ATHABASCA, MACKENZIE RIVER, AND THE YUKON.
Peter Pond reaches Athabasca River--Fort Chipewyan
established--Starting-point of Alexander McKenzie--The
Athabasca library--The Hudson Bay Company roused--Conflict at
Fort Wedderburn--Suffering--The dash up the Peace River--Fort
Dunvegan--Northern extension--Fort Resolution--Fort Providence--The
great river occupied--Loss of life--Fort Simpson, the centre--Fort
Reliance--Herds of cariboo--Fort Norman built--Fort Good Hope--The
Northern Rockies--The Yukon reached and occupied--The fierce
Liard River--Fort Halkett in the mountains--Robert Campbell comes
to the Stikine--Discovers the Upper Yukon--His great fame--The
districts--Steamers on the water stretches.
(The map on page 388 should be consulted while this chapter is
being read.)
Less than twenty years after the conquest of Canada by the British, the
traders heard of the Lake Athabasca and Mackenzie River district. The
region rapidly rose into notice, until it reached the zenith as the fur
traders' paradise, a position it has held till the present time.
As we have seen, Samuel Hearne, the Hudson's Bay Company adventurer--the
Mungo Park of the North--first of white men, touched, on his way to the
Coppermine, Lake Athapuscow, now thought to have been Great Slave Lake.
It was the good fortune, however, of the North-West Company to take
possession of this region first for trade.
LAKE AND RIVER ATHABASCA.
The daring Montreal traders, who had seized upon the Saskatchewan and
pushed on to Lake Ile à la Crosse, having a surplus of merchandise in
the year 1778, despatched one of their agents to Lake Athabasca, and
"took seisin" of the country. As already stated, the man selected was
the daring and afterwards violent trader Peter Pond. On the River
Athabasca, some thirty miles south of the Lake, Pond built the first
Indian trading post of the region, which, however, after a few years was
abandoned and never afterwards rebuilt.
FORT CHIPEWYAN.
Less than ten years after this pioneer led the way, a fort was built
on the south side of Lake Athabasca, at a point a few miles east of
the entrance of the river. To this, borrowing the name of the Indian
nation of the district, was given the name Fort Chipewyan. This old
fort became celebrated as the starting-place of the great expedition of
Alexander Mackenzie, when he discovered the river that bears his name
and the Polar Sea into which it empties. At this historic fort also,
Roderick McKenzie, cousin of the explorer, founded the famous "Athabasca
Library," for the use of the officers of the Company in the northern
posts, and in its treasures Lieutenant Lefroy informs us he revelled
during his winter stay.
At the beginning of the century the X Y Company aggressively invaded the
Athabasca region, and built a fort a mile north of Fort Chipewyan, near
the site of the present Roman Catholic Mission of the Nativity.
As the conflict between the North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies
waxed warm, the former Company, no doubt for the purpose of being more
favourably situated for carrying on the trade with the Mackenzie River,
removed their fort on Lake Athabasca to the commanding promontory near
the exit of Slave River from the lake. Renewed and often enlarged, Fort
Chipewyan has until recently remained the greatest depôt of the north
country.
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY AROUSED.
The fierceness of the struggle for the fur trade may be seen in the
fact that the Hudson's Bay Company (1815) with vigour took up a site
on an island in front of Fort Chipewyan and built Fort Wedderburn, at
no greater distance than a single mile, and though it was not their
first appearance on the lake, yet they threw themselves in considerable
force into the contest, numbering, under John Clark, afterward Chief
Factor, ten clerks, a hundred men, and fourteen large canoes loaded
with supplies. Many misfortunes befell the new venture of the Company.
A writer of the time says, "No less than fifteen men, one woman, and
several children perished by starvation. They built four trade posts on
the Peace River (lower) and elsewhere in the autumn; but not one of them
was able to weather out the following winter. All were obliged to come
to terms with their opponents to save the party from utter destruction.
That year the Athabasca trade of the North-West Company was four hundred
packs against only five in all secured by the Hudson's Bay Company."
Three years afterward the old Company, with British pluck, again
appeared on this lake, having nineteen loaded canoes. Trader Clark was
now accompanied by the doughty leader, Colin Robertson, whose prowess we
have already seen in the Red River conflict.
It will be remembered that in the year before the union of the
Companies, George Simpson, the young clerk, arrived on Lake Athabasca
with fifteen loaded canoes. He was chiefly found at Fort Wedderburn
and a short distance up the Peace River. It is not certain that the
prospective Governor ever visited Slave Lake to the north. He gives,
however, the following vivid summary of his winter's experience in
Athabasca: "At some seasons both whites and Indians live in wasteful
abundance on venison, buffalo meat, fish, and game of all kinds, while
at other times they are reduced to the last degree of hunger, often
passing several days without food. In the year 1820 our provisions fell
short at the establishment, and on two or three occasions I went for
two or three whole days and nights without having a single morsel to
swallow, but then again, I was one of a party of eleven men and one
woman which discussed at one sitting meal no less than three ducks and
twenty-two geese!" This winter's knowledge was of great value to the man
afterwards called to be the arbiter of destiny of many a hard-pressed
trader.
Other forts are mentioned as having been established by both Companies
at different points on the Athabasca River, but their period of duration
was short. In some cases these abandoned forts have been followed by
new forts, in recent times, on the same sites.
THE PEACE RIVER.
Soon after the arrival of the first traders in the Athabasca district,
the fame of the Peace River--the Indian "Unjijah," a mighty stream,
whose waters empty into the river flowing from Lake Athabasca--rose
among the adventurers. An enterprising French Canadian trader,
named Boyer, pushed up the stream and near a small tributary--Red
River--established the first post of this great artery, which flows from
the West, through the Rocky Mountains. Long abandoned, this post has in
late years been re-established.
The Peace River has ever had a strange fascination for trader and
tourist, and a few years after Boyer's establishment became known,
a trading house was built above the "Chutes" of the river. This was
afterwards moved some distance up stream and became the well-known Fort
Vermilion. This fort has remained till the present day.
Farther still up the Peace River, where the Smoky River makes its
forks, a fort was erected whose stores and dwelling-houses were on a
larger scale than those of the mother establishment of Fort Chipewyan,
having had stockaded walls, a good powder magazine, and a good well
of water. This fort for a time was known as McLeod's Fort, but in the
course of events its site was abandoned. Fort Dunvegan, famous to later
travellers, was first built on the south side of the river, and was the
headquarters of the Beaver Indians, from whom the North-West Company
received a formal gift of the site. The present fort is on the opposite
side of the Peace River.
It will be remembered, however, that it was from the post at the mouth
of Smoky River that Alexander Mackenzie, having wintered, started on his
great journey to the Pacific. In later years the Hudson's Bay Company
has maintained a fort at this point as an outpost of Dunvegan.
Early in the century we find allusions to the fact that the catch of
beaver was, from over-hunting, declining in the Peace River country, and
that, in consequence, the North-West Company had been compelled to give
up several of their forts. Around Fort St. John's a tragic interest
gathers. John McLean, in his "Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service,"
speaks of reaching on his journey--1833--the "tenantless fort," where
some years before a massacre had taken place. It had been determined by
the Hudson's Bay Company to remove the fort to Rocky Mountain Portage.
The tribe of Tsekanies, to whom the fort was tributary, took this as an
insult. At the time of removal the officer in charge, Mr. Hughes, had
sent off a part of his men with effects of the fort intended for the new
post. Hughes was shot down on the riverside by the Indians. The party of
boatmen, on returning, "altogether unconscious of the fate that awaited
them, came paddling towards the landing-place, singing a voyageur's
song, and Just as the canoe touched the shore, a volley of bullets was
discharged at them, which silenced them for ever. They were all killed
on the spot." An expedition was organized by the traders to avenge
the foul murder, but more peaceful counsels prevailed. Most of the
fugitives paid the penalty of their guilt by being starved to death. The
deserted fort was some twenty miles below the present Fort St. John's.
The present fort was built in the latter half of the century, and its
outpost of Hudson's Hope, together with the trade station at Battle
River, below Dunvegan, was erected about a generation ago.
GREAT SLAVE LAKE.
The extension of the fur trade to Great Slave Lake dates back to within
seven years after the advent of Peter Pond on the Athabasca River. The
famous trader, Cuthbert Grant, father of the "Warden of the Plains," who
figured in the Seven Oaks fight, led the way, and with him a Frenchman,
Laurent Leroux. Reaching this great lake, these ardent explorers built a
trading post on Slave River, near its mouth. A short time afterwards the
traders moved their first post to Moose Deer Island, a few miles from
the old site, and here the North-West Company remained until the time of
the union of the Companies. The impulse of union led to the construction
of a new establishment on the site chosen by the Hudson's Bay Company
for the erection of their post some six years before. The new post was
called Fort Resolution, and was on the mainland two miles or more from
the island. This post marked the extreme limit of the operations of the
Hudson's Bay Company up to the time of the union.
When Alexander Mackenzie determined to make his first great voyage, he
started from Fort Chipewyan and bravely pushing out into the unknown
wilds, left Great Slave Lake and explored the river that bears his name.
Here he promised the tribe of the Yellow Knife Indians to establish a
post among them in the next year. The promise was kept to the letter.
The new post, built at the mouth of the Yellow Knife River, was called
Fort Providence. It was afterwards removed to a large island in the
north arm of the lake, and to this the name Fort Rae, in honour of
the celebrated Arctic explorer, John Rae, was given. Near this new
station there has been for years a Roman Catholic Mission. It was from
the neighbourhood of these forts on the lake that Captain Franklin
set out to build his temporary station, Fort Enterprise, one hundred
miles from his base of supplies. Fort Rae has remained since the time
of its erection a place of some importance. It formed the centre of
the northern operations of Captain Dawson, R.A., on his expedition for
circumpolar observation in recent times.
After the Hudson's Bay Company had transferred Rupert's Land to Canada,
a new post was opened on the Slave River, midway between Athabasca
and Great Slave Lake. It was called Fort Smith, in honour of Chief
Commissioner Donald A. Smith, now Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal. Near
the site of Fort Smith are the dangerous Noyé Rapids of Slave River,
where Grant and Leroux, on their voyage to Great Slave Lake, lost a
canoe and five of its occupants. From Fort Smith southward to Smith
Landing a waggon or cart road has been in use up to the present time.
Now this is to be converted into a tramway.
[Illustration: MAP OF MACKENZIE RIVER AND THE YUKON.]
MACKENZIE RIVER.
Northward the course of the fur traders' empire has continually made
its way. Leaving Great Slave Lake four years before the close of the
eighteenth century, along the course of Alexander Mackenzie's earlier
exploration, Duncan Livingston, a North-West Company trader, built
the first fort on the river eighty miles north of the lake. Three
years later the trader, his three French-Canadian voyageurs and Indian
interpreter, were basely killed by the Eskimos on the Lower Mackenzie
River. A year or two afterward a party of fur traders, under John Clark,
started on an expedition of exploration and retaliation down the river,
but again the fury of the Eskimos was roused. In truth, had it not been
for a storm of fair wind which favoured them, the traders would not have
escaped with their lives.
Very early in the present century, Fort Simpson, the former and present
headquarters of the extensive Mackenzie River district, was built, and
very soon after its establishment the prominent trader, and afterwards
Chief Factor, George Keith, is found in charge of it. It is still the
great trading and Church of England Mission centre of the vast region
reaching to the Arctic Sea.
During the first half of the century, Big Island, at the point where
the Mackenzie River leaves Great Slave Lake, was, on account of its
good supply of white fish, the wintering station for the supernumerary
district servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Though this point is
still visited for fishing in the autumn, yet in later years the trade of
this post has been transferred to another built near the Roman Catholic
Mission at Fort Providence, forty miles farther down the river. On Hay
River, near the point of departure of the Mackenzie River from the lake,
several forts have been built from time to time and abandoned, among
them a Fort George referred to by the old traders. The eastern end of
the lake, known as Fond du Lac, became celebrated, as we have already
seen, in connection with the Arctic explorers, Sir George Back and Dr.
Richard King, for here they built Fort Reliance and wintered, going in
the spring to explore the Great Fish River. In after years, on account
of the district being the resort for the herds of cariboo, Fort Reliance
was rebuilt, and was for a time kept up as an outpost of Fort Resolution
for collecting furs and "country provisions." It may be re-occupied soon
on account of the discoveries of gold and copper in the region.
Journeying down the Mackenzie River, we learn that there was a fur
traders' post of the Montreal merchants sixty miles north of Fort
Simpson. In all probability this was but one of several posts that
were from time to time occupied in that locality. At the beginning of
the century the North-West Company pushed on further north, and had a
trading post on the shore of Great Bear Lake, but almost immediately on
its erection they were met here by their rivals, the X Y Company. At
this point, reached by going up the Bear River from its junction with
the Mackenzie on the south-west arm of the lake, Chief Factor Peter
Dease built Fort Franklin for the use of the great Arctic explorer,
after whom he named the fort.
FORT NORMAN, ON THE MACKENZIE.
To explore new ground was a burning desire in the breasts of the
Nor'-Westers. Immediately in the year of their reunion with the X
Y Company, the united North-West Company established a post on the
Mackenzie River, sixty miles north of the mouth of Bear River. Indeed,
the mouth of Bear River on the Mackenzie seems to have suggested itself
as a suitable point for a post to be built, for in 1810 Fort Norman had
been first placed there. For some reason the post was moved thirty or
forty miles higher up the river, but a jam of ice having occurred in the
spring of 1851, the fort was mainly swept away by the high water, though
the occupants and all the goods were saved. In the same year the mouth
of the Bear River came into favour again, and Fort Norman was built
at that point. After this time the fort was moved once or twice, but
was finally placed in its present commanding position. It was in quite
recent times that, under Chief Factor Camsell's direction, a station
half-way between Fort Norman and Fort Simpson was fixed and the name of
Fort Wrigley given to it.
FORT GOOD HOPE.
Not only did the impulse of union between the North-West and X Y
Companies reach Bear River, but in the same year, at a point on the
Mackenzie River beyond the high perpendicular cliffs known as "The
Ramparts," some two hundred miles further north than Fort Norman, was
Fort Good Hope erected. Here it remained for nearly a score of years
as the farthest north outpost of the fur trade, but after the union of
the North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies it was moved a hundred miles
southward on the river and erected on Manitoulin Island. After some
years (1836) an ice jam of a serious kind took place, and though the
inmates escaped in a York boat, yet the fort was completely destroyed by
the rushing waters of the angry Mackenzie. The fort was soon rebuilt,
but in its present beautiful situation on the eastern bank of the river,
opposite the old site on Manitoulin Island.
During Governor Simpson's time the extension of trade took place toward
the mouth of the Mackenzie River. A trader, John Bell, who not only
faced the hardships of the region within the Arctic Circle, but also
gained a good name in connection with Sir John Richardson's expedition
in search of Franklin, built the first post on Peel's River, which runs
into the delta of Mackenzie River. Bell, in 1846, descended the Rat
River, and first of British explorers set eyes on the Lower Yukon.
In the following year the Hudson's Bay Company established La Pierre's
House in the heart of the Rocky Mountains toward the Arctic Sea, and
Chief Trader Murray built and occupied the first Fort Yukon. This fort
the Hudson's Bay Company held for twenty-two years, until the territory
of Alaska passed into the hands of the people of the United States.
Rampart House was built by the Hudson's Bay Company within British
territory. Both Rampart House and La Pierre's House were abandoned a
few years ago as unprofitable. A similar fate befell Fort Anderson, two
degrees north of the Arctic Circle, built for the Eastern Eskimos on
the Anderson River, discovered in 1857 by Chief Factor R. MacFarlane,
a few years before the transfer of the territory of the Hudson's Bay
Company to Canada. No doubt the withdrawal from Fort Anderson was
hastened by the terribly fatal epidemic of scarlatina which prevailed
all over the Mackenzie River district in the autumn and early winter
of 1865. More than eleven hundred Indians and Eskimos, out of the four
thousand estimated population, perished. The loss of the hunters caused
by this disease, and the difficulties of overland transport, led to the
abandonment of this out-of-the-way post.
THE LIARD RIVER.
The conflict of the North-West and X Y Companies led to the most
extraordinary exploration that Rupert's Land and the Indian territories
have witnessed. At the time when the Mackenzie River, at the beginning
of the century, was being searched and occupied, a fort known as The
Forks was established at the junction of the Liard and Mackenzie Rivers.
This fort, called, after the union of the Hudson's Bay and North-West
Companies, Fort simpson, became the base of operations for the
exploration of the Liard River. We have followed the course of trade by
which the Mackenzie itself was placed under tribute; it may be well also
to look at the occupation of the Liard, the most rapid and terrible of
all the great eastern streams that dash down from the heart of the Rocky
Mountains.
The first post to be established on this stream was Fort Liard, not far
below the junction of the western with the east branch of the river.
There was an old fort between Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, but Fort
Liard, which is still occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company, began almost
with the century, and a few years afterwards was under the experienced
trader, George Keith. Probably, at an equally early date, Fort Nelson,
on the eastern branch of the river, was established. In the second
decade of the century, Alexander Henry, the officer in charge, and all
of his people were murdered by the Indians. The post was for many years
abandoned, but was rebuilt in 1865, and is still a trading post.
It was probably shortly after the union of the North-West and Hudson's
Bay Companies that Fort Halkett, far up the western branch of the river,
was erected. After forty or fifty years of occupation, Fort Halkett
was abandoned, but a small post called Toad River was built some time
afterward, half way between its site and that of Fort Liard. In 1834,
Chief Trader John M. McLeod, not the McLeod whose journal we have
quoted, pushed up past the dangerous rapids and boiling whirlpools, and
among rugged cliffs and precipices of the Rocky Mountains, discovered
Dease River and Dease Lake from which the river flows.
Robert Campbell, an intrepid Scottish officer of the Hudson's Bay
Company, in 1838, succeeded in doing what his predecessors had been
unable to accomplish, viz. to establish a trading-post on Dease Lake. In
the summer of the same year Campbell crossed to the Pacific Slope and
reached the head waters of the Stikine River.
In opening his new post Campbell awakened the hostility of the coast
Indians. He and his men became so reduced in supplies that they
subsisted for some time on the skin thongs of their moccasins and snow
shoes and on the parchment windows of their huts, boiled to supply the
one meal a day which kept them alive. In the end Campbell was compelled
to leave his station on the Dease Lake, and the fort was burnt by the
Indians.
DISCOVERY OF THE UPPER YUKON.
Under orders from Governor Simpson, Campbell, in 1840, undertook
the exploration that has made his name famous. This was to ascend
the northern branch of the wild and dangerous Liard River. For this
purpose he left the mountain post, Fort Halkett, and passing through
the great gorge arrived at Lake Frances, where he gave the promontory
which divides the lake the name "Simpson's Tower." Leaving the Lake
and ascending one of its tributaries, called by him Finlayson's River,
he reached the interesting reservoir of Finlayson's Lake, of which, at
high water, one part of the sheet runs west to the Pacific Ocean and
the other to the Arctic Sea. With seven trusty companions he crossed
the height of land and saw the high cliffs of the splendid river,
which he called "Pelly Banks," in honour of the then London Governor
of the Company. The Company would have called it Campbell's River, but
the explorer refused the honour. Going down the stream a few miles on
a raft, Campbell then turned back, and reached Fort Halkett after an
absence of four months.
Highly complimented by Governor Simpson, Campbell, under orders, in the
next year built a fort at Lake Frances, and in a short time another
establishment at Pelly Banks. Descending the river, the explorer met at
the junction of the Lewis and Pelly Banks a band of Indians, who would
not allow him to proceed further, and indeed plotted to destroy him
and his men. Eight years after his discovery of Pelly Banks, Campbell
started on his great expedition, which was crowned with success.
Reaching again the junction of the Pelly and Lewis Rivers, he erected
a post, naming it Fort Selkirk, although it was long locally known
as Campbell's Fort. Two years after the building of Fort Selkirk,
Campbell, journeying in all from the height of land for twelve hundred
miles, reached Fort Yukon, where, as we have seen, Trader Murray was in
charge. Making a circuit around by the Porcupine River and ascending
the Mackenzie River, Campbell surprised his friends at Fort Simpson by
coming up the river to Fort Simpson.
In 1852, a thievish band of coast Indians called the Chilkats plundered
Fort Selkirk and shortly afterward destroyed it. Its ruins remain to
this day, and the site is now taken up by the Canadian Government as a
station on the way to the Yukon gold-fields.
Campbell went home to London, mapped out with the aid of Arrowsmith the
country he had found, and gave names to its rivers and other features.
A few years ago an officer of the United States army, Lieutenant
Schwatka, sought to rob Campbell of his fame, and attempted to rename
the important points of the region. Campbell's merit and modesty entitle
him to the highest recognition.
The trading posts of the great region we are describing have been
variously grouped into districts. Previous to the union of the
North-West and Hudson's Bay Companies, from Athabasca north and west
was known as the "Athabasca-Mackenzie Department," their returns all
being kept in one account. This northern department was long under the
superintendency of Chief Factor Edward Smith.
A new district was, some time after the transfer of the Indian
territories to Canada, formed and named "Peace River." The management
has changed from time to time, Fort Dunvegan, for example, for a
period the headquarters of the Peace River district, having lost its
pre-eminence and been transferred to be under the chief officer on
Lesser Slave Lake.
The vast inland water stretches of which we have spoken have been the
chief means of communication throughout the whole country. Without these
there could have been little fur trade. The distances are bewildering.
The writer remembers seeing Bishop Bompas, who had left the far distant
Fort Yukon to go to England, and who by canoe, York boat, dog train,
snow shoe, and waggon, had been nine months on the journey before he
reached Winnipeg.
The first northern inland steamer in these remote retreats was the
_Graham_ (1882), built by the Company at Fort Chipewyan on Lake
Athabasca, by Captain John M. Smith. Three years later the same captain
built the screw-propeller _Wrigley_, at Fort Smith, on the Slave River;
and a few years afterward, this indefatigable builder launched at
Athabasca landing the stern-wheeler _Athabasca_, for the water stretches
of the Upper Athabasca River.
How remarkable the record of adventure, trade, rivalry, bloodshed,
hardship, and successful effort, from the time, more than a century ago,
when Peter Pond started out on his seemingly desperate undertaking!