1780-1810
“THE COMING OF THE PEDLARS” CONTINUED--THIRTY YEARS OF
EXPLORATION--THE ADVANCE UP THE SASKATCHEWAN TO BOW RIVER AND HOWSE
PASS--THE BUILDING OF EDMONTON--HOW MACKENZIE CROSSED TO THE PACIFIC.
While fifty or a hundred men yearly ascended Red River as far as Grand
Forks, and the Assiniboine as far as Qu’ Appelle, the main forces of
the Nor’Westers--the great army of wood-rovers and plain rangers and
swelling, blustering bullies and crafty old wolves of the North, and
quiet-spoken wintering partners of iron will, who said little and
worked like demons--were destined for the valley of the Saskatchewan
that led to the Rockies.
Like a great artery with branches south leading over the height of
land to the Missouri and branches north giving canoe passage over
the height of land to the Arctic, the Saskatchewan flowed for twelve
hundred miles through the fur traders’ stamping ground, freighted with
the argosies of a thousand canoes. From the time that the ice broke up
in May, canoes were going and coming; canoes with blankets hoisted on
a tent pole for sail; canoes of birch bark and cedar dugouts; canoes
made of dried buffalo skin stitched and oiled round willow withes the
shape of a tub, and propelled across stream by lapping the hand over
the side of the frail gun’els. Indians squatted flat in the bottom
of the canoes, dipping paddles in short stroke with an ease born of
life-long practice. White men sat erect on the thwarts with the long,
vigorous paddle-sweep of the English oarsman and shot up and down the
swift-flowing waters like birds on wing. The boats of the English
traders from Hudson Bay were ponderously clumsy, almost as large as the
Mackinaws, which the Company still uses, with a tree or rail plied as
rudder to half-punt, half-scull; rows of oarsmen down each side, who
stood to the oar where the current was stiff, and a big mast pole for
sails when there was wind, for the tracking rope when it was necessary
to pull against rapids. Where rapids were too turbulent for tracking,
these boats were trundled ashore and rolled across logs. Little wonder
the Nor’Westers with their light birch canoes built narrow for speed,
light enough to be carried over the longest portage by two men,
outraced with a whoop the Hudson’s Bay boats whenever they encountered
each other on the Saskatchewan! Did the rival crews camp for the
night together, French bullies would challenge the Orkneymen of the
Hudson’s Bay to come out and fight. The defeated side must treat the
conquerors or suffer a ducking.
[Illustration: Chippewyan and Mackenzie River as drawn in Mackenzie’s
Voyages, 1789.]
Crossing the north end of Lake Winnipeg, canoes bound inland passed
Horse Island and ascended the Saskatchewan. Only one interruption
broke navigation for one thousand miles--Grand Rapids at the entrance
of the river, three miles of which could be tracked, three must be
portaged--in all a trail of about nine miles on the north shore where
the English had laid a corduroy road of log rollers. The ruins of old
Fort Bourbon and Basquia or Pas, where Hendry had seen the French
in ’54, were first passed. Then boats came to the metropolis of the
Saskatchewan--the gateway port of the great Up Country--Cumberland
House on Sturgeon Lake. Here, Hearne had built the post for Hudson’s
Bay, and Frobisher the fort for the Nor’Westers. Here, boats could go
on up the Saskatchewan, or strike northwest through a chain of lakes
past Portage de Traite and Isle a la Crosse to Athabasca and MacKenzie
River. Fishing never failed, and when the fur traders went down to
headquarters, their families remained at Cumberland House laying up
a store of dried fish for the winter. Beyond Cumberland House came
those forts famous in Northwest annals, Lower Fort des Prairies, and
the old French Nipawi, and Fort a la Corne, and Pitt, and Fort George,
and Vermilion, and Fort Saskatchewan and Upper Fort des Prairies or
Augustus--many of which have crumbled to ruin, others merged into
modern cities like Augustus into Edmonton. On the south branch of the
Saskatchewan and between the two rivers were more forts--oases in a
wilderness of savagery--Old Chesterfield House where Red Deer River
comes in and Upper Bow Fort within a stone’s throw of the modern summer
resort at Banff, where grassed mounds and old arrowheads to-day mark
the place of the palisades.
More dangers surrounded the traders of the South Saskatchewan than in
any part of the Up Country. The Blackfeet were hostile to the white
men. With food in abundance from the buffalo hunts, they had no need
of white traders and resented the coming of men who traded firearms
to their enemies. There was, beside, constant danger of raiders from
the Missouri--Snakes and Crows and Minnetaries. Hudson’s Bay and
Nor’Westers built their forts close together for defence in South
Saskatchewan, but that did not save them.
At Upper Bow Fort in Banff Valley, in 1796, Missouri raiders surrounded
the English post, scaled the palisades, stabbed all the whites to
death except one clerk, who hid under a dust pile in the cellar,
pillaged the stores, set fire, then rallied across to the Nor’Westers,
but the Nor’Westers had had warning. Jaccot Finlay and the Cree Beau
Parlez, met the assailants with a crash of musketry. Then dashing out,
they rescued the Hudson’s Bay man, launched their canoes by night and
were glad to escape with their lives down the Bow to Old Chesterfield
House at Red Deer River.
Two years later, the wintering partners, Hughes and Shaw, with McDonald
of Garth, built Fort Augustus or Edmonton. Longmore was chief factor
of the Hudson’s Bay at Edmonton, with Bird as leader of the brigades
down to York Fort and Howse as “patroon of the woods” west as far as
the Rockies. With the Nor’Westers was a high-spirited young fire eater
of a clerk--Colin Robertson, who, coming to blows with McDonald of the
Crooked Arm, was promptly dismissed and as promptly stepped across to
the rival fort and joined the Hudson’s Bay. Around Edmonton camped
some three hundred Indians. In the crowded quarters of the courtyards,
yearly thronged by the eastern brigades so that each fort housed more
than one hundred men, it was impossible to keep all the horses needed
for travel. These were hobbled and turned outside the palisades. It
was easy for the Indians to cut the hobbles, mount a Company horse, and
ride free of punishment as the winds. Longmore determined to put a stop
to this trick. Once a Cree horse thief was brought in. He was tried by
court martial and condemned to death. Gathering together fifteen of
his hunters, Longmore plied them with liquor and ordered them to fire
simultaneously. The horse thief fell riddled with bullets. It is not
surprising that the Indians’ idea of the white man’s justice became
confused. If white men shot an Indian for stealing a horse, why should
not Indians shoot white men for stealing furs?
From the North Saskatchewan to the South Saskatchewan ran a trail
pretty much along the same region as the Edmonton railroad runs to-day.
In May the furs of both branches were rafted down the Saskatchewan to
the Forks and from the Forks to Cumberland House whence Hudson’s Bay
and Nor’Wester brigades separated. In 1804, McDonald of Garth had gone
south from Edmonton to raft down the furs of the South Saskatchewan.
Hudson’s Bay and Nor’Westers set out together down stream, scouts
riding the banks on each side. Half way to the Forks, the Nor’Westers
got wind of a band of Assiniboines approaching with furs to trade.
This must be kept secret from the Hudson’s Bays. Calling Boucher,
his guide, McDonald of Garth, bade the voyageurs camp here for three
days to hunt buffalo while he would go off before daybreak to meet the
Assiniboines. The day following, the buffalo hunters noticed movements
as of riders or a herd on the far horizon. They urged Boucher to lead
the brigade farther down the river, but Boucher knew that McDonald
was ahead to get the furs of the Assiniboines and it was better to
delay the Hudson’s Bay men here with Northwest hunters. All night the
tom-tom pounded and the voyageurs danced and the fiddlers played.
Toward daybreak during the mist between moonlight and dawn, when the
tents were all silent and the voyageurs asleep beneath inverted canoes,
Missouri raiders, led by Wolf Chief, stole on the camp. A volley was
fired at Boucher’s tent. Every man inside perished. Outside, under
cover of canoes, the voyageurs seized their guns and with a peppering
shot drove the Indians back. Then they dragged the canoes to water,
still keeping under cover of the keel, rolled the boats keel down on
the water, tumbled the baggage in helter-skelter and fled abandoning
five dead men and the tents. When the raiders carried the booty back
to the Missouri they explained to Charles MacKenzie, the Nor’Wester
there, that they were sorry they had shot the white traders. It was a
mistake. When they fired, they thought it was a Cree camp.
From Edmonton was an important trail to Athabasca, ninety miles
overland to what is now known as Athabasca Landing on Athabasca River
and down stream to Fort Chippewyan on Athabasca Lake. This was the
region Peter Pond had found, and when he was expelled for the murder
of two men, Alexander MacKenzie came to take his place. Just as the
Saskatchewan River was the great artery east and west, so the fur
traders of Athabasca now came to a great artery north and south--a
river that was to the North what the Mississippi was to the United
States. The Athabasca was the south end of this river. The river where
it flowed was called the Grand or Big River.
Athabasca was seventy days’ canoe travel from the Nor’Westers’
headquarters on Lake Superior. It was Alexander MacKenzie’s duty to
send his hunters out, wait for their furs, then conduct the brigades
down to Rainy Lake. Laroux and Cuthbert Grant, the plains ranger,
were his under officers. When he came back from Lake Superior in ’88,
MacKenzie sent Grant and Laroux down to Slave Lake. Then he settled
down to a winter of loneliness and began to dream dreams. Where did
Big River run beyond Slave Lake? It was a river broader than the St.
Lawrence with ramparts like the Hudson. Dreaming of explorations that
would bring him renown, he planned to accompany the hunters next year,
but who would take his place to go down with the yearly brigades,
and what would the other Northwest partners say to these exploring
schemes? He wrote to his cousin Rory to come and take his place. As to
objections from the partners, he told them nothing about it.
The first thing Rory MacKenzie does is to move Pond’s old post down
stream to a rocky point on the lake, which he calls Chippewyan from
the Indians there. This will enable the fort to obtain fish all the
year round. May, ’89, Alexander MacKenzie sees his cousin Rory off with
the brigades for Lake Superior. Then he outfits his Indian hunters
for the year. Norman McLeod and five men are to build more houses in
the fort. Laroux’s canoe is loaded for Slave Lake. Then MacKenzie
picks out a crew of one German and four Canadians with two wives to
sew moccasins and cook. “English Chief” whom Frobisher met down at
Portage de Traite years ago, goes as guide, accompanied by two wives
and two Indian paddlers. Tuesday, June 2nd, is spent gumming canoes
and celebrating farewells. June 3rd, 1789, at nine in the morning, the
canoes push out, Mr. McLeod on the shore firing a salute that sets
the echoes ringing over the Lake of the Hills (Athabasca). Twenty-one
miles from Chippewyan, the boats enter Slave River on the northwest,
where a lucky shot brings down a goose and a couple of ducks. It is
seven in the evening when they pitch camp, but this is June of the long
daylight. The sun is still shining as they sit down to the luscious
meal of wild fowl. The seams of the canoes are gummed and the men “turn
in” early, bed being below upturned canoes; for henceforth, MacKenzie
tells them, reveille is to sound at 3 A. M., canoes to be in the water
by four. Peace River, a mile broad at its mouth, is passed next day,
and MacKenzie wonders does this river flowing from the mountains lead
to the west coast where Captain Cook found the Russians? Slave River
flows swifter now. The canoes shoot the rapids, for the water is
floodtide, and “English Chief” tells them the Indians of this river are
called Slaves because the Crees drove them from the South. Sixty miles
good they make this day before camping at half-past seven, the Indian
wives sewing moccasins as hard as the men paddle, so hard indeed that
when they come to a succession of dangerous rapids next day and land
to unload, one canoe is caught in the swirl and carried down with the
squaw, who swims ashore little the worse. This is the place--Portage
des Noyes--where Cuthbert Grant lost five voyageurs going to Slave
Lake three years before. June 9th, mid fog and rain and floating ice
and clouds of mosquitoes, they glide into the beaver swamps of Slave
Lake. Wild fowl are in such flocks, the voyageurs knock geese and ducks
enough on the head for dinner. Laroux drops off here at his fort. The
men go hunting.
[Illustration: Alexander Mackenzie, who discovered Mackenzie River and
was first across the Rockies to the Pacific.]
The women pick berries and Alexander MacKenzie climbs a high hill to
try and see a way out of this foggy swamp of a lake stretching north
in two horns two hundred miles from east to west. There was ice ahead
and there was fog ahead, and it was quite plain “English Chief” did not
know the way. MacKenzie followed the direction of the drifting ice. Dog
Rib Indians here vow there is no passage through the ice, and the cold
rains slush down in torrents. It is not dark longer than four hours,
but the nights are so cold the lake is edged with ice a quarter of an
inch thick. MacKenzie secures a Red Knife Indian as guide and pushes
on through the flag-grown swamps, now edging the ice fields, now in
such rough water men must bail to keep the canoes afloat, now trying
to escape from the lake east, only to be driven back by the ice, west;
old “English Chief” threatening to cut the Red Knife’s throat if he
fails them. Three weeks have they been fog-bound and ice-bound and
lost on Slave Lake, but they find their way out by the west channel
at last, a strong current, a stiff wind and blankets up for sail. July
1st, they pass the mouth of a very large river, the Liard; July 5th, a
very large camp of Dog Rib Indians, who warn them “old age will come
before” MacKenzie “reaches the sea” and that the wildest monsters guard
Big River. MacKenzie obtains a Dog Rib for a guide, but the Dog Rib
has no relish for his part, and to keep him from running away as they
sleep at night, MacKenzie takes care to lie on the edge of the filthy
fellow’s vermin-infested coat. A greenish hue of the sea comes on the
water as they pass Great Bear Lake to the right, but the guide has
become so terrified he must now be bodily held in the canoe. The banks
of the river rise to lofty ramparts of white rock. Signs of the North
grow more frequent. Trees have dwindled in size to little sticks. The
birds and hares shot are all whitish-gray with fur pads or down on
their feet. On July 8th, the guide escapes, but a Hare Indian comes
along, who, by signs, says it is only ten days to the sea. Presently,
the river becomes muddy and breaks into many channels. Provisions are
almost gone, and MacKenzie promises his men if he does not find the sea
within a week, he will turn back. On the 11th of July, the sun did not
set, and around deserted camp fires were found pieces of whalebone.
MacKenzie’s hopes mounted. Only the Eskimos use whalebone for tent
poles. Footprints, too, were seen in the sand, and a rare beauty of
a black fox--with a pelt that was a hunter’s fortune--scurried along
the sands into hiding. The Hare Indian guide began talking of “a large
lake” and “an enormous fish” which the Eskimo hunted with spears.
“Lake?” Had not MacKenzie promised his men it was to be the sea? The
voyageurs were discouraged. They did not think of the big “fish” being
a whale, or the riffle in the muddy channels the ocean tide, not though
the water slopped into the tents under the baggage and “the large lake”
appeared covered with ice. Then at three o’clock in the morning of July
14th, the ice began floundering in a boisterous way on calm waters.
There was no mistaking. The floundering ice was a whale and this _was_
the North Sea, first reached overland by Hearne of the Hudson’s Bay,
and now found by Alexander MacKenzie.
The story of MacKenzie’s voyages is told elsewhere. He was welcomed
back to Chippewyan by Norman McLeod on October the 12th at 3 P. M., and
spent the winter there with his cousin, Rory. Hurrying to Lake Superior
with his report next summer, Alexander MacKenzie suffered profound
disappointment. He was received coldly. The truth is, the old guard
of the original Nor’Westers--Simon McTavish and the Frobishers--were
jealous of the men, who had come in as partners from the Little
Company. They had no mind to see honors captured by a young fellow like
MacKenzie, who had only two shares in the Company, or $8000 worth of
stock, compared to their own six shares or $24,000, and found bitter
fault with the returns of furs from Athabasca, and this hostility
lasted till McTavish’s death in 1804. MacKenzie came back to pass a
depressing winter (’90-’91) at Chippewyan when he dispatched hunters
down the newly discovered river, which he ironically called “River
Disappointment.” But events were occurring that spurred his thoughts.
Down at the meeting of the partners he had heard how Astor was
gathering the American furs west of the Great Lakes; how the Russians
were gathering an equally rich harvest on the Pacific Coast. Down among
the Hare Indians of MacKenzie River, he had heard of white traders on
the West coast. If a boat pushed up Peace River from Athabaska Lake,
could it portage across to that west coast? The question stuck and
rankled in MacKenzie’s mind. “Be sure to question the Indians about
Peace River,” he ordered all his winter hunters. Then came the Hudson’s
Bay men to Athabasca: Turner, the astronomer, and Howse, who had been
to the mountains. If the Nor’Westers were to be on the Pacific Coast
first, they must bestir themselves. MacKenzie quietly asked leave of
absence in the winter of ’91-’92, and went home to study in England
sufficient to enable him to take more accurate astronomic observations.
The summer of ’92 found him back on the field appointed to Peace River
district.
The Hudson’s Bay men had failed to pass through the country beyond
the mountains. Turner and Howse had gone down to Edmonton. Thompson,
the surveyor, left the English Company and coming overland to Lake
Superior, joined the Nor’Westers. It was still possible for MacKenzie
to be first across the mountains.
The fur traders had already advanced up Peace River and half a dozen
forts were strung up stream toward the Rockies. By October of ’92,
MacKenzie advanced beyond them all to the Forks on the east side and
there erected a fort. By May, he had dispatched the eastern brigade.
Then picking out a crew of six Frenchmen and two Indians, with
Alexander McKay as second in command, McKenzie launched out at seven
o’clock on the evening of May 9, 1793, from the Forks of Peace River in
a birch canoe of three thousand pounds capacity.
If the voyage to the Arctic had been difficult, it was child’s play
compared to this. As the canoe entered the mountains, the current
became boisterously swift. It was necessary to track the boat up
stream. The banks of the river grew so precipitous that the men could
barely keep foothold to haul the canoe along with a one hundred and
eighty-foot rope. MacKenzie led the way cutting steps in the cliff,
his men following, stepping from his shoulder to the shaft of his axe
and from the axe to the place he had cut, the torrent roaring and
re-echoing below through the narrow gorge. Sulphur springs were passed,
the out-cropping of coal seams, vistas on the frosted mountains opening
to beautiful uplands, where elk and moose roamed. An old Indian had
told MacKenzie that when he passed over the mountains, Peace River
would divide--one stream, now known as the Finlay, coming from the
north; the other fork, now known as the Parsnip, from the south.
MacKenzie, the old guide said, should ascend the south; but it was no
easy matter passing the mountains. The gorge finally narrowed to sheer
walls with a raging maelstrom in place of a river. The canoe had to be
portaged over the crest of a peak for nine miles--MacKenzie leading
the way chopping a trail, the men following laying the fallen trees
like the railing of a stair as an outer guard up the steep ascent. Only
three miles a day were made. Clothes and moccasins were cut to shreds
by brushwood, and the men were so exhausted they lay down in blanket
coats to sleep at four in the afternoon, close to the edge of the upper
snow fields. MacKenzie wrote letters, enclosed them in empty kegs,
threw the kegs into the raging torrent and so sent back word of his
progress to the fort. Constantly, on the Uplands, the men were startled
by rocketing echoes like the discharge of a gun, when they would pass
the night in alarm, each man sitting with his back to a tree and musket
across his knees, but the rocketing echoes--so weird and soul-stirring
in the loneliness of a silence that is audible--were from huge rocks
splitting off some precipice. Sometimes a boom of thunder would set the
mountains rolling. From a far snow field hanging in ponderous cornice
over bottomless depths would puff up a thin, white line like a snow
cataract, the distant avalanche of which the boom was the echo. Once
across the divide, the men passed from the bare snow uplands to the
cloud line, where seas of tossing mist blotted out earth, and from
cloud line to the Alpine valleys with larch-grown meadows and painters’
flowers knee deep, all the colors of the rainbow. Beside a rill
trickling from the ice fields pause would be made for a meal. Then came
tree line, the spruce and hemlock forests--gigantic trees, branches
interlaced, festooned by a mist-like moss that hung from tree to tree
in loops, with the windfall of untold centuries piled criss-cross below
higher than a house. The men grumbled. They had not bargained on this
kind of voyaging.
Once down on the west side of the Great Divide, there were the Forks.
MacKenzie’s instincts told him the north branch looked the better way,
but the old guide had said only the south branch would lead to the
Great River beyond the mountains, and they turned up Parsnip River
through a marsh of beaver meadows, which MacKenzie noted for future
trade.
[Illustration:
From a photograph by Mathers.
The Ramparts of MacKenzie River.]
It was now the 3rd of June. MacKenzie ascended a mountain to look along
the forward path. When he came down with McKay and the Indian Cancre,
no canoe was to be found. MacKenzie sent broken branches drifting down
stream as a signal and fired gunshot after gunshot, but no answer! Had
the men deserted with boat and provisions? Genuinely alarmed, MacKenzie
ordered McKay and Cancre back down the Parsnip, while he went on up
stream. Whichever found the canoe was to fire a gun. For a day without
food and in drenching rains, the three tore through the underbrush
shouting, seeking, despairing till strength was exhausted and moccasins
worn to tatters. Barefoot and soaked, MacKenzie was just lying down
for the night when a crashing echo told him McKay had found the
deserters. They had waited till he had disappeared up the mountain,
then headed the canoe north and drifted down stream. The Indians were
openly panic-stricken and wanted to build a raft to float home. The
French voyageurs pretended they had been delayed mending the canoe.
MacKenzie took no outward notice of the treachery, but henceforth never
let the crew out of his own or McKay’s sight.
A week later, Indians were met who told MacKenzie of the Carrier
tribes, inlanders, who bartered with the Indians on the sea. One old
man drew a birch bark map of how the Parsnip led to a portage overland
to another river flowing to the sea. Promising to return in two moons
(months), MacKenzie embarked with an Indian for guide. On the evening
of June 12th, they entered a little lake, the source of Peace River.
A beaten path led over a low ridge to another little lake--the source
of the river that flowed to the Pacific. This was Bad River, a branch
of the Fraser, though MacKenzie thought it was a branch of the Great
River--the Columbia. The little lake soon narrowed to a swift torrent,
which swept the canoe along like a chip. MacKenzie wanted to walk along
the shore, for some one should go ahead to look out for rapids, but the
crew insisted if they were to perish, he must perish with them, and
all hands embarked. The consequence was that the canoe was presently
caught in a swirl. A rock banged through the bottom tearing away the
keel. Round swung the tottering craft to the rush! Another smash,
and out went the bow, the canoe flattening like a board, the Indians
weeping aloud on top of the baggage, the voyageurs paralyzed with
fear, hanging to the gun’els. On swept the wrecked canoe! The foreman
frantically grabbed the branch of an overhanging tree. It jerked him
bodily ashore and the canoe flat as a flap-jack came to a stop in
shallow sands.
There was not much said for some minutes. Bad River won a reputation
that it has ever since sustained. All the bullets were lost. Powder
and baggage had to be fished up and spread out to dry in the sun.
One dazed voyageur walked across the spread-out powder with a pipe
between his teeth when a yell of warning that he might blow them all to
eternity--brought him to his senses and relieved the terrific tension.
The men were treated to a _régale_, and then sent to hunt bark for a
fresh canoe. There now succeeded such an impenetrable morass blocked
by windfall that the voyageurs made only two miles a day. Though
MacKenzie and McKay watched their guide by turns at night, he succeeded
in escaping, and the white men must risk meeting the inland Carriers
without an interpreter. On the 15th of June, Bad River turned westward
into the Fraser. Of his parley with the Carriers, there is no space to
tell. I have told the story in another volume, but somewhere between
what are now known as Quesnel and Alexandria--named after him--it
became apparent that the river was leading too far south. Besides, the
passage was utterly impassable. MacKenzie headed his canoe back up the
western fork of the Fraser--the Blackwater River, and thence on July
4th, leaving the canoe and caching provisions, struck overland and
westward. The Pacific was reached on the 22nd of July, 1793, in the
vicinity of Bella Coola. By the end of August he was back at the Forks
on Peace River, and at once proceeded to Chippewyan on Athabasca Lake,
where he passed the winter.