks hardened in the fire. A
council of old men allotted to each family its portion of ground in
the rich alluvial of the river bottom. From this they were able with
their rude implements to raise a sufficient quantity of the maize,
pumpkins, beans, and melons which were native to America.
Thompson was anxious to find out the origin of this interesting
people, for they had not been many years on the banks of the
Missouri. Their traditions, however, went back no further than the
days of their great-great-grandfathers. These, they said, had dwelt
to the eastward, possessing the rich flats about the upper waters of
the Red river and the Mississippi. There the wild rice grew in
abundance and the deer were in plenty, though the horse and the
buffalo were unknown. On all these streams they had villages and
cultivated the ground as at present from before the memory of man.
The Sioux to the south of their ancient home were their enemies, but,
armed only with stone-headed spears and arrows, could do them little
harm. To the north-east, in the depths of the gloomy forest, dwelt
the Chippewas, who were likewise powerless to hurt them. But the day
came when the Chippewas, armed by the white traders with guns,
ironheaded arrows, and spears, silently collected under cover of the
forest, and sallied out to harry their villages with fire, and cut
off their men as they were scattered in hunting parties far and wide.
Hard pressed by the attacks of an enemy whom they could not resist,
they gave way from point to point until they arrived at the banks of
the Missouri; and thus put the width of the great plains between them
and their implacable foes.
Having made friends with the natives and taken the observations
necessary to determine the position of their villages, Thompson
prepared to depart. As the Mandans dwelt in the territory of the
United States, and it was contrary to the treaty of 1794 for a
British company to plant trading posts among them, commerce was
possible only if they were willing to make the journey to McDonnell's
house to trade. Accordingly a chief in the prime of life, together
with four young warriors, was selected to accompany Thompson on the
trip home. These were joined by an old man and his squaw, who said
that they wished to see the houses of the white men before they died.
But the heights of the Missouri were too much for the aged couple,
and they dropped out. Fourteen days of storm and tempest on the open
plain sufficed to kill the spirit of two of the warriors, and they
also dropped out. With the remainder, Thompson arrived at
Assiniboine House on the 3rd of February, 1798. Unfortunately, the
attempt to open up trade with the Mandans turned out to be
unsuccessful. The journey was long and difficult in winter; and, in
summer, the Sioux were active and cut off parties who tried to make
the passage across their land so that the Mandan villages proved to
be beyond the reach of the merchants from Canada.
At McDonnell's house, Thompson prepared the maps and notes of his
survey to be sent by the next convoy to headquarters at Grand
Portage. He then took leave of his hospitable friend, and set forth
on his explorations up the Red river. With three French Canadians
and an Indian guide, he started down the Assiniboine, hauling his
baggage and provisions by dog sleds on the ice. The tedious windings
of the stream and the ever increasing depth of snow made progress
difficult. Nevertheless, by the 7th of March he had reached the
junction of the Assiniboine and the Red rivers, where the city of
Winnipeg now stands. He then turned up the Red river, and in six
days' travel came to the international boundary, beyond which it was
his duty to warn all traders that they were trespassing in the
territory of the United States.
By the 25th of March he had worked his way south as far as the post
of Baptiste Cadotte, which was situated on a tributary of the Red
river, near the present site of the town of Red Lake Falls. From
this point he purposed to cross the height of land to the western end
of Lake Superior. Could he do it before the break-up of winter, and
while the mantle of snow still lay on the ground to give passage to
his dogs? He had, it will be remembered, no experience of southern
latitudes. His last winter had been spent by the shore of Reindeer
lake, where the ice stood firm till a windstorm broke it up on the
fifth day of July. Cadotte warned him that the season was too far
advanced; but he took the risk.
On the 27th of March he began his his journey eastward up the
Clearwater river into Minnesota, picking up a guide from some
Chippewas whom he found on the way. As the day wore on, the rays of
the sun increased in power, and walking became difficult in the
thawing snow. The night was mild, and the following morning the
guide took care to break his snow-shoes that he might have an excuse
for returning to camp. The day was wasted, while Thompson waited
impatiently for another guide to be sent to take the place of the
first. At sundown a storm came on with thunder, lightning, and rain,
which continued the night through and far into the next day. The
snow was now so heavy that progress was impossible. The continuous
rains had soaked the clothes and the baggage of the party through and
through. The fourth day opened with gusts of hail and sleet. The
country before them was like a lake, and Thompson was compelled to
admit himself beaten. Splashing and stumbling through the bush and
along the treacherous ice of the river, the party struggled to make
their way back to the protecting shelter of Cadotte's roof. But
their baggage was too much for them, and they had to give in.
Finally Thompson with one man, travelling light, pressed forward to
the post for help; and by the afternoon of the second day the weary
travellers were brought safely into camp.
When the rivers were finally clear of ice, Thompson, with his three
Canadians and a native woman, made a fresh start, this time by canoe
and with dried provisions to last for twelve days. They had first to
battle their way against the current of Clearwater river, to the
portage which brought them to Red lake. The country was everywhere
soaked with water, so that at night they were forced to cut down
trees and sleep on the branches. Red lake, they found, was still
covered with patches of broken ice. Hauling and paddling their canoe
in turn they crossed the lake, and entered an immense area of pond
and marsh to the south. Everywhere stretched beds of wild rice, the
haunt of innumerable geese, duck, and loon. With infinite toil they
made their way from lake to lake and brook to brook, until after five
days in the marsh they arrived at Turtle lake.
This lake Thompson took to be the true source of the Mississippi.
Twenty years later American surveyors reached the conclusion that, of
all the ponds whose waters join to form the Mississippi, Lake Itaska
most deserved the name. Lake Itaska lies a few miles to the south
and west of Turtle lake. Yet this fact hardly suffices to rob David
Thompson of the glory of being the first man to fix the point from
which the Father of Waters takes its rise.
There was still a long journey ahead to the coast of Lake Superior;
and the canoe was leaky from bumping about among the ice floes.
Luckily two boats of Chippewas came along on their way to John
Sayer's post at Red Cedar or Cass lake. With these Thompson and his
party embarked. A carry of two hundred yards took them past the
narrow and shallow waters of Turtle brook, to a point where the
stream was enlarged by a tributary from a nearby lake. Here they
launched their canoes and followed the stream through its incredible
windings to the lake. This was the country of wild rice and maple
sugar, and on these the poor Indians were compelled to subsist. Not
a deer or a beaver was to be seen; all had been destroyed. The geese
and ducks flew overhead in safety; for the impoverished natives could
not even afford the price of guns and ammunition, and they had lost
the art of making and using the bow.
Sayer supplied Thompson with a fresh canoe, which enabled him to
continue his voyage. From the south of the lake, the valley of the
Mississippi now lay clear before him to the south east--a wide
expanse of marshy ground through which the channel meandered like a
writhing snake. As he advanced, however, the marsh gave way to a
sandy loam, heavily clothed with resinous fir. Arriving at Sand Lake
river, he turned east along this to Sand lake. Before him was a
great swamp, nearly five miles in width and stretching north and
south as far as the eye could reach. This was the last barrier
between him and the headwaters of the River St. Louis. Shouldering
their canoe and baggage, they advanced along the rude corduroy road
which the traders had laid across the bog. As often as they missed
their step, they sank to their waists in the mire. A long day's work
was needed before they had reached the other side. From thence a
brook carried them to the main stream of River St. Louis. They
passed into the forest country that surrounds the lake; and were soon
at the trading house which the North-Westers maintained at Fond du
Lac on the present site of the city of Duluth.
Here they found an old twenty-eight foot canoe, which they patched up
and fitted with oars, for their slight river craft was unequal to the
winds and waves of Superior; and they had still to make a survey of
the lake. The weather was fine; and they made the circuit without
adventure, east along the south shore to Sault Ste. Marie, and
westward along the north shore to Grand Portage. Late in the evening
of the 7th of June, Thompson set foot on the pier, his long journey
over.
At Sault Ste. Marie he had encountered Sir Alexander Mackenzie and
William McGillivray travelling east to Montreal. When they heard
what he had done, they were warm in their praise, and told him that
he had accomplished as much in ten months as might have been expected
in two years. His reputation was thus established, and his future
with the North West Company was assured.