FIRST FOOT ON RED RIVER BANKS.
The weary winter passing at Nelson Encampment had its bright spots.
Miles Macdonell in the building erected for himself, on the south side
of the Nelson River, kept up his mess, having with him Mr. Hillier,
Priest Bourke, Doctor Edwards, and Messrs. John McLeod, Whitford and
Michael Macdonell, officers and clerks. Those Immigrants who took no
part in the rebellion fared well. True, the scurvy seized several of
them, but proved harmless to those who obeyed the orders and took
plentiful potations of spruce beer. With the opening year a fair supply
of fresh and dried venison was supplied by the Indians. In April upwards
of thirty deer were snared or shot by the settlers. Some three thousand
deer of several different kinds crossed the Nelson River within a month.
"Fresh venison," writes Macdonell, "was so plenty that our men would not
taste salt meat. We have all got better since we came to Hudson Bay."
But as in all far northern climates the heat was great in the months of
May and June, and Governor and Colonists became alike restless to start
on the inland journey.
The passing out of the ice in north-flowing rivers is always wearisome
for those who are waiting to ascend. Beginning to melt farther south,
the ice at the mouth is always last to move. Besides, the arrival was
anxiously awaited of Bird, Sinclair and House. By continuous urging of
the dull and inefficient workmen to greater effort, Miles Macdonell had
succeeded in securing four boats--none too well built--but commodious
enough to carry his boat-crews, workmen, and Colonists.
Though Macdonell sought for the selection of the workmen who were to
accompany him to Red River, he was not able to move the Hudson's Bay
Company officials. Two days, however, after arrival of the Company
magnates from the interior his men were secured to him, and he was fully
occupied in transporting his stores up the river as far as the
"Rock"--the rapids of the Hill River which here falls into Hayes River.
For a long distance up the river there is a broad stream, one-quarter of
a mile wide, running at the rate of two miles an hour through low banks.
The boatmen have a good steady pull up the river for some sixty miles,
and here where the Steel River enters the Hayes is seen a wide, deep,
rapid stream running about three miles an hour. The banks of this river
are of clay and rising from fifty to one hundred feet, the clay of the
banks is so smooth and white that a traveller has compared them in color
to the white, chalk cliffs of Dover. Thus far though it has required
exertion on the part of the boatmen, a good stretch of a hundred miles
from the Factory has been passed without any obstruction or delay. Now
the serious work of the journey begins. The Hill River, as this part of
the river is called, is a series of rapids and portages--where the cargo
and boat have both to be carried around a rapid; of decharges where the
cargo has thus to be carried, and of semi-decharges--where a portion of
the cargo only needs to be removed.
At times waterfalls require to be circuited with great effort. A high
mountain or elevated table-land seen from this river shows the rough
country of which these cascades and rapids are the proof. Here are the
White-Mud Falls and other smaller cataracts. To the expert voyageur such
a river has no terrors, but to the raw-hand the management of such boats
is a most toilsome work. The birch-bark canoe is a mere trifle on the
portage, but the heavy York boat capable of carrying three or four tons
is a clumsy lugger. The cargo must be moved, the non-effectives such as
the women and children and the old men must trudge the weary path,
varying from a few hundred yards to several miles along a rocky, steep
and rugged way. When the portage is made the whole force of boatmen and
able-bodied passengers are required to stand by each boat, pull it out
of the water, and then skid or drag or cajole it along till it is thrust
into its native element again. To the willing crofter or Orkney boatmen
this was not a great task, but to the Glasgow immigrant, or the
waiter-on-fortune this was hard work. Many were the oaths of the
officers and the complaints and objections of the men when they were
required to grapple with the foaming cascades, the fearful rapids and
the difficult portages of Hill River. Mossy Portage being now past the
landing on a rocky island at the head of the river showed that the first
"Hill Difficulty" had been overcome.
Swampy lake for ten miles gives a comparative rest to the toiling crews,
but at the end of it a short portage passed takes the beleagured party
into the mouth of the Jack Tent River. Day after day with sound sleep
when the mosquitoes would permit, the unwilling voyageurs continued
their journey. Ten portages have to be faced and overcome as the brigade
ascends the rapid Jack Tent River, covering a stretch of seventy miles.
The party now find themselves on the surface of Knee Lake, a
considerable sheet of water, but a comparative rest after the trials of
Jack Tent River. The lake is fifty-six miles long and at times widens to
ten miles across.
But there is trouble just ahead.
The travellers have now come to the celebrated Fall Portage. It is short
but deterrent. The height and ruggedness of the rocks over which cargo
and boats have to be dragged are unusually forbidding. The only
consolation to the contemplative soul, who does not have to portage, is
that "The stream is turbulent and unfriendly in the extreme, but in
romantic variety, and in natural beauty nothing can exceed this
picture." High rocks are seen, beetling over the rapids like towers, and
are rent into the most diversified forms, gay with various colored
masses, or shaded by overhanging hills--now there is a tranquil pool
lying like a sheet of silver--now the dash and foam of a cataract--these
are but parts of this picturesque and striking scene.
But Fall Portage was only a culmination, in this fiercely rushing Trout
River, for above it a dozen rapids are to be passed with toilsome
energy. After this the party is rewarded with beautiful islets, and the
lake for a length of thirty-five miles lies in a fertile tract of
country. It was formerly appropriately called Holy Lake, and as a summit
lake suggests to the traveller abiding restfulness. To the traders on
their route whether passing up or down the water courses, it was always
so. After the long and tedious voyaging it was their Elysium. Not only
are the sweet surroundings of the lake most charming, but the Indians of
the neighborhood have always been noted for their good character, their
docility and their industry.
[Illustration: ANDREW McDERMOTT, ESQ., Greatest Merchant of the Red
River Settlement. Came to Red River Settlement in 1813. Died in
Winnipeg in 1881.]
A short delay at Oxford House led to the continuation of the journey
over what was now the roughest, most desolate, and most trying part of
the voyage. On this rough passage, perhaps the most distressing spot was
"Windy Lake," a small but tempestuous sheet. The voyageurs declare that
they never cross "Lac de Vent" without encountering high winds and very
often dangerous storms. Again "the Real Hill Difficulty" is encountered
above the lake at the "Big Hill" portage and rapids--one of the sudden
descents of this alarming stream. Those coming toward Oxford Lake run it
at the very risk of their lives, but the painful portages impress
themselves on all going up the "Height of Land," which is reached after
passing through a narrow gorge between hills and mountains of rocks, the
stream dashing headlong down from the mile-long Robinson Portage.
This region is an elevated, rugged waste, with no signs of animal life
about it. It is the terror of the voyageurs. This eerie tract culminates
in the ascending "Haute de Terre," as the French call it--the dividing
ridge between the waters running eastward to Hudson Bay and those
running westward and descending to meet the Nelson River, on its
headlong way to Hudson Bay as well. The obstacle known as the "Painted
Stone" being passed the Colonists' brigade was now on its way to the
inland plain of the Continent.
The portage led from this string of five small lakes to the head waters
of a trifling, but very interesting stream called the "Echimamish
River." A doubtful but curious explanation has been given of the name.
On the stream are ten beaver dams; which ever of these filled first gave
the voyageur the opportunity to launch in his canoe or boat and go down
the little runway to Black Water Creek. It was said that in consequence
it was called "Each-a-Man's" brook, according as each voyageur took the
water with his craft first. The way was now clear, down stream until
shortly was seen the dashing Nelson River, or as it is here called, "The
Sea River." When this was accomplished the Immigrants had only to pull
stoutly up stream for forty miles or more until Norway House, the great
Hudson's Bay Fort at the north end of Lake Winnipeg was reached.
The weary journey--430 miles from York Factory--was thus over and the
worn out, weather beaten, ragged, and foot-sore travellers had come to
the lake, whose name, other than that of Red River, was the only inland
word they had ever heard of before starting on their journey.
It was the first standing place in the country, which was now to have
them as its pioneers.
There is no turning back now. The Rubicon is crossed. Thirty-seven
portages lie between them and the dissociable sea. For better or for
worse they will now complete their journey, going on to found the
Settlement which has become so famous.
The appearance of Norway House with its fine site and evidences of trade
cheered the Colonists, and the sight of a body of water like Lake
Winnipeg, which can be as boisterous as the ocean, brought back the loud
resounding sea by whose swishing waves most of the settlers, for all
their lives, had been lulled to sleep. It is a great stormy and
dangerous lake--Lake Winnipeg. But for boats to creep along its shore
with the liberty of landing on its sloping banks in case of need it is
safe enough. The season was well past, and haste was needed, but in due
time the mouth of the river--the delta of Red River--was reached. Now
they were within forty or forty-five miles of their destination. At this
time the banks of the Red River were well wooded, though there was open
grassy plains lying behind these belts of forest. There was only one
obstruction on their way up the river. This was the "Deer," now St.
Andrew's Rapids, but after their experiences this was nothing, for these
rapids were easily overcome by tracking, that is, by dragging the boats
by a line up the bank.
Up the river they came and rounded what we now call Point Douglas, in
the City of Winnipeg, a name afterwards given to mark Lord Selkirk's
family name. They had completed a journey of seven hundred and
twenty-eight miles, from York Factory to the site of Winnipeg--and they
had done this in fifty-five days. Now they landed.
THE RED LETTER DAY OF THEIR LANDING WAS AUGUST 30TH, 1812.
At York Factory the Colonists had met a Hudson's Bay Company
officer--Peter Fidler--on his way to England. He was the surveyor of the
Company and a map of the Colony of which a copy is given by us marks the
Colony Gardens, where Governor Miles Macdonell lived. This spot they
chose, and the locality at the foot of Rupert Street is marked in the
City of Winnipeg. A stone's throw further north along the bank of Red
River, Fort Douglas was afterwards built, around which circles much of
this Romantic Settlement Story.
This spot was the centre of the First Settlement of Rupert's Land and to
this first party peculiar interest attaches.
There can only be one Columbus among all the navigators who crossed from
Europe to America; there can only be one Watt among all the inventors
and improvers of the steam engine; only one Newton among those who
discuss the great discovery of the basal law of gravitation.
There can be only one first party of those who laid the foundation of
collective family life in what is now the Province of Manitoba--and what
is wider--in the great Western Canada of to-day. There may have been not
many wise men, not many mighty, not many noble among them, but the long
and stormy voyage which they made, the dangers they endured on the sea,
the marvellous land journey they accomplished, and their taking "seisin
of the land," to use William the Conqueror's phrase, entitles them to
recognition and to respectful memory.