=Source.=--A Paper by Sir Donald Smith (now Lord Strathcona), read
to the Royal Colonial Institute in April, 1897. The Company's
territories were taken over by the Dominion of Canada in 1869.
The principal business of the Hudson's Bay Company was the
purchasing of furs from the Indians, in exchange for arms and
ammunition, clothes, and other commodities imported from the
United Kingdom. Its prosperity depended upon good relations
being maintained with the aborigines. Its officers were able to
travel everywhere with freedom and safety, and could rely upon
the friendliness of the red men. Advances made to the Indians for
their hunting outfits or in times of scarcity were nearly always
repaid. On the other hand, the Indians knew that any notes they
might receive upon the trading posts, from peripatetic officers
a thousand miles away from headquarters, would be honoured on
presentation. The foundation of these friendly relations was
confidence, and the knowledge the Indians acquired of the white man
and his ways during the long administration of the Company made the
transfer of the territory to Canada comparatively easy when the
time for the surrender arrived. Its policy, which has been followed
by successive Governments of Canada, has enabled the country to
avoid those Indian wars which were of frequent occurrence in
the early days of settlement in the western parts of the United
States. Even in the half-breed disturbance in 1869 and 1870 already
referred to, and in that of 1885, none of the Indians, with a few
exceptions, could be induced to take arms against the forces
of law and order. The fur trade over such an immense area was
necessarily important; but at the same time, from natural reasons,
it was bound to diminish in the more accessible parts where
settlement in the future was regarded as possible. There was always
a tendency on the part of the Indians to kill as many animals as
possible, simply for the skins. They held the belief, some people
say, that the more they killed the more rapidly would the animals
multiply. Their motives therefore may have been conscientious, but
I am afraid they were not altogether unconnected with the prospect
of immediate profit. There is not much large game now in the
regions traversed by the Canadian Pacific Railway, except perhaps
in the more inaccessible districts between the Lakes and Hudson's
Bay, and in the territory north and north-west of the river
Saskatchewan. The buffalo, which used to furnish the Indian with
food, shelter, and raiment, is almost extinct, and it is possible
to travel over the prairie for hundreds of miles without seeing any
wild animals larger than coyotes and gophers. Deer of various kinds
are found occasionally, and bears still less frequently, and it may
be said with truth that hunting in Canada, whether for pleasure or
for trade, now entails a good deal of hard work....
In former times for trading purposes the unit of value was the
beaver skin. The price of everything was calculated at so many
skins, and they were the sole medium of exchange. In return for
the skins the Indians received pieces of stick prepared in a
special manner, each representing a beaver skin, and with these
they were able to purchase anything they wanted at the Company's
stores. Later on, about 1825, the Company established a paper
currency. The highest note was for £1, the next for 5s., and the
lowest for 1s. They were known as "Hudson's Bay Blankets," and no
fears were ever entertained as to the soundness of the bank. It
has been urged against the Hudson's Bay Company that it obstructed
the development of the great North-West. On the contrary, it
was engaged for two centuries in important pioneer work. Any
corporation of the kind with exclusive privileges and rights was
bound to make enemies; but no single province of Canada could
have undertaken the administration or development of the country
before confederation, and neither men nor money were available
locally to permit of its blossoming out separately as a Colony or
as a series of provinces. Whatever may have been the faults of the
Company, history will record that its work was for the advantage
of the Empire. The Company explored this vast territory, prepared
the way for settlement and colonisation, fulfilled an important
rôle in the history of Canada, and had not a little to do with the
consolidation of the Dominion, and with the development the western
country has witnessed in the last thirty years.