Produced by Linda M. Everhart, Blairstown, Missouri
CANADIAN WILDS
Tells About the Hudson's Bay Company, Northern
Indians and Their Modes of Hunting,
Trapping, Etc.
BY
MARTIN HUNTER
PUBLISHED BY
A. R. HARDING PUBLISHING CO.
COLUMBUS, OHIO
Copyright 1907
By A. R. Harding Publishing Co.
CONTENTS.
I. The Hudson's Bay Company
II. The Free Trader
III. Outfitting Indians
IV. Trackers of the North
V. Provisions for the Wilderness
VI. Forts and Posts
VII. About Indians
VIII. Wholesome Foods
IX. Officers' Allowance
X. Inland Packs
XI. Indian Mode of Hunting Beaver
XII. Indian Mode of Hunting Lynx and Marten
XIII. Indian Mode of Hunting Foxes
XIV. Indian Mode of Hunting Otter and Musquash
XV. Remarkable Success
XVI. Things to Avoid
XVII. Anticosti and Its Furs
XVIII. Chiselling and Shooting Beaver
XIX. The "Indian Devil"
XX. A Tame Seal
XXI. The Care of Blistered Feet
XXII. Deer Sickness
XXIII. A Case of Nerve
XXIV. Amphibious Combats
XXV. Art of Pulling Hearts
XXVI. Dark Furs
XXVII. Indians Are Poor Shots
XXVIII. A Bear in the Water
XXIX. Voracious Pike
XXX. The Brass-Eyed Duck
XXXI. Good Wages Trapping
XXXII. A Pard Necessary
XXXIII. An Heroic Adventure
XXXIV. Wild Oxen
XXXV. Long Lake Indians
XXXVI. Den Bears
XXXVII. The Mishaps of Ralson
[Illustration: Martin Hunter]
INTRODUCTION.
By the courtesy of Forest and Stream and Hunter-Trader-Trapper these
articles are republished in book form by the author.
I have been induced to bring them out a second time under one cover
by the frequent requests of my fellow bushmen who were kind enough to
criticise them favorably when they first appeared in the magazine.
In this preamble I think it proper and possibly interesting to the
reader to have a short synopsis of my career.
I entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1863 as a clerk
and retired in 1903 a commissioned officer of twenty years' standing.
The modes of Trapping and Hunting were learned directly by personal
participation in the chase with the Indians and the other stories
heard first hand from the red man.
My service in the employ of the Great Fur Company extended from
Labrador in the East to Fort William on Lake Superior in the West and
from the valley of the St. Lawrence in the South to the headwaters of
its feeders in the North.
By canoes and snowshoes I have traveled on the principal large rivers
flowing south from the height of land, among them I may mention the
Moisee, Bersimis, St. Maurice, Ottawa, Michipocoten, Pic and Nepigon.
I have hunted, trapped and traded with the Montagnais, Algonquins and
Ojibways, the three largest tribes that inhabit the country mentioned
in the foregoing boundaries and therefore the reader can place
implicit reliance in what is herein set forth. Giving a synopsis of
the history of The Hudson's Bay Company, its Forts and Posts and the
Indians they traded with as well as other incidents of the Canadian
wilds.
Respectfully,
MARTIN HUNTER.
CANADIAN WILDS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated in the year 1670 and
received its charter from Charles the Second, making it today the
longest united company that ever existed in the world.
In 1867 when the different provinces of old Canada were brought under
the Dominion Confederation, the Company ceded its exclusive rights,
as per its charter, to the government of Canada, making this vast
territory over which the Company had held sway for nearly two hundred
years, free for hunters, trappers and traders.
Prince Rupert, of England, was associated with the first body of
"Adventurers Trading into Hudson's Bay," for such were they
designated in the charter and the charter gave them the right to
trade on all rivers and their tributaries flowing into Hudson's Bay.
They established their first forts or factories at the mouths of the
principal rivers that fall into the bay on the east, south and west
shores, such as East Main, Rupert's, Moose, Albany, Churchill and a
few intermediate small outposts along the seashore. They endeavored
to draw the interior Indians down to the coast to trade but after a
few years they found that the long journey to the factories took up
so much of the Indian's time and left them, after their return to
their hunting grounds, so exhausted from their strenuous exertions in
negotiating the turbulent and swift flowing waters, that the
company's management decided to stretch out and establish trading
places up the different rivers.
This small beginning of a post or two up each river was gradually
continued ever further south, ever further west, as the requirements
of the fur trade necessitated, there the company pushed in and
followed their own flag, a blood red ground with H. B. C. in white
block letters in the center.
This flag is known from Labrador to the Pacific and from the St.
Lawrence river to the Arctic regions. Several would-be wits have
given these mysterious letters odd meanings. Among several I call to
memory, "Here Before Christ," "Hungry Belly Company" and "Here Before
Columbus."
Two ships visited the Bay each summer bringing supplies for the next
winter and taking back to England the furs and oil collected during
the past season. The coming of these ships, one to York Factory and
the other to Moose Factory, was the event of the year as they brought
the only mail the "Winterers" received from friends and relatives in
far away Old England.
Navigating the Bay was done pretty much by the rule of "Thumb."
Notwithstanding its being one of the most dangerous bodies of water
in America it is wonderful (now that the Bay is fairly well charted
and shows up most of the dangerous reefs and shoals) how few
accidents these old navigators had in taking their ships in and out
of the Bay.
Much depended on those same ships reaching their destination.
Starvation would confront the officers and servants in the country
and the want of the returns in England during those early days of the
venture would have been a serious setback to their credit. While the
ships were in the roadstead unloading and loading it was an anxious
time to the captain and the officer ashore for as the work had to be
done by lighters (the ship lying three miles from the land) there was
always the danger of a strong wind springing up. In such events the
boats scurried ashore while the ship slipped her cable and put to sea
till fair weather.
In parting with their charter to the Canadian Government the company
reserved certain acreages about each and every one of their forts and
posts besides two sections in each township from the Lake of the
Woods to the Rocky Mountains and from the international boundary line
to the northern edge of the Fertile Belt. These reserves of land sold
to the incoming settlers as the country is filling up is a great
source of revenue to the share holders and are becoming more and more
valuable each succeeding year.
Where most of the old prairie posts stood in the old days, the
company now have "Sale Shops" for the whites and at these places they
are successfully meeting competition, by the superiority and
cheapness of the goods they supply.
In old Canada the fur trade had always been the principal commerce of
the country and after the French regime several Scotch merchants of
Montreal prosecuted it with more vigor than heretofore. This they did
under the name of "The Northwest Company." Their agents and "Couriers
des Bois" were ever pushing westward and had posts strung from Ottawa
to the Rocky Mountains and all the pelts from that immense country
were brought yearly to the headquarters in Montreal.
The Hudson's Bay Company after having inhabited all the territory
that they could rightly claim under their charter, began to oppose
the Northwest Company in the country they had in a way discovered.
The Hudson's Bay Company after getting out of the Bay found the
Northwest Company's people trading on the Red, Assiniboine and
Saskatchewan, all rivers that they could claim by right of their
charter seeing they all drained into Hudson's Bay and then began one
of the keenest and most bloody commercial warfares in history.
Might was right and wherever furs were found the strongest party, for
the time being, took them. Retaliation was the unwritten law of the
country and what was this week a Hudson's Bay post was next week
occupied by a party of Northwesters or vice versa. There is hardly a
place in what is now the peaceful and law abiding Manitoba and the
western provinces but what, if it could tell the tale, had witnessed
at some time in its early history sanguinary conflicts between the
two powerful and rival companies.
Things got to such a pass that the heads of the two fur parties in
London and Montreal saw that something had to be done to stay this
loss of lives and goods. Arrangements were therefore made that the
majority of the stockholders of both companies should meet in London.
This convention had its first meeting on the 19th of May, 1821, and
several other assemblies of the two factions took place before all
the points at issue were mutually agreed upon.
By wide mindedness and a liberal amount of give and take between the
two contending parties a full understanding was agreed on. One of the
points upon which a strong objection was made was the sinking of one
of the identities, but this knotty point was eventually settled. A
coalition of the two companies was formed under the title of "The
Hudson's Bay Company," the first official year of the joined parties
dating first of June, 1821, and the first governor, Mr. George
Simpson, afterwards "Sir George."
Mr. Simpson was knighted by Queen Victoria for having traveled from
Montreal to London by land with the exception of crossing Behring
Strait and the English Channel by boat.
Sir George Simpson held the position of Governor of the fur trade of
the Hudson's Bay Company for very many years and was followed by
Governors Dallas, McTavish, Graham and Sir Donald A. Smith (now Lord
Strathcona) after the latter's term of office the title of this
position was altered to "The Commissioner." The first gentleman to
hold the management under this new title was Mr. Wriggley, who after
serving two terms of four years each, retired and was succeeded by
Mr. C. C. Chipman who is still in office and brings us down to the
present day.
There has always been a Governor and committee in London where the
real headquarters has ever been, while the Commissioner's head place
in Canada is situated in Winnipeg.
The whole of the Great Company's collection of furs is shipped to
England and sold by auction three times a year, in January, March and
October. Buyers from all over Europe attend these sales.