THE IMPULSE OF UNION.
North-West and X Y Companies unite--Recalls the Homeric
period--Feuds forgotten--Men perform prodigies--The new fort
re-christened--Vessel from Michilimackinac--The old canal--Wills
builds Fort Gibraltar--A lordly sway--The "Beaver Club"--Sumptuous
table--Exclusive society--"Fortitude in Distress"--Political
leaders in Lower Canada.
To the termination of the great conflict between the North-West and the
X Y Companies we have already referred. The death of Simon McTavish
removed a difficulty and served to unite the traders. The experience and
standing of the old Company and the zeal and vigour of the new combined
to inspire new hope.
Great plans were matured for meeting the opposition of the Hudson's Bay
Company and extending the trade of the Company. The explorations of
David Thompson and Simon Fraser, which, as we have seen, produced such
great results in New Caledonia, while planned before, were now carried
forward with renewed vigour, the enterprise of the Nor'-Westers being
the direct result of the union. The heroic deeds of these explorers
recall to us the adventurous times of the Homeric period, when men
performed prodigies and risked their lives for glory. The explanation of
this hearty co-operation was that the old and new Companies were very
closely allied. Brothers and cousins had been in opposite camps, not
because they disliked each other, but because their leaders could not
agree. Now the feuds were forgotten, and, with the enthusiasm of their
Celtic natures, they would attempt great things.
The "New Fort," as it had been called, at the mouth of the
Kaministiquia, was now re-christened, and the honoured name of the
chieftain McGillivray was given to this great depôt--Fort William.
It became a great trading centre, and the additions required to
accommodate the increased volume of business and the greater number of
employés, were cheerfully made by the united Company.
Standing within the great solitudes of Thunder Bay, Fort William became
as celebrated in the annals of the North-West Company, as York or Albany
had been in the history of the Hudson's Bay Company.
A vessel came up from Lake Erie, bringing supplies, and, calling at
Michilimackinac, reached the Sault Ste. Marie. Boats which had come down
the canal, built to avoid the St. Mary Rapids, here met this vessel.
From the St. Mary River up to Fort William a schooner carried cargoes,
and increased the profits of the trade, while it protected many from the
dangers of the route. The whole trade was systematized, and the trading
houses, duplicated as they had been at many points, were combined, and
the expenses thus greatly reduced.
As soon as the Company could fully lay its plans, it determined to take
hold in earnest of the Red River district. Accordingly we see that,
under instructions from John McDonald, of Garth, a bourgeois named John
Wills, who, we find, had been one of the partners of the X Y Company,
erected at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, on the point
of land, a fort called Fort Gibraltar. Wills was a year in building
it, having under him twenty men. The stockade of this fort was made
of "oak trees split in two." The wooden picketing was from twelve to
fifteen feet high. The following is a list of buildings enclosed in
it, with some of their dimensions. There were eight houses in all; the
residence of the bourgeois, sixty-four feet in length; two houses for
the servants, respectively thirty-six and twenty-eight feet long; one
store thirty-two feet long; a blacksmith's shop, stable, kitchen, and
an ice-house. On the top of the ice-house a watch-tower (guérite) was
built. John Wills continued to live in this fort up to the time of his
death a few years later. Such was the first building, so far as we know,
erected on the site of the City of the Plains, and which was followed
first by Fort Douglas and then by Fort Garry, the chief fort in the
interior of Rupert's Land.
It was to this period in the history of the United Company that
Washington Irving referred when he said: "The partners held a lordly
sway over the wintry lakes and boundless forests of the Canadas almost
equal to that of the East India Company over the voluptuous climes and
magnificent realms of the Orient."
Some years before this, a very select organization had been formed
among the fur traders in Montreal. It was known as the "Beaver Club."
The conditions of the membership were very strict. They were that the
candidate should have spent a period of service in the "upper country,"
and have obtained the unanimous vote of the members. The gatherings of
the Club were very notable. At their meetings they assembled to recall
the prowess of the old days, the dangers of the rapids, the miraculous
deliverances accomplished by their canoe men, the disastrous accidents
they had witnessed.
Their days of feasting were long remembered by the inhabitants of
Montreal after the club had passed away. The sumptuous table of the
Club was always open to those of rank or distinction who might visit
Montreal, and the approval of the Club gave the entry to the most
exclusive society of Montreal.
Still may be met with in Montreal pieces of silverware and glassware
which were formerly the property of the "Beaver Club," and even large
gold medals bearing the motto, "Fortitude in Distress," used by the
members of the Club on their days of celebration.
It was at this period that the power of the fur trading magnates seemed
to culminate, and their natural leadership of the French Canadians being
recognized in the fur trade, many of the partners became political
leaders in the affairs of Lower Canada. The very success of the new
Company, however, stirred up, as we shall see, opposition movements
of a much more serious kind than they had ever had to meet before.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie's book in 1801 had awakened much interest in
Britain and now stimulated the movement by Lord Selkirk which led to
the absorption of the North-West Company. The social and commercial
standing of the partners started a movement in the United States which
aimed at wresting from British hands the territory of New Caledonia,
which the energy of the North-West Company of explorers had taken
possession of for the British crown.
It will, however, be to the glory of the North-West Company that these
powerful opposition movements were mostly rendered efficient by the
employment of men whom the Nor'-Westers had trained; and the methods of
trade, borrowed from them by these opponents, were those continued in
the after conduct of the fur trade that grew up in Rupert's Land and the
Indian territories beyond.