It is possible that a Note on the country portrayed in these stories may
be in keeping. Until 1870, the Hudson’s Bay Company--first granted
its charter by King Charles II--practically ruled that vast region
stretching from the fiftieth parallel of latitude to the Arctic Ocean--a
handful of adventurous men entrenched in forts and posts, yet trading
with, and mostly peacefully conquering, many savage tribes. Once the
sole master of the North, the H. B. C. (as it is familiarly called) is
reverenced by the Indians and half-breeds as much as, if not more than,
the Government established at Ottawa. It has had its forts within the
Arctic Circle; it has successfully exploited a country larger than
the United States. The Red River Valley, the Saskatchewan Valley, and
British Columbia, are now belted by a great railway, and given to the
plough; but in the far north life is much the same as it was a hundred
years ago. There the trapper, clerk, trader, and factor are cast in the
mould of another century, though possessing the acuter energies of this.
The ‘voyageur’ and ‘courier de bois’ still exist, though, generally,
under less picturesque names.
The bare story of the hardy and wonderful career of the adventurers
trading in Hudson’s Bay,--of whom Prince Rupert was once chiefest,--and
the life of the prairies, may be found in histories and books of travel;
but their romances, the near narratives of individual lives, have waited
the telling. In this book I have tried to feel my way towards the heart
of that life--worthy of being loved by all British men, for it has
given honest graves to gallant fellows of our breeding. Imperfectly, of
course, I have done it; but there is much more to be told.
When I started Pretty Pierre on his travels, I did not know--nor did
he--how far or wide his adventurers and experiences would run. They
have, however, extended from Quebec in the east to British Columbia
in the west, and from the Cypress Hills in the south to the Coppermine
River in the north. With a less adventurous man we had had fewer
happenings. His faults were not of his race, that is, French and
Indian,--nor were his virtues; they belong to all peoples. But the
expression of these is affected by the country itself. Pierre passes
through this series of stories, connecting them, as he himself connects
two races, and here and there links the past of the Hudson’s Bay Company
with more modern life and Canadian energy pushing northward. Here
is something of romance “pure and simple,” but also traditions and
character, which are the single property of this austere but not
cheerless heritage of our race.
All of the tales have appeared in magazines and journals--namely, ‘The
National Observer’, ‘Macmillan’s’, ‘The National Review’, and ‘The
English Illustrated’; and ‘The Independent of New York’. By the courtesy
of the proprietors of these I am permitted to republish.