i HUnSONv IroadS^ V i- \ I i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE HUDSON BAY ROAD All fights reserved THE HUDSON BAY ROAD (1498-1915) BY A. H. DE TREMAUDAN OF THE MANITOBA BAR (Founder and for two years Editor oj the " Herald " at the Pas, Dec. 19 ii to Dec. 191 ^) WITH 30 ILLUSTRATIONS AND 2 MAPS NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. I 9 I 6 w^ 2 1^1^ u ^0 MY PAS FRIENDS THIS WORK IS DEDICATED G102S-1 GEOCTAPHY FOREWORD " Sir, — I hope that I shall live to see a city at the terminus of a Hudson's Bay Railway. ... It is not enough for us to confine our views to Canada that is now settled, we must look ahead, we must push northward as far as colonisation can go. I have great confidence that before many years are past we shall see towns and villages on the shores of Hudson's Bay, as we see on the shores of Norway, where people will be pros- perously engaged in the lumbering business, the pulp industry, the fishing industry, the mining industry, and others. This is what I hope Canadians will see ere long." — Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the House of Commons, April 3, 1906. " The people of Manitoba are self-reliant and very optimistic as to the future. The fact that it is expected that the Hudson's Bay Railway will be completed to Port Nelson in 1916 inspires not only confidence but enthusiasm. Every mile of this rail- way is within the boundaries of Manitoba. The benefits of this route to Europe, when completed, especially to this province, cannot be over-estimated." — Sir Rodmond P. RobUn, as quoted by the Monetary Times Annual, 1915. vu PREFACE Between Sweden and Finland extends, from the 6oth degree of latitude to the 66th, a body of water about 450 miles in length, and from 90 to 130 miles in width. It is known as the Gulf of Bothnia, the name formerly given to the country extending along its east and west shores, separated in the north by the Tornea River, and now belonging to Sweden and Russia respectively. Although the depth of water in this inland sea is from 20 to 50 fathoms, it freezes over in winter so as to be crossed by sledges and carriages. Between Aland Island at its southern extremity and the Tornea at its northern end, although in those countries very little of the population live in towns, several important cities can be found, such as Gefle, population 32,000; Soderham, 11,000; Sundsvall, 15,000; Hernosand, 6000; Uleaborg (about 60 degrees), 16,000; Bjorneborg, 13,000. On the Swedish side, a railroad parallels the coast at a short distance inland, and from the northern extremity of the gulf, crossing the peninsula north-westerly, connects with the Atlantic Ocean at Narvic, in Norway, at 68° 50' latitude, almost a full degree beyond the arctic circle. On the Russian side another railroad connects Bjorneborg, a little above Aland Island, with Tornea, at the mouth of the river of the same name by 66 degrees. By this it will be seen that the Pas, the southern terminus of the Hudson Bay Road, is 6 degrees further south. Port Nelson 3 degrees further south, and the most northerly point of Hudson Strait only one degree further north than Aland Island, at the south extremity of the Gulf of Bothnia; that Tornea, the furthest point north on the gulf, is 5 degrees further north than Hudson Strait, 9 degrees further north than Port Nelson, and 12 degrees further north than the Pas; that Narvic, the terminus of the Swedish - Norwegian rail- ix X THE HUDSON BAY ROAD way system, is a little more than ii degrees further north than Port Nelson, the proposed terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway, and a Uttle over 7 degrees further north than Hudson Strait; in fine, that Hudson Bay has over the Gulf of Bothnia the advantage that it never freezes over. No one doubts that the Gulf of Bothnia is of incalculable service to the adjacent countries for the transportation of the crops which are their most important products, although the climate is said to be very rigorous, principally in Finland, in the northern part of which the sun is absent for the two months of December and January every winter, which itself lasts from six to nine months. Moreover, the area of Finland, north of the 60th degree (which, by the way, represents the northern limit of Greater Manitoba), is 144,255 square miles, or 33,845 square miles less than the three constituencies of the Pas, Grand Rapids and Churchill - Nelson, and its population is close to 3,000,000. Although the soil is for the most part stony and poor, ten years ago its exports amounted to $39,000,000, and its total foreign commerce to $84,000,000. The attention of my readers may also be drawn to Archangel, a seaport on the White Sea, which is very much to Russia what Hudson Bay is to Canada. Arch- angel is a city of 40,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the province of the same name. The province contains 331,490 square miles and has a population of 348,500 people. The port is closed for six months by ice, being almost seven degrees of latitude further north than Fort Churchill. This may serve to demonstrate that, all climatic conditions guarded, Manitoba has acquired much valuable territory, and that, the feasibility of the Hudson Bay route once admitted, the future of the Pas, the natural distributing point for the whole of Western Canada and its wonderful wealth in agricultural and other natural products, is assured. The purpose of this book is chiefly to tell of the country along the Hudson Bay Railway now under construction, of Hudson Bay, the Mediterranean Sea of North America, and of the resources to be found in Manitoba's new territory, including the great inland sea on which it borders. Much has PREFACE xi been written on the subject in the three years gone by : I claim only one merit, that of summing up. I shall feel sufficiently recompensed if I have been able thus to interest those who are anxious to form an opinion about the vast domain recently acquired by Manitoba, and the great advantages offered by the Hudson Bay Route.^ A. H. de T. St. Boniface, Manitoba, 191 3-1 5. 1 1 have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Rev. Fr. G. A. Morice, O.M.I., and Rev. R. C. Johnstone, both of whom have kindly assisted me in my effort to make this book as complete and interesting as possible, by placing at my disposal, the former his splendid private library, the latter the reference portion of Winnipeg's public library dealing with my subject. CONTENTS Preface ....... I. Discovery of Hudson Bay — The Hudson's B.\y Company ...... II. Kelsey — La France .... III. The Lav^rendryes .... IV. Hendry — Hearne ..... V. The North-West Company — Mackenzie — Henry VI. Thompson — Fraser — Franklin VII. Selkirk ....... VIII. Hudson Bay and Strait IX. Opinions on Hudson Bay and Strait X. Political History of Hudson Bay Railway XI. Chief Engineer's Report XII. Opinions on Hudson Bay Route . XIII. Geological Features .... XIV. Natural Resources .... XV. The Saskatchewan River XVI. Extension of Manitoba's Boundaries . XVII. Political Organisation .... XVIII. Climate XIX. The Native Population .... XX. The Northern Metropolis XXI. The Northern Metropolis — continued page ix I 9 13 21 31 39 44 49 61 72 84 103 119 126 146 154 160 171 180 192 209 APPENDICES A. Hudson's Bay Company's Posts and Modes of Trade . . . . . . , .221 B. Description of Hudson Strait .... 223 xiii xiv THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Appendices — continued page C. Land Reclaim able from Saskatchewan River . 225 D. Concerning the Hudson Bay Railway . . . 226 E. The Select Committee's Inquiry, 1857 . . . 228 F. " The " or " Le " — which ?..,.. 230 G. Stirring Scenes in Picturesque Northland of Manitoba ........ 237 H. Alexander Henry and Chatique at the Pas . . 241 I. " The Unexploited West " ..... 243 Bibliography ........ 247 Index . . . . . . . . .251 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A. H. DE Tr6maudan ...... Frontispiece Eskimo Family on the Polar Barrens . . Facing page 7 A Typical Indian Maiden's Dress. Northern Manitoba's Hinterland. Husky Dog . . ,, 10 On the Saskatchewan at the Pas ... ,, 19 Scene in Canada's Hinterland. The ruins of Fort Churchill in the background on the right . „ 30 A York Boat at the Pas ..... ,,38 Mode of Travelling in Northern Manitoba's Hinterland. R.N.W.M. Policemen leaving the Pas for Roe's Welcome (600 miles north of the Pas), 1912 ....... „ 43 Farming Land along Nelson River ... ,,46 A Missionary Encampment at Fort Churchill . ,, 53 Training Polar Bear Cubs to be useful at Fort Churchill ....... ,, 60 R.N.W.M. Policeman ready for a Dash to the North from the Pas, 191 3 .... ,, 81 The Start of the Hudson Bay Railway, at the Pas ,,84 Building the Hudson Bay Railway ... ,,96 A Sample of Fish, Northern Manitoba . . ,, 117 On the Nelson River, 14 miles from Port Nelson ,, 124 A View of Finger's Saw Mill AT THE Pas . . „ 131 Lynx Falls on the Grass River ... ,,142 The Pas in 1858. From a sketch made by John Fleming, D.L.S,, reproduced in North - West Territory Report on the Assiniboine and Sas- katchewan exploring expedition, by Henry Youle Hind, M.A ,,146 Building the Dredge, now in use on the Saskatchewan River at the Pas, Winter 1913-14 ,.152 River Navigation in Northern Manitoba . ,, 159 Taking the "Herald" to the Pas Post Office, January 18. 1912 ..... „ 160 XV xvi THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Visit of Premier Roblin to the Pas, February i6, 1912. A small portion of Sir Rodmond Roblin's face may be seen behind the second figure on the right ........ Facing page 165 Summer Scene in the Arctic .... ,,172 Squaw and Papoose, Manitoba's New Territory ,, 1S6 Cumberland House. From a picture taken in 191 i ,, 195 Interior of Christ Church at the Pas. Showing furniture built by the Rev. Hunter's carpenters, winter of 1847-8 '...... ,, 206 Fischer Avenue, the Pas, 191 3 . . . „ 209 S.S. " Lafleur," River Survey Boat on the Saskatchewan ...... ,, 224 The Harbour on the Pas River at the Pas . . ,, 230 Work at Port Nelson, 1914 .... ,, 238 MAPS North-West Canada ...... Facing page 192 Canada ........ „ 248 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER I DISCOVERY OF HUDSON BAY — THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY No one will probably ever tell the world by whom Hudson Bay was first discovered. It seems reasonable to infer from the Cabot planisphere of 1544 that the entrance to the strait was reached by this famous navigator as early as 1498. A number of maps ranging from that of Ruysch in 1508 to that of Ortelius in 1570 undoubtedly refer to the mouth of Hudson Strait, and Dr. G. M. Asher ^ is authority for the statement that between the years 1558 and 1567 Portuguese voyagers " seem to have advanced slowly, step by step, first along the shores of Newfoundland, then up the mouth of Hudson's Strait, then through that strait, and at last into Hudson's Bay." ^ It seems also certain that Davis passed over the entrance of Hudson Strait in August 1587, and that Wey- mouth sailed up as far as Charles Island, on the south side of the strait, in 1602, five years before Henry Hudson's first 1 Henry Hudson the Navigator, by Dr. G. M. Asher. 3 ' It may not be out of place to mention here the name of Laurent Ferrer Maldonado, a Spaniard, who was supposed to have passed in 1588 from the coast of Labrador to the Pacific Ocean, calling the passage the Strait of Anian. The book relating this most wonderful achievement was translated by Charles Amoretti, librarian at Milan in 18 1 2, and several voyages of those days were undertaken on the strength of the information found in it. Cf. Relacion del Descubrimiento de Estrecho de Anian hecho por el autor. Quam vidi MS. apud D. Hieromy- mum Mascarenas rejium ordinem militarium, deunde conciliae Portu- galliae Senatorem, Segoviensem nunc Antistitem. Expeditionem autem hanc nauticam se fecisse anno 1588 autor ait. — Bib. Hisp., torn. ii. p. 2. A 2 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD voyage in search of the North Pole, which gave this unfortun- ate navigator his first idea of a North-West passage, seven years before the old commander discovered the river which bears his name and on which is to be found the world's second largest city. New York, eight years before the Discovery sailed into James Bay, nine years before this bark's mutinous crew cast Hudson with his young son upon the waters that he had discovered, to perish. For " so passed Henry Hudson down the Long Trail on June 21, 1611! Did he suffer that blackest of all despair — ^loss of vision, of faith in his dream? Did life suddenly seem to him a cruel joke in which he had played the part of the fool? Who can tell? "What became of him? A silence as of a grave in the sea rests over his fate. Barely the shadow of a legend illu- mines his last hours; though Indians of Hudson Bay to this day tell folk-lore yarns of the first Englishman who came to the bay and was wrecked. When Radisson came overland to the bay fifty years later he found an old house all marked by bullets. Did Hudson take his last stand inside that house ? Did the loyal Ipswich man fight his last fight against the powers of darkness there where the Goddess of Death lines her shores with the bodies of the dead? Also, the Indians told Radisson childish fables of a ' ship with sails ' having come to the bay; but many ships came in those fifty years: Button's to hunt in vain for Hudson ; Munck, the Dane's, to meet a fate worse than Hudson's. " Hudson's shallop went down to as utter silence as the watery graves of those old sea Vikings who rode out to meet death on the billow. A famous painting represents Hudson huddled panic-stricken with his child and the ragged cast- aways in a boat driving to ruin among the ice fields. I like better to think as we know last of him — standing with bound arms and face to face, shouting defiance at the fleeing enemy. They could kill him, but they could not crush him! It was more as a Viking would have liked to die. He had left the world benefited more than he could have dreamed — ^this pathfinder of two empires' commerce. He had fought his fight. He had done his work. He had chased his idea down DISCOVERY OF HUDSON BAY 3 the Long Trail. What more could the most favoured child of the gods ask? With one's task done, better to die in harness than rot in some garret of obscurity, or grow garrulous in an imbecile old age — the fate of so many great benefactors of humanity! " ^ The accounts of all Hudson's voyages were written by himself or under his orders: they being the first authentic relations of voyages in those parts, it seems just that he should be credited with the discovery of the great inland sea which bears his name. The following year Admiral Sir Thomas Button undertook to follow up Hudson's discoveries and to search for him: he spent the winter of 1612-13 at Port Nelson which he named after his mate who died there. Scurvy decimated his crews and he sailed back to England disheartened. He was fol- lowed in 1614 by Captain Gibbon who, however, did not go farther than Labrador, and, in 1615-16, by Baffin, who discovered the land of that name. Jens Munck, the Danish sailor-boy who had attained fame in Iceland, Nova Zembla, and Russia, then appeared on the scene. On Sunday, May 16, 1619, he put out for Hudson Bay and in September discovered the Indian River of the Strangers, now known as Churchill, moving up stream to a point since known as Munck's Cove. At that time the country was covered with timber to the water's edge : Munck decided to winter there. Not familiar with the excessive cold climate of the country, the navigator and his little party fell victims to scurvy and one after the other sixty-one of the men died, Munck himself penning what he intended to be his farewell to the world in the following words: " As I have now no more hope of life in this world, I request for the sake of God if any Christians should happen to come here, they will bury my poor body together with the others found, and this my journal forward to the King. . . . Here- with, good-night to all the world, and my soul to God. . . . " Jens Munck." * The Conquest of the Great North-West, by Agnes C. Laut, vol. i. p. 6$ et seq. 4 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD With two of his men, however, he survived the awful experience of the plague and, after a terrible voyage, reached Denmark again. He had planned to colonise the country he had discovered, but instead he had to go back to active service in the Danish navy. He died in 1628. Had he succeeded in bringing his countrymen to Churchill, " as far as the North-West is concerned, there would have been no British North America." ^ Fox and James followed in 1631, the former from Hull, with the help of Sir Thomas Roe and Sir John Wolstenholme, the latter from Bristol with the aid of merchants of that town. Both had letters for the Emperor of Japan. Fox discovered successively Roe's Welcome, Marble Island, which he named Brooke Cobham after Sir John Brooke, one of his patrons, Mistake Bay, and other points. On August 2 he reached Fort Churchill believing the river to be the entrance to the South Sea. James was to fall into the same error. Resuming his voyage. Fox sailed down the coast to Port Nelson and remained there a few days, restoring a cross which he beheved had been erected by Sir Thomas Button in 1613, and nailing on it the following inscription: " I suppose this Cross was first erected by Sir Thomas Button, 1613. It was again raised by Luke Foxe, Capt. of the Charles, in the right and possession of my dread Soverigne Charles the first, King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, the 15 of August, 1631. This land is called New Wales." 2 Munck had called the country New Denmark: neither name was to be preserved. In the meantime James had sailed across the bay from the western end of Hudson Strait, arriving at Fort Churchill on August II, a few days only after Fox's departure. Leaving Fort Churchill, he did not land at Port Nelson, and therefore was first to explore the unknown coast beyond and the bay that bears his name. No more than his friend Fox had he the opportunity to deliver his letters to the Emperor of Japan. The two commanders parted at Cape 1 Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 92. * The Search for the Western Sea, by Lawrence J. Burpee, p. 54. DISCOVERY OF HUDSON BAY 5 Henrietta Maria, not to meet again until their return to England. " Reviewing the geographical results of these several voyages into Hudson Bay, up to and including 1642, it is seen that Hudson discovered for the first time the general features of the strait, and the eastern coast of the bay down to its extreme foot. Button made known the rough outlines of the west coast, from Wager Bay to Port Nelson. Foxe and James both contributed to a more exact delineation of the coast covered by Button, and both almost simultaneously, though quite independently, explored the hitherto unknown coast from Port Nelson to Cape Henrietta, while James alone explored the eastern shores of James Bay, without correcting Hudson's error in dividing it into two. This odd mistake was not, in fact, rectified until many years later, when the explorations of the Hudson's Bay Company dispelled the illusion, and Cape Monmouth, with the long peninsula that lay behind it — on the maps — disappeared into thin air. Although the primary object of all these voyages was not accomplished, they resulted in a very important piece of exploration, the charting of the entire coast-line of one of the largest and most remarkable of inland seas." ^ For almost a half century, there seems to have been no further attempt on the part of the Europeans, either to dis- cover the route to the South Sea by the so-called North-West passage, or to explore the strait and bays, for the purpose of settlement or commerce. Apparently the many sailors who had landed, some for a whole winter at a time, at different points of the inland sea coasts, had not had occasion to see furs in quantities sufficient to attract their attention, and what has proved to this day such an enormous source of inestimable revenues and profits, was not even dreamed of by these naviga- tors, bent on a totally different mission. Fifty years after their time, men there were found who, in their pursuit of the fur trade, heard of Hudson Bay and set upon the task of again saiHng into its waters, exploring its coasts, and fully investigating the natural resources of its district. ' Burpee, op. cit. p. 63. 6 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD In France were born the two men who were destined to give Hudson Bay the fame it has retained to this day. One was Pierre Esprit de Radisson, a native of Paris, where he was born in 1636, the other Menart Chouart sieur Desgro- seillers,^ who was bom at Charly St. Cyr near Meaux in 1621. They were brothers-in-law, the latter having married Radis- son's widowed sister. While there is no certainty as to the wanderings of these two men in search of adventure and fortune, it would appear that they had at least " obtained valuable information as to the geography of the regions about Hudson Bay, and the inexhaustible harvest of furs that awaited those enterprising enough to establish trading posts in this northern country." ^ On their return from one of their expeditions about and possibly west of the Great Lakes, they had unsuccessfully endeavoured to interest friends at Three Rivers, as well as the government at Quebec. The man who was at the head of the latter had confiscated and turned to his own use 600,000 beaver skins that they had brought from the north and refused them any assistance. At Port Royal they had enlisted the services of the very man who later was to lead them to the shores which they sought, Captain Gillam: but "opposite Hudson Straits the navigator had been terrified by the ice and lost heart." ^ The two adventurers then crossed the ocean and decided to ask the assistance of Charles H., King of England. Thus was formed in 1666 the famous Hudson's Bay Company, called in its charter of 1670 the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay. To this day Western Canada almost reveres the memory of what is known as the oldest established company in the British Empire, if not in the world. Prince Rupert, cousin of King Charles, the Duke of Albemarle, Earl of Craven, Sir George Carteret, Sir John Robinson, Sir Peter Colleton, General Monck, and a number of other noblemen or merchants, as incorporators, were granted a charter with such vast and 1 Married to a daughter of Abraham Martin, who gave his name to the Plains of Abraham. * Burpee, op. cit. p. 65. ' Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 102. I ^ THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY 7 extraordinary powers that some of these make people of our epoch smile in wonderment. To quote the document itself, the company was given " the whole trade of all the seas, streights, and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds, in whatever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the streights, commonly called Hudson's streights, together with all the lands, countries, and territories upon the coasts and confines of the seas, streights, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds aforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects, or by the subjects of any other Christian prince or State." ^ " This was generous indeed. But some there are who, remembering the axiom, ' nobody giveth what he possesseth not,' may find this liberality of a cheap kind, since never before had an English monarch claimed as his what, on the 2nd of May 1670, Charles II. so kindly bestowed on his kinsman and future associates in the fur trade." ^ Two small vessels, the Eagle and Nonsuch, had sailed in 1667 under the respective commands of Captains Starnard and Gillam, another, the Wavero, in 1668 and 1669, with Captain Newland. Port Nelson and Rupert Bay had been reached: Charles Fort, near Charlton Island, had been built: the first trading in furs had taken place: a new route of commerce had been established. In rapid succession posts ^ were located at Albany, Moose, Rupert, Nelson, Severn, Churchill Rivers, the whole territory itself receiving the name of Rupert's Land after the chief promoter and first governor of the company, the " fiery " Prince Rupert of Edgehill. Unable to make satisfactory arrangements with the company, Radisson and Desgroseillers had in the meantime (1674) crossed over to France, the former once more changing his allegiance (1684), and from that time to the day of his death remaining in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. ' History of the Catholic Church in Western Canada, by the Rev. A. G. Morice, O.M.I., vol. i. p. lo. * Morice, op. cit. vol. i. p. lo. • For typical description of a Hudson's Bay Company's post see Appendix A. 8 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD While serving under the flag of France, he had had no trouble to prove to the Gentlemen Adventurers of England that if he could do without them, they could not do without him. In fact, in its own interest, the company deemed it advisable to re-estabhsh the two men in the positions which they had once occupied. Without following the noble traders into all the details of their settlement and commerce on and about Hudson Bay and Rupert's Land, it may be mentioned as an important feature of the history of those times that the enmity which then existed between England and France had its natural repercussion even as far as the far-away waters of North America. No one can read the history of those days without admiring the daring exploits of de Troyes, d'Iberville, and La Perouse and without somewhat wondering at the easy surrenders of Samuel Hearne at Fort Prince of Wales and Humphrey Martin at York Factory in 1782. But these may be explained from the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company was essentially a company of merchants and traders, as their motto imphes, " Pro Pelle Cutem " (" Skin for skin "), who at times " forgot the flag that floated over it," in spite of the assertion of contemporary writers to the contrary.^ The principal merit of the Hudson's Bay Company lies in having, for the 250 years that they have navigated it, proved beyond doubt to the world and principally to this continent that the Hudson Bay route is the shortest route of commerce between the old world and the new, and that the dangers in its course, of which more anon, are no worse than those to be met on other routes further south. In this alone there is enough glory for the Hudson's Bay Company to have the right to expect and receive both the admiration and the respect of every true Canadian and Britisher. * The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company, by George Bryce, M.A., LL.D., p. 19. KELSEY CHAPTER II KELSEY — LA FRANCE In Spite of great losses sustained through wars and tempests, the Hudson's Bay Company so firmly estabhshed itself in its territory, such an immense quantity of valuable furs was, year after year, shipped home by her factors, that soon the value of her shares doubled and trebled and doubled and trebled again in value. Magnificent dividends were dis- tributed among her members. To be a shareholder of the Hudson's Bay Company meant to be a wealthy individual: only men with great fortunes were in a position to buy stock from the " old worthies " as the Honourable Adventurers were called among the common people. So far — about 1690 — no attempt had been made to found trading posts inland, and no one for the company had under- taken to find out anything about the very object for which it would appear that it had been established, viz., in the words of the charter, " the discovery of a new passage to the South Sea." ^ From reports that the French, not content with their few posts on the bay, were steadily pushing westward from the Great Lakes and threatening to intercept the Indian fleets of canoes before they reached the bay, it became evident that measures must be afforded to protect the company's posts against the competing traders. * " We cannot join in the praise ascribed to the Hudson's Bay Company whose only merits (if they have any) are, at any rate, of the negative kind. Their total disregard of every object for which they obtained and have now held a royal charter for nearly 150 years entitles them to anything but praise. The great leading feature on which their petition for an exclusive charter was grounded, the dis- covery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has not only been totally neglected, but, unless they have been grossly calumniated, thwarted to every means in their power." — " Lord Selkirk and the North-West Company," Quarterly Review, 1816. 10 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Henry Kelsey, an apprentice boy, who had been in the service of the company for two years, on different occasions had expressed the desire of travelHng with the Indians. In the summer of 1690 Governor Geyer of Port Nelson reports that he " sent up Henry Kelsey (who cheerfully undertook the journey) into the country of the Assinae Poets (Assiniboines) , with the Captain of that nation, to call, encourage, and invite the remoter Indians to a trade with us." 1 Just how far the boy went, if indeed he went at all, will probably never be known, as the account of his journey given in his journal is of such a vague nature that competent writers, after Joseph Robson,^ who lived in the days of the traveller, have expressed the opinion that he never left the shores of Hudson Bay. Others ^ think, however, that he may have been north of Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan, in the region now known as Cumberland, and the Pas.* Others again, prominent amongst whom is to be found R. H. Hunter of the Canadian Topographical Surveys, believe that he never came near to that lake and that river, but may have gone to the Athabasca country. Those of our readers who are familiar with the topography of the country extending between the Pas and Port Nelson, and Norway House and Port Nelson, will agree with Mr. Hunter that it would be difficult for men, even Indians, to have gone 500 miles in sixty days, over morasses, bog, and tangled under- brush — for Kelsey states that, to travel faster, he and his party had abandoned their canoes. Only authors not con- versant with the conditions extant along the Hudson Bay "^ Hudson's Bay Reports, 1749. ^ " According to his journal, Kelsey did not go by land and water above 500 miles in two months, and as it does not appear that he had any compass with him to know upon which point he travelled, he prob- ably did not go in all 120 leagues in a straight line from Deering's point, and perhaps much less; for if Kelsey only computed these miles he would take care not to make them less than they were." — An Account of Six Years' Residence in Hudson's Bay from 1733 to 1736 and 1744 to 1747, by Joseph Robson. MDCCLII., London. * Agnes C. Laut, Dr. E. Coues, Charles N. Bell, etc. * We have adopted the spelling of the Geographical Board of Canada. The map of 1857 of Arrowsmith calls the place " Pas." A TYPICAL Indian' Maiden's Dress. Northern Manitoba's Hinterland. Hi'skv Dog KELSEY— LA FRANCE ii Railway, now under construction, can believe what Miss Agnes C. Laut, this otherwise so well-informed writer, suggests in the following note on the doubt cast by Robson on Kelsey's voyage: " Robson casts doubt on Kelsey having gone inland from Nelson, but Robson was writing in a mood of spite toward his former employers. The reasons given for his doubt are two-fold: (i) Kelsey could not have gone 500 miles in sixty days ; (2) in the dry season of July, Kelsey could not have followed an Indian trail. Both objections are absurd. Forty miles a day is not a high average for a good woodsman or canoeman. As to following a trail in July, the very fact that the grass was so brittle made it easy to follow recent tracks. Night camp fire and the general direction of the land would be guides enough for a good pathfinder, let alone the crumpled grasses left behind a horde of wandering Indians." ^ Instead of " brittle " and " crumpled " grasses have muskeg and swamp and the task becomes very arduous indeed. In all probability the voyage attributed to and related by Kelsey was never made. For this reason, the Hudson's Bay Company after the 1749 inquiry thought it advisable to never again bring it down in support of its claim to the occupation of the territory draining into Hudson Bay by reason of first discovery and exploration. More conceivable is the story of La France's trip northward from Michilimakinac on Lake Huron, as told by Arthur Dobbs.2 The son of a French trader married to a Saulteaux woman, Joseph La France, when he was quite young, had travelled as far as the mouth of the Missouri River. Having been in serious trouble with the French authorities at Montreal, he had made up his mind to reach Hudson Bay, and, if pos- sible, enter the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. With this purpose in view, he set out in the early part of 1739, reached Grand Portage on Lake Superior in April 1740, paddled down Rainy River to the Lake of the Woods, which he crossed, arriving at Lake Winnipeg in September. During the v.inters • Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 296. * Arthur Dobbs, An Account of the Countries adjoining Hudson's Bay. . . . London, 1744. 12 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD of 1740-41 and 1741-42 he appears to have hunted with the Crees about the present district of the Pas, on the Carrot River and Saskeram Lake. In the beginning of March 1742 he was at Cedar Lake, which he calls Lake Pachegoia, and started for the bay. In May he reached the mouth of the river Nelson on Lake Winnipeg, which he called the river Savanne, ascended the Echimamish, crossed over to the Hayes and reached York Factory on June 29, 1742. Although he had followed the most natural and easy route, that of the rivers down current, he had taken double the time in which Kelsey, forty years before, was supposed to have made the trip in the opposite direction, up stream and across muskeg. With the exception of where the half-breed spent the two winters of 1740-41 and 1741-42, the country described in the narrative of Dobbs is easily recognisable, considering that the writer obtained all his information from Indians. Grave doubts, however, exist about the district over which he travelled in the course of those two winters, which is empha- sised by the fact that on his way out of Cedar Lake no mention is made of the Grand Rapids of Saskatchewan, while several on the Nelson and other rivers that he paddled upon are spoken of. The narrative of his journey must forcibly therefore be relegated in the same class as that of Henry Kelsey, in so far as the discovery of the Saskatchewan River, chief waterway and only natural highway, in those days, of the immense territory south of Hudson Bay, is concerned. THE LAVERENDRYES 13 CHAPTER III THE LAVERENDRYES In 1727 there was stationed at Lake Nepigon a man whose name was destined, in after years, to be hailed as that of the discoverer of the Great North- West. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, or Laverendrye, the youngest of nine children, was born at Three Rivers, November 17, 1685, of Rene Gaultier, Chevalier de Varennes, governor of the town, and Marie Boucher. He began his eventful career as a French officer in the War of the Spanish Succession. At the battle of Malplaquet, September 11, 1709, he was left for dead on the field with nine wounds. This devotion to the French crown gave him nothing more than the mere title of lieutenant. On his return to his native land, he took up the life of " coureur de bois " and fur trader, not so much for the profits there were known to be in these caUings, as because of his desire to add to the glory of the Motherland by making discoveries of new territory. The great question of those days was the Western Passage. Through the Indian chief Ochagach, who has been called Western Canada's first geographer, Laverendrye had learned of a road to it. Aided by Father Degonnor he laid before Governor de Beauharnois a plan which resulted in his leaving Montreal on June 8, 1731, at the head of fifty men and armed, instead of funds which the French governor could not procure from the effeminate Louis XV., with a monopoly of the fur trade in the country through which his venture would take him. With him went three of his sons, Jean Baptiste, Pierre, and Frangois, his nephew Christophe Dufrost de la Jemmeraye, who had already travelled in the west, and the Jesuit Father Mesaiger, the latter as chaplain of the expedition. 14 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD On August 26 they reached Grand Portage, at the mouth of the Pigeon River, fifteen leagues south-west of Kaministi- quia on Lake Superior. The next day a number of his men, influenced by the evil counsels of his enemies at Montreal, refused to undertake the nine-mile portage. Undaunted and seconded in his efforts by Father Mesaiger, Laverendrye finally succeeded in coaxing a number of them, who had been with La Jemmeraye at Lake Pepin in what is now Wisconsin and Minnesota, into going to estabhsh the post of Lac la Pluie,^ later known as Fort St. Pierre, in honour of the chief of the expedition. With the rest of his men he wintered at Kaministiquia. The following year (1732), June 8, Laveren- drye, with his nephew, who had joined him again, Father Mesaiger, two of his sons and seven canoemen, pushed on to the Lake of the Woods, where he built a fort which he named Fort St. Charles, after the Christian name of Governor de Beauhamois, who was using whatever little influence he had at the court of France to facihtate the ends of the expedition. Fort St. Charles, the site of which was discovered a few years ago by members of the Historical Society of St. Boniface and recently purchased by His Grace Archbishop Langevin, was nothing more than a small group of rough log cabins covered with bark, enclosed in a quadrilateral stockade. It served as a model for all the other posts of the Western Sea to be estabhshed during a century or more by Laverendrye, his successors and imitators. Making Fort St. Charles his headquarters for a time, Laverendrye sent La Jemmeraye to Montreal to report on the expedition, and his eldest son Jean Baptiste to erect a fort at the mouth of the Winnipeg River, which was called Fort Maurepas after the French Minister of Colonies, who had done so Httle, if anything, for him. This stood near the spot where Fort Alexander is to be found to-day. The discoverer, who had lost more than 43,000 French pounds in the expedition, his three posts having only 5nelded 1 Pierre Margry, Decouvertes et diablissements des Fratifais dans I'ouest, etc., 1614-98, vol. vi. p. 586. THE LAVERENDRYES 15 600 packs of furs, found it necessary at this juncture to return to Montreal to confer with his partners, who were clamouring for dividends and refusing to send up any further suppHes. He also hoped to be able to decide the French king, through the government at Quebec, to bear the expense of a new expedi- tion. Meeting with a refusal from the court of France to come to his help beyond the monopoly of the fur trade that he had been granted before leaving on his first expedition, Laverendrye was reduced to lease for five j^ears his establish- ments to his creditors, in order to obtain the necessary cash to proceed with the aim that he had set himself to attain : the discovery of the Western Sea. His canoes laden with supplies, which meant that the explorer was deeper in debt than ever, he set out again for his western posts, full of enthusiasm. During his visit to Quebec he had made arrangements for his eighteen-year-old son, Louis Joseph, to study the making of maps and plans, and so materially assist the party the follow- ing year. Father Mesaiger, whose health had been failing, remained in the east, and Father Aulneau de la Touche, another Jesuit father, took his place to confer the consolations of religion unto the members of the expedition. Travelling ahead of his party in a light canoe, Laverendrye preceded the provision canoes at Fort St. Charles by several weeks. Soon this fort and Fort Maurepas were almost reduced to starvation. On June 4, 1736, the unfortunate discoverer was grieved beyond expression to learn of the death, on May 10, of his nephew and right hand. La Jem- meraye, at the latter fort, after a brief illness brought on by overwork and exposure. The climax of the commander's trials, however, was reached when, a few days later, on an island off what is now known as Oak Point, his eldest son, Jean Baptiste, Father Aulneau, and nineteen of his men, who had started out to meet the delayed canoes from Mon- treal, were massacred by a party of Sioux. A day or two later, Sieur Legras arrived from Michilimakinac with the supplies. Men, less energetic and less enthusiastic, would have been crushed by so severe blows falling all at once: others, with i6 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD spirits aroused by the desire of revenge, would have started on the war path against the treacherous Indians. Lave- rendrye thought only of the noble mission that he had undertaken: nothing daunted, he moved forward, having first returned to Montreal to equip a third expedition, in 1737- In rapid succession he ascended the Red River to the forks, and on the present site of the metropolis of Western Canada, Winnipeg, which he reached on September 24, 1738, erected Fort Rouge to replace the fort that the Indians had built for him the previous year, but which he did not find sufficient for his purpose, then paddled up the Assiniboine River and built Fort La Reine, named after the Queen of France, not far from the present city of Portage la Prairie, where he established his second base of operations in the west. In company with his two sons and fifty Frenchmen and Indians, he spent the winter of 1738-39 in an overland voyage to and from the land of the Mandans on the Missouri,^ giving in his narrative of the expedition a description of the dress, manners, and habits of the inhabitants of those regions closely resembling the relations of later visitors, such as Lewis and Clark, Alexander Henry, David Thompson, Prince Maximilian of Wied, and Catlin. There his son Pierre attempted to return in the fall of 1739, but, failing to secure guides, he had to return to Fort La Reine. In the spring of 1741 Laverendrye had again to repair to Montreal to resist a lawsuit brought against him by jealousy, then the prevailing sin of French Canada. Stupid courtiers there were who would see nothing in the efforts of the noble explorer but cupidity and selfishness. " If more than 40,000 livres of debt which I have on my shoulders are an advantage, then I can flatter myself that I am very rich," pleaded the heartbroken yet undaunted commander. Returning to Fort La Reine with Fathers du Jaunay and Coquart, Laverendrye, in the spring of 1742, sent his two 1 The next man to visit the Mandans of whom there are records was David Thompson in 1797. THE LAVERENDRYES 17 youngest sons, Pierre and Louis, to the land of the Mandans once more. There the young men remained for three months before they could decide any of their Indian hosts to accom- pany them in the expedition westward which was to result in the discovery of the Rocky Mountains in January 1743, at a point in the south-west corner of the present state of Montana. They returned to Fort La Reine on July 2, 1743, to the great relief of their father, who had grown quite uneasy on account of their prolonged absence. In the intervals of these several expeditions to the land of the Mandans and as early as 1738 Laverendrye's sons had discovered the west and north ends of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba, the latter called by them Lac des Prairies. In 1741 they had established Fort Dauphin, explored Lake Winnipegosis and the Saskatchewan River to the forks .^ They built several forts on the lakes and rivers that they travelled upon, but, unfortunately for the historian, left no records of the years in which they were erected. On a map of 1750, the Saskatchewan River is shown under the name Poskaiao and the Churchill River is called the Riviere des Christinaux. Fort Bourbon is shown on the lake of the same name (now Cedar Lake). When in 1808 Henry ^ reached the present site of the Pas, he found the remains of an old fort, " Fort Poskoia or Basquia," ^ built by Laverendrye's sons more than half a century before. Nipawi, des Prairies or St. * With the Pas River. Strange enough, in the memoire of his services presented to Rouille, Minister and Secretary of State for the Marine Department, after 1752, which is the last date given by de Vassan, captain of the troops of New France, Pierre Gaultier de Laverendrye does not mention the discovery of the Saskatchewan River. ' The younger. Read in Appendix H the adventure in which his uncle was the party mostly interested at the same place, then called Pasquayah, in October 1775. ' Some writers, such as Judge L. A. Prud'homme, are of the opinion that Fort Poskoyac was at the forks of the two Saskatchewans. This interpretation is certainly wrong as one may assure himself by study- ing Jeffrey's map of 1762 and Bonne's map of 1770, on which the Pas is evidently called Poskoyac and Poscoyac. It is also shown as Fort Poscoyac on the map of the North-West Part of Canada, Hudson's Bay, and Indian Territories, drawn by Thomas Devine by order of the Honourable Joseph Cauchon, Commissioner of Crown Lands, Toronto, March 1857. 1 8 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Louis is another fort further up the river, v/hich was found in a ruinous condition by the Scotch merchants in the first portion of the nineteenth century. In 1743, the discoverer of the Great North-West had to succumb to the petty jealousies and infamous intrigues of the very men who should have helped along every one of his moves. After giving the best years of his life to a work of discovery and settlement heretofore unequalled, disgusted with the unjust treatment of his enemies, he asked to be relieved of the responsibilities which had caused him nothing but anxiety and criticism. His successor, Captain Charles Joseph Fleurimont de Noyelle, if he did not like exerting himself, had at least the good sense to call to his assistance the sons of the explorer. This is how the}' are found still on the work for several years after the retirement of their father. De Noyelle even sug- gested to Governor de Beauhamois to send him the Sieur de Laverendrye, but the governor's recall prevented the execu- tion of this plan. The Marquis de la Galissoniere, who suc- ceeded de Beauhamois, shared his predecessor's views on the impossibility for explorers to accomplish very much without government assistance, but his appeals were no better heeded. Fatigued of a position for which he did not feel any aptitude, de Noyelle resigned in 1749. La Jonquiere, who had succeeded la Galissoniere, thought immediately of re-appointing Laverendrye, to whom public recognition had at last been accorded in 1746 by his tardy promotion to a captaincy in the colonial service, and, that same year (1749), by a knighthood of St. Louis. The aged explorer accepted without hesitation and prepared his plans, but instead crossed the great threshold of eternity, his dream unrealised. He died December 6, 1749, and was interred in the vault of Notre Dame, at Montreal. No better panegyric of the great discoverer can be made than to transcribe the words that Governor de Beauhamois wrote October 27, 1744, to the French Minister of Colonies: " Six years of service in France, thirty-two in this colony, without any cause for reproach, and nine wounds, were THE LAVERENDRYES 19 motives that could not make me hesitate to propose him for one of the vacant companies."^ Alas, not until it was too late had the king and his ministers " been brought to see the purity of his motives and the genuineness of his patriotism." ^ Laverendrye's sons would have liked to continue and, if possible, to accomplish his mission. But greed had to be reckoned with. Le Gardeur de St. Pierre was appointed instead, and Chevalier de Niverville was sent to the Sas- katchewan. The latter gentleman established Fort La Jonquiere (Calgary) in 1751, and, it is believed, died at Fort Poskoyac in 1753. In August 1763, Saint Pierre handed over the command of the western posts to Captain Louis Luc de la Corne St. Luc, in accordance with instructions of the Marquis du Quesne, who had succeeded La Jonquiere as governor of the colony.' De la Corne had been in the west for several years: in 1753 he had rebuilt Fort St. Louis and given it his name, which is in existence to this day. The same year he had explored the Carrot River valley and the following spring (1754) had seeded a few acres of land, thereby deserving to be called the first agriculturist of the Canadian West. The very year that he was appointed to the command of the posts, however, Canada passed under the rule of England and with him the explorations of the French came to an end. It was these explorations which, seventy years ago, threatened to create international trouble by giving rise to what is popularly known as the " 54-40 or fight " movement across the border, its partisans claiming that in the Louisiana bargain the United States had acquired from Napoleon I. all the territory which had been discovered by the French: that therefore all the country south of the Pigeon River, the Saskatchewan River, and the latter's north branch, by right of discovery by the French, belonged to the Union. All of which shows that, after all, England was wise to placidly ignore all attempts aiming at the cancellation of the Hudson's Bay Company's charter which purported to give 'Margry, op. cit. vol. vi. p. 597. • Burpee, op. cit. p. 268. ' Burpee, op. cit. p. 281. 20 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD its members the right to possession of all the territory served by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay, and the lands adjacent thereto which they might discover, even if the stupidity of Captain Gordon was to result in the loss of Oregon, which had been jointly occupied by the Americans and the English. HENDRY 21 CHAPTER IV HENDRY — HEARNE Anthony Hendry, a boy from the Isle of Wight, who had been outlawed for smuggling, and had fled to the bay, where he had entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, was, according to Andrew Graham of Severn, who made marginal notes on the young fellow's manuscript, the first Englishman who went inland and saw the Saskatchewan River. In 1754 he received the permission of Governor James Isham of York Fort to accompany a band of Assini- boines, under the command of Little Deer, to their country beyond the Great Unknown River. They started on June 26. The trip was made by the Hayes River, the Nelson River, Playgreen Lake, and Moose Lake. The Saskatchewan was reached at Fort Basquia, where French traders in occupation of the fort presumably built by Laverendrye's sons and restored by de la Corne received the traveller from Hudson Bay courteously and gently, although expressing the inten- tion of retaining him until de la Corne returned from Montreal. The story is best given in his own words: " On our arrival, two Frenchmen came to the waterside and in a very genteel manner invited me into their home, which I readily accepted. One of them asked me if I had any letter from my master, and where, on what design I was going inland. I answered I had no letter, and that I was sent to view the country, and intended to return in the spring. He told me the master and men were gone down to Montreal with the furs, and that they must detain me till their return. However, they were very kind, and at night I went to my tent and told Attickasish or Little Deer, my leader that had the charge of me, who smiled and said they dared not. I sent them two feet of tobacco, which was very acceptable to them." * ' Burpee, op. cit. p. 119 e/ seq. 22 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD The next day the party proceeded south-west, going through Saskeram Lake, the Pasquia Hills, and the Carrot River valley which Hendry calls the Muskuty plains. Fifty miles up that stream the canoes were abandoned and the voyage was continued by land, much to the satisfaction of the Indians, who were tired of fish food, and hoped to soon be able to kill buffalo, in company with their native brothers, on horseback. They met the first bands on August 15; five days later they had reached the South Branch of the Sas- katchewan, which they crossed somewhere about Clark's Crossing, and three days later the North Branch, probably between the mouth of Eagle Hill Creek and the Elbow. On September 8, Hendry writes: " I killed a bull buffalo, he was nothing but skin and bones. I took out his tongue and left the remains to the wolves, which were waiting around in great numbers. We cannot afford to expend ammunition on them. My feet are swelled with marching, but otherwise I am in perfect health. So expert are the natives buffalo hunting, they will take an arrow out of the buffalo when the beasts are foaming and raging and tearing the ground up with their feet and horns. The buffalo are so numerous, like herds of English cattle, that we are obliged tomake them sheer out of our way." ^ The Indian companions of the Hudson's Bay Company's man were killing quite a number each day, keeping the best portions and throwing the rest to the wolves. Other big game was also found, and on September 17 Hendry writes: " Two yoiing men were miserably wounded by a grizzly bear that they were hunting to-day. One may recover, but the other never can. His arm is torn from his body, one eye gouged out, and his stomach ripped open." ^ Hendry's party were now three hundred miles south-west of the Pas: " I cannot describe the fineness of the weather and the pleasant country I am now in." ^ He was then in the country of the Blackfeet, about the Red Deer River, in modem Alberta. On October 14 he was taken to the main tribe of these Indians, occupying three hundred and twenty- 1 Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 343. ^ Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 343. ^ Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 344. HENDRY 23 two tents, " pitched in two rows with an opening in the middle, where we were conducted to the leader's tent. The leader's tent was large enough to contain fifty persons. He received us seated on a buffalo skin attended by twenty elderly men. He made signs for me to sit down on his right hand, which I did. Our leaders set several great pipes going the rounds, and we smoked according to their custom. Not one word was spoken. Smoking over, boiled buffalo flesh was served in baskets of bent wood. I was presented with ten buffalo tongues. My guide informed the leader I was sent by the grand leader who lives on the great waters to invite his young men down with their furs. They would receive in return powder, shot, guns, and cloth. He made little answer: said it was far off and his people could not paddle. We were then ordered to depart to our tents, which we pitched a quarter of a mile outside their lines." ^ And the next day: " The chief told me his tribe never wanted food as they fol- lowed the buffalo, but he was informed the natives who frequented the settlements often starved on their journey, which was exceedingly true." ^ Resuming their journey, Hendry and his Assiniboine friends turned north-west, and by the end of November, according to a note of Andrew Graham on the margin of the journal, were roaming over the Peace River or Lake Athabasca country by 59 degrees, although it is not likely that they were further north than the district between the present Edmonton and Battleford, as nowhere is it shown that they crossed any river of the importance of the North Saskatchewan again. The whole winter of 1754-55 was spent in this way. In the mean- time Hendry had decided a goodly number of his native companions to fetch their furs down to York, and by spring several tribes joined him for that purpose. Having dis- played his flag in honour of St. George on April 23, he made ready the same evening to return east. He could not leave, however, until the 28th, on which day the ice having com- pletely cleared the Red Deer River to which he had returned, he launched his canoe and paddled down stream towards the ' Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 346. » Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 346. 24 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Saskatchewan which he soon reached, following it constantly afterwards. On May 23 he was at Fort a la Come, a subor- dinate establishment to Basquia or Pasquia. "It is sur- prising," writes Hendry, " what an influence the French have over the natives. I am certain he (the officer in charge) hath got 1000 of the richest skins." Apparently the Frenchmen had secured the best furs from Hendry's Indians, and he had been unable to stop the bargain taking place. Six days later, he arrived at the Pas. De la Corne had returned, and Hendry was royally treated by him: but four days later, when the little fleet left for York Fort, the canoes contained nothing but the heavy furs: de la Corne and his men had secured what was left of the best. Following the same route as in his outward journey, he reached York Fort on June 20, 1755, having been absent six days short of one year. The Hudson's Bay Company voted Hendry ;^20 gratuity for his voyage, but would not allow him to return inland. They even ridiculed certain parts of his reports : having never heard of Indians on horseback they would not believe that he had seen them. " They objected being told what they did not know. . . . He quit the service in disgust." ^ The company believed enough of Hendry's story, however, to understand that the French were taking possession of the country south of the bay, as well as of the fur trade with the Indians of those regions. Asked by the young explorer to come and trade with the English at York Fort most of the natives that he had met had told him that they were satis- factorily served by the French at the Pas, and had refused to travel 500 miles further north to deal with new traders. Moses Norton, the half-Indian governor of Churchill, knew that even if the French were already on the Saskatchewan, north of this river there was an immense domain which so far had been touched by no white man. The company knew from the Chippewyan Indians that minerals abounded in the north, since they wore rough copper ornaments or used divers utensils made with that metal. An effort should be made to discover whence came the material out of which ^ Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 352. HEARNE 25 these objects were made. The North-West Passage, which had been so long sought by sea, should now be sought by- land. And so Samuel Hearne, a mate of one of the company's sloops trading with the Eskimo, was commissioned in 1769 for an expedition to the new Promised Land. The adver- tised object of the journey was to find and determine the course of the far-off Metal River, as the Indians called what was to be known later as the Coppermine River, and settle once for all the vexed question of the existence of a North- West Passage: in reality, it is permissible to believe that the main purpose was to investigate a new field for the fur trade. Equipped with instruments, ammunition, and supplies for two years, Hearne left Churchill, under salute of seven cannon, on November 6, 1769, accompanied by two English volunteers, two Cree Indian guides, and a party of Chippewyans or Northern Indians. His provisions having been plundered by his native associates before he had travelled 200 miles, he had to turn back, reaching the fort with his two white companions December 11. The plucky explorer set forth again with a smaller party of Indians and no white men on Februar}^ 23, 1770. This time he reached the Kazan River by about 63° 2' north on June 30, and the northern end of Dubawnt Lake by the end of July. At this point his guides remonstrated with him about the impossibility of travelling further north that summer, and he had almost decided to winter with them. They, however, again plundered his store: added to this a gust of wind destroyed his quadrant : there was nothing left for the unfortunate Englishman but to return a second time to Churchill, his mission still unfinished. He reached the fort November 25. Two weeks later, December 7, the courageous young man made a fresh start. On his way back to the fort he had met and formed a friend- ship with a famous Chippewyan chief named Matonabbee who asked to accompany him and suggested to take a few squaws with the party, as they were better accustomed to work and economy than the men. On December 30 they reached 26 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Nueltin Lake; on February 6 they were on the Kazan River and three days later at Kasba Lake. They crossed Snowbird Lake on February 21, camped on Wholdaia Lake on March 2, and reached Clowey Lake in May. There they were joined by 200 Indians who, in spite of Hearne, decided to accompany the little party. After a month of rest, a dash for the Copper- mine River across the barren lands was made. Peshew Lake was reached May 30, Kum Lake June 20. They were now well within the arctic circle as there was no night. Two days later the party met the Copper Indians with whom the calumet of peace was smoked. Leaving the women behind, the men pushed on, passed through a snow-storm on July 6, which made several Indians turn back, reached Grizzly Bear HiU two days later, on the 12th crossed a branch of the Copper- mine, and the next day came to the main river 40 miles from its mouth. On July 16, to Hearne's horror, the Chippewyans, who had discovered an encampment of Eskimo, made a whole- sale massacre of the poor natives, refusing to yield to his pleadings. " The poor, unhappy victims," writes Hearne, " were surprised in the midst of their sleep, and had neither time nor power to make any resistance; men, women, and children, in all upwards of twenty, ran out of their tents stark naked, and endeavoured to make their escape; but the Indians having possession of all the land side, to no place could they fly for shelter. One alternative only remained: that of jmnping into the river; but, as none of them at- tempted it, they all fell a victim to Indian barbarity."^ The site, which was visited by Franklin in 1821 and Hanbury in 1899, to this day is known as the Bloody Fall. The massacre haunted Hearne the rest of his life, although he was not responsible for it, and had done all in his power to stop it. Not even his friend Matonabbee would yield to his prayers and his tears. The next day, July 17, Hearne stood on the shores of the Arctic Ocean at the mouth of the Coppermine River, " the first 1 Burpee, op. cit. p. 150. "This wanton massacre had such an effect upon the Eskimo that when David T. Hanburj? visited the Coppermine in 1899 it was still talked of." — Ihid. p. 151. HEARNE 27 white man to witness the tossing ice floes of that green, lone, paleocrystic sea."^ After erecting a mark to take formal possession of the country on behalf of the company which he was representing, Hearne on July 18 retreated up the Coppermine River about twenty miles, to examine the much-talked-of copper mines. These were rather disappointing, being " nothing but a jumble of rocks and gravel ": a piece of ore weighing about four pounds he brought back with him to Fort Churchill. Retracing his course as far as Cogeal Lake, Hearne turned south by west, reaching, on December 24, Great Slave Lake which he crossed in the vicinity of Reindeer Islands; on the south shore he found vast herds of buffalo. In February he was in the Dubawnt country, on March 19 passed Large Pike Lake, on April 7 crossed the Theleaza River. On May 11 the party camped on a river supposed to empty into Dubawnt Lake. The snow shoes were discarded and the journey home was continued by canoe: May 30 saw the expedition on the Kazan River. On June 26 they reached Seal River and four days later they were home at Fort Churchill. The trip had lasted a little over eighteen months. The North-West Passage had not been discovered, but instead a region half the size of modern Russia. " The continent of America," writes Hearne, " is much wider than many people imagine, particularly Robson, who thought that the Pacific Ocean was but a few days' journey from the west coast of Hudson's Bay. This, however, is so far from being the case that when I was at my greatest western distance, upward of 500 miles from Prince of Wales Fort, the natives, my guides, well knew that many tribes of Indians lay to the west of us, and they knew no end to the land in that direction, nor have I met with any Indians, either northern or southern, that ever had seen the sea to the westward." But speaking of the Rocky Mountains, about which Indians whom he had met had told him, he adds: " Beyond those mountains all rivers run to the westward." * Laut, op. cit. vol. i. p. 373. 28 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD After voting their plucky explorer a substantial present in currency and assuring him the promotion of governor at the death of Norton, the Hudson's Bay Company hastened to organise and occupy the newly discovered territory, before the Montreal merchants, who had filled the forts on the Saskatchewan abandoned in 1763 by the successors of Laveren- drye, could have time to penetrate so far north. Directly after the cession of Canada to England, British traders had begun to move west. As early as 1761 Alexander Henry had reached Fort Michilimakinac, and a few years later had been on the Assiniboine and the Saskatchewan trading with the Indians almost simultaneously with James Finlay and Thomas Curry. The " Bourgeois du Nord-Ouest," as they were called in Montreal, were therefore seriously threatening the supremacy of the Hudson's Bay Company in a country which it was wont to claim as its sole domain. In May 1773 it was decided to send Samuel Hearne to establish a fort at Basquia on the Saskatchewan River to counteract " the interruptions to the trade from the Canadian pedlars." Hearne, instead of stopping and establishing his post at the Pas, went further up the river and built Cumberland House on Pine Island Lake, also called Pigeon Lake, within 500 yards of the fort built in 1772 by Thomas and Joseph Frobisher, two other merchants from Montreal. Hearne had immediately noticed that this was a strategic point of first importance; situated, as it was, where all watercourses connected with the Churchill River, it commanded the ap- proaches to and from the four points of the compass. There and then began the well-known conflict, bloody at times, between the old company and its competitors, the Montreal merchants. The building of Cmnberland House was " to become a thorn in the flesh of the Canadian traders and the turning-point in the career of the Hudson's Bay Company. Had they continued to remain inactive on the shores of the bay, there is no doubt that the North- West Company would before long have wrested from them the entire fur trade of the great west. The establishment of Cumberland House, and the consequent acceptance of the policy of interior HEARNE 29 trading posts, gave to the Hudson's Bay Company a new lease of life." 1 In 1775 Hearne, having been appointed governor of Fort Churchill, returned to the bay. In 1782 he surrendered it to the French Admiral La Perouse without offering a semblance of resistance, in spite of the thick walls, heavy bastions, and numerous cannon with which it was protected. La Perouse tried to pull down the ramparts, but had to finally resort to mine to destroy them. Mr. J. W. Tyrrell, who visited the ruins on November 3, 1893, thus depicts his impressions: " Not a tree or other sign of life could be seen on the long, low, snow-driven point of rock, but there in all its solitary, massive grandeur stood the remains of what had more than 100 years ago been a noble fortress. " The construction of this fortification, which appears to have been planned by the English engineer, Joseph Robson, was commenced in the year 1743 by the Hudson's Bay Company, which was then, as now, carrying on fur-trading business in northern Canada. So large and expensive a fortification was built, probably, not so much for the protec- tion of the company's interests as for the purpose of complying with a provision of its Royal Charter, which required that the country should be fortified. " The building of the fort appears to have been carried on for many years under the direction of the famous Samuel Hearne, already referred to as having traversed the Barren Lands to the mouth of the Coppermine River. In a stone barrack within the fort, Hearne lived and carried on business for many years. " The fortress was in the form of a square, with sides 316 feet long; at the corners were bastions, and on top of the massive stone walls, 20 feet in height by 30 feet in thickness at the base, were mounted forty-two guns. With such a defence one would suppose that Churchill should have been safe from attacking foes, but this does not seem to have been the case, for history informs us that on August 8, 1782, the gallant La P6rouse and his three vessels of war, with, it is ' Burpee, op. cit. p. 162 et seq. 30 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD said, naught but scurvy-smitten crews, made their appearance before the much-amazed garrison of thirty-nine men, and demanded an unconditional surrender, which was granted without resistance, and the gates of the great stone fort thrown open to the invaders. Taking possession, they spiked and dismounted the guns, in places broke down the walls, burned the barracks, and sailed away to France with Heame, his men, and all their valuable furs.^ "As La Perouse left the fort so did we find it. For the most part the walls were still solid, though from between their great blocks of granite the mortar was crumbling. The guns spiked and dismounted were still to be seen lying about on the ramparts and among the fallen masonry. In the bastions, all of which were still standing, were to be seen the remains of wells and magazines, and in the centre of the fort stood the walls of the old building in which Hearne and his men had lived. The charred ends of roof-beams were still attached to its walls, where undecayed they had rested for the past III years." 2 * Not before also taking York on August 2 1 , in spite of the follow- ing note on a small cannon located in the museum portion of the Winnipeg Industrial Bureau, reading thus: "Old cannon, loaned by- Mr. F. K. Herchmer. Dug out of the bottom of the Saskatchewan River near Cumberland at very low water. Supposed to have been used by the French adventurer (sic) La Perouse when he made an un- successful (sic) attempt to capture York after taking Fort Prince of Wales, at the mouth of the Churchill River." Yet Umfreville, who was among the captured, had written: " The English governor sur- rendered without firing a gun." And this is how history is written in some quarters! * Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada, p. 199 et seq. hr ^ "< 5 Si y. ^ THE NORTH-WEST COMPANY 31 CHAPTER V THE NORTH-WEST COMPANY — MACKENZIE — HENRY The first important organisation formed to oppose the Hudson's Bay Company in its supposed monopoly of the fur trade in the Hudson Bay territory was called the North-West Company; the founder was Simon M'Tavish. Born in the Highlands of Scotland in 1750, he was a man of " enormous energy and decision of character."^ From Montreal, he engaged in the fur trade immediately after the cession of Canada to England, and soon, with the Frobisher brothers, formed a combination which was later joined by John Gregory, William M'Gillivary\ Roderick Mackenzie, Angus Shaw, Cuthbert Grant, Alexander M'Leod, and William Thorburn, who had previously been in the north-west as independent fur traders. The pourparlers which were commenced in 1783-84 resulted in 1795 in the formation of the North- West Company. In 1804, at the death of M'Tavish, better known among his partners as Le Marquis, the organisation had been completed on such an important basis that it had posts all the way from the Missouri to the Saskatchewan and the Peace River country, and even on Hudson Bay and the lower St. Lawrence. M'Tavish, however, had become quite unpopular among a number of the partners on account of his dominating person- ality, and the same year as the North-West Company had been definitely organised in 1795, the malcontents had formed a company of their own, known, in the annals of the fur trade, as the X-Y Company. The backbone of the new concern was the powerful Montreal firm of Forsyth, Richardson and Company, and its leading spirit, although not a partner himself until 1801, was young Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer to be of the Mackenzie River. The X-Y Company followed the ^ Bryce, op. cit. p. ii6. 32 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD North-West Company into every district where the latter had established posts in Rupert's Land. On the death of M'Tavish, all enmities disappeared and a union took place under the leadership of Sir Alexander Mackenzie. It is not the purpose of this work to tell the reader about the fur trade, of which he has no doubt had occasion to read considerably if he has taken the least interest in obtaining information about Western Canada, but rather in these first chapters to post him, in as few words as possible, as far as its early history is concerned, about the journeys and discoveries made in the days of the fur companies by members of those companies. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Alexander Henry the younger, and David Thompson, for this reason, deserve to retain our attention for a few pages. In 1763 was born at Stornoway,^ in the Island of Lewis on the west coast of Scotland, a child who was destined to give his name to one of the largest rivers on the American conti- nent, Alexander Mackenzie. He came to Canada at the age of sixteen and entered the fur trade with John Gregory and Alexander Norman M'Leod. His first journey was to Detroit, where his employers, having remarked his keenness and daring, had sent him to guide a trading party. In 1785 he became a shareholder in the company, set out for the west and joined his cousin Roderick Mackenzie in the English (Churchill) River district to help him against one of the greatest men of the North-West Company in full course of organisation, William M'Gillivary. Instead, he had to take charge of the Athabasca district assigned to him when, after Pond's murder of John Ross, it had been found necessary to join the two elements which were trading in those regions besides the great Hudson's Bay Company. He was then twenty-four years of age. He at once decided to push out agents north of Lake Athabasca, in the Great Slave Lake and Peace River districts: Leroux and Boyer were the men who accepted the mission. ' And not Inverness as all encyclopaedias have it. The explorer's grandson himself furnished the correct information to Dr. George Bryce. — The Makers of Canada, vol. v. pt. i. p. 10. MACKENZIE 33 But even the life of a fur trader seemed too monotonous for the young Bourgeois.^ He decided his cousin Roderick, who had returned to Lake Superior, to join him, and with his help built, in 1789, Fort Chippewyan on the south side of Lake Athabasca. By this time he had made up his mind to imitate Hearne, of whom he had heard, and to make a dash for the Arctic Ocean, but by another route than the Copper- mine. The Indians had told him of a river as vast as the Saskatchewan : this he would follow. He left on Wednesday, June 3, 1789. He had with him four French Canadians, two of whom were accompanied by their wives. They were Francois Barrieau or Beriault, Charles Doucette, Joseph Landry, and Pierre Delorme. The little party crossed Athabasca Lake and the next day reached the Peace River, at the spot where it changes its name to that of the Slave River. After running the upper rapids and portaging at theDecharge, d'Embarras, Mountain, and Pelican, besides a number of smaller falls, " boiling caldrons and whirl- ing eddies," they reached Great Slave Lake on June 9, having covered 272 miles in less than a week. Having taken a well- deserved rest, and had a conference with the Yellow Knife Indians, Mackenzie left on June 25 for the north, under the leadership of a Yellow Knife guide. On June 30 they were on the Mackenzie River, going westward, with the Horn Mountains in sight on their left, and on July i met the Slave and Dog-Rib Indians who told them fabulous stories about the river which they were to explore. On July 2 they sighted the Rocky Mountains and the next day camped at the foot of " The Rock by the River Side." On the 5th they passed the mouth of the Great Bear River and its sea-green coloured water. New races of Indians were now met: the Hares, the Quarellers, etc. On the loth Mackenzie found that he had reached 67° 47' north latitude. The natives informed him he was close to the sea. This was sighted on July 12, and almost reached two days later, July 14. On July 16 the discoverer laconically remarks in his journal that they turned back. Why the expedition should have turned » Nickname given to the partners of the fur companies of Montreal. C 34 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD back when only a few miles remained to travel to be on tide water has never been satisfactorily explained. The party started on its return voyage on July i6. The only point of Mackenzie's narrative which need stop our attention is that on August 2, when passing the mouth of the Bear River, the explorer noticed that the opposite side was on fire: it had been burning before him, and in all probabihty is still burning to-day, since in 1906 R. C. M'Connell, in his exploration in Yukon and Mackenzie basins, reports the same fact. It is supposed that the coal or lignite takes fire spon- taneously on exposure to moist air. They reached Mountain River on August 14, the entrance to Great Slave Lake on August 20, and Fort Chippewyan on September 12. The whole journey had taken 102 days for 3000 miles. The fears of his guides and the obstacles of nature had not been able to deter the young explorer one moment from his undertaking. It is true that he did not actually reach the Arctic Ocean, but he did enough to ascertain the course of the river to which he gave his name and assure himself, by observations and from conferences with the Indians, that there was much more land to discover before the Western Sea was reached. After a voyage to Europe to perfect his scientific knowledge and to purchase suitable instruments, Mackenzie, on October 10, 1792, set out for his second and more important journey of discovery by way of the Peace River on which he had founded the Old Establishment in 1788, now in charge of Boyer. Of the six French Canadians who accompanied him on this trip, two had gone with him to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. The party came to the mouth of the Smoky River on November i. There it was decided to build winter quarters: these were completed for Christmas. As soon as spring opened, Mackenzie sent back, laden with the furs gathered in the winter, six canoes with as many men as he could spare to man them. He and the other members of the little troop left for the unknown west on May 9, 1793: the same day they learned MACKENZIE 35 from a band of Indians which they met that in ten days they would be at the foot of the Rocky Mountains : they actually came in view of these eight days later. At the same time the first caiion on the river was reached, and it was found neces- sary to portage canoes, provisions, and other supplies for three leagues. On the last day of the month they reached the forks of the river. Turning up the south branch or Parsnip River, the following day they passed the mouth of the Nation River and that of the Pack River. On June 9 two Sikamis Indians made friends with the explorers and furnished them with considerable information about the river to which they were to portage to reach the ocean : one of the two natives was induced to guide the party, but it was soon found that he knew very little to act in this capacity. Three days later Mackenzie and his companions were at the source of the Parsnip, which the explorer mistook for " the highest and southernmost source of the Peace River," which is to be found instead at the headwaters of the Finlay River. A small portage of 817 paces was sufficient to take the party to the Fraser River: this was the " great divide " between the two river systems of the Arctic and the Pacific. Coming down the river, the party passed the mouth of the Nechaco River without seeing it. On June 21 they met a band of Carrier Indians who informed them that they should have followed another small river farther up to reach the Western Sea, as the river they were on emptied into the ocean considerably to the south, also that they were six days' march from the sea overland: Mackenzie immediately decided upon the dash across the country. Having cached part of their provisions, the explorer and his men set out on the last lap of the journey to the sea, over hill and vale, through woods and sAvamps, on July 4. Two days later they fell in with the great road to the sea on the north bank of the Blackwater River, which they crossed on the loth. On the 17th the Bella Coola was reached and, with the help of friendly coast Indians who placed their canoes and themselves at their service, three days later the small expedition at last found itself on salt water. 36 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Continuing his journey along the coast for two days, Mackenzie arrived at Vancouver's cascade canal: with a mixture of vermilion and melted grease he wrote the memor- able date on a rock: " Alexander Mackenzie from Canada, by land, 22 July, 1793." Returning home by the same road, he reached Fort Chippe- wyan on August 24. The journey had lasted 318 days. Of the difficulties of the trip, of the terror expressed time and again by Mackenzie's voyageurs, of the many dangers of destruction by the native tribes, although nothing has been said here, it would be incorrect to think that such did not exist. On the contrary, when reading thfough the narrative of Canada's greatest explorer one is amazed at the decision and fortitude which made him surmount the greatest hardships and sustain his companions through the worst trials that imagination can picture to itself. " From the wider standpoint, knowledge was supplied as to the country lying between the two great oceans, and while it did not, as we know from the voyages seeking a North- West Passage in this century, lay the grim spectre of an Arctic channel, yet it was a fulfihnent of Verendrye's dream, and to Alexander Mackenzie, a Canadian bourgeois, a self- made man, aided by his Scotch and French associates, had come the happy opportunity of discovering ' La Grande Mer de I'Ouest.' " ^ The distinguished discoverer returned to his native land in 1795, and there wrote the tale of his stupendous achieve- ments : his book was published in 1801. A copy was smuggled into France at the bid of Napoleon I. After a few years' public hfe in Lower Canada, where he had returned, he moved again to Scotland, where he died on March 12, 1820, at Mulnain in Perthshire. As to Alexander Henry ,^ he had been in the service of the North- West Company since 1792. In 1799 he went up from Montreal by the usual canoe route to the west side of Lake Manitoba, and for nine years made several trips between 1 Bryce, op. cit. p. 131. ^ The younger. HENRY 37 Lake Superior and Pembina, where he had erected a fort. It was in May 1808 that Henry turned his face toward the Saskatchewan. Leaving the mouth of the Red River in August, he followed the west side of Lake Winnipeg to the Grand Rapids, where, on the 20th, he met David Thompson on his way to the Columbia. Passing the Pas on August 24, he reached Cumberland House two days later, but remained only until sunset. On September 2 he was at the forks, the next day at Fort Providence, near the site of the modern city of Prince Albert, and on the 4th at Hudson House, a few miles below Carlton House. Pursuing his voyage, Henry camped at the mouth of the Battle River, past Fort Ver- milion where he wintered. The following year, after a trip down to Fort William, he reached Fort Augustus (Edmonton) on October 30, and returned to Vermilion, where he again wintered. This he abandoned the following spring to estab- lish the White Earth House, where Thompson visited him on his way back from the Columbia. In September 1810, Henry went as far as Rocky Mountain House. In February 1811 he left on a " jaunt in the Rocky Mountains," reaching the upper end of the Kootenay on the fourth day: entering Howse Pass, he reached what he presumed was " the highest source of the Saskatchewan," then returned to White Earth House by the same route as he had travelled on his way up. After two years spent in the Saskatchewan country, he made a second trip to the Rocky Mountains, presumably going through Athabasca Pass and following the all-Columbian route. His career was abruptly closed by drowning in company with Donald M'Tavish of the North-West Company and several others on their way from Fort George to the company's boat, the Isaac Toad, on May 22, 1814. " He was not a great explorer in the sense that Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson were; he made no such remarkable discoveries as are associated with their names; but he was an untiring traveller, and what is much to the point, he travelled with his eyes wide open, and noted in his voluminous journals everything that aroused his interest. 38 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD His journals are essential to a full understanding of the course of exploration in North-Western America." ^ For this reason we have thought proper of giving a short summary of Henry's voyages on the Saskatchewan River, which he knew so well, from its mouth to its higher source. 1 Burpee, op. cit. p. 40S. THOMPSON 39 CHAPTER VI THOMPSON — FRASER — FRANKLIN To sum up in a few pages the forty-five volumes of manuscript that David Thompson, the discoverer of the Columbia River, took sixty-six years to write may hardly be considered an easy task. For this reason our readers need not expect here a full account of the several journeys that this famous explorer accomplished from the day that he entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, at fourteen, in 1784, to the time of his death at the ripe old age of eighty-seven years. Our inten- tion is to follow him only on his journeys of exploration on the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, which have been most instrumental in placing his name before the world as that of one of the greatest travellers of modern times. Thompson was born in the parish of St. John's, West- minster, England, and was educated at the Blue Coat School in London. Entering the service of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1784, he began at Fort Churchill, in that year, the first of his voluminous journals; the last one was to be written in 1850. During the thirteen years that he remained with the company, he carried on explorations and surveys of the Nelson, Churchill, and Saskatchewan Rivers. In 1797. the company having refused his request to prosecute explora- tions further west, he passed over to the North-West Company, who immediately gave him the appointment of astronomer and surveyor. For his new employers he explored the upper waters of the Assiniboine and Mississippi, portions of those of the Missouri, Athabasca, and Peace Rivers, and again the Saskatchewan and the Churchill. Thompson had been surveying for some years in the Rocky Mountains, when, on May 10, 1807, he left Rocky Mountain House on horseback, following the north bank of the Sas- 40 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD katchewan. On June 3 he was on the Kootenay plains and on the 6th at the forks. It took him until the 22nd to pre- pare for his journey across the mountains. That day he reached the summit, and a few miles south the upper waters of the Blaeberry River, which he descended to the Upper Columbia on June 30. A few days later he was building Fort Kootenay on the west side of the Columbia, where he was to winter. Continuing his explorations the following spring, he finally reached the source of the mighty river in Upper Columbia Lake. A two-mile portage took him to the Koote- nay River, which he decided to follow. On April 24 he passed the mouth of St. Mary's River. On May 6 he was at Koote- nay Falls, on the 13th at the mouth of the Moyie River, and the next day at Kootenay Lake. Then he returned up the river and followed the Moyie River on horseback and rejoined the Kootenay about the mouth of St. Mary's River on May 18. Crossing the Kootenay he ascended its right bank to Fort Kootenay, which he reached June 5. With his winter's crop of furs he returned to Rocky Mountain House on June 24, descended the Saskatchewan River to Ciunberland House on July 9, and reached Rainy Lake House on August 2. The same fall he again crossed the mountains, ascended the Columbia to the mouth of the Spilimichene River, caused a post to be established at Kootenay Falls, and himself wintered at Kootenay Fort. In the spring of 1809 he once more crossed the mountains and paddled down the Saskatchewan to Fort Augustus (Edmonton). Returning he met Mr. Howse of the North- West Company, after whom he renamed Saskatchewan Pass. Having reached the Columbia he crossed the Cabinet Range to Pend d'Oreille Lake, where he built Kullyspell House; explored the Pend d'Oreille River, the Columbia River well into what is now the State of Washington, and the Kootenay River. In November he built Salush House where he wintered. In the following spring he again started north by the Koote- nay and Columbia, making Howse Pass on June 18, descended the Saskatchewan, noticed the ruins of Fort Augustus, which THOMPSON 41 the Blackfeet had destroyed, and met Alexander Henry at White Earth River Fort. On July 4 he was at Cumberland House, and on the 22nd at Rainy Lake. On September 6 he was back at White Earth River Fort, The Piegans Indians having obstructed the Howse Pass, Thompson decided to find a new way into the mountains by Athabasca Pass. On October 29 he started on what was to prove his most arduous journey: dangers of starvation, death from freezing, fatigue from natural obstacles of all kinds, caused his men to almost rebel. However, in the first week of November he was at Pembina River, and on December i on the Athabasca, his provisions almost exhausted. Some of his men went hunting while others busied themselves with making sledges and snow- shoes, and others again went overland to Rocky Mountain House for provisions, dogs, and horses. There Henry gave them what he could spare. Thompson started out on Decem- ber 29, determined to reach the Columbia against odds. On January 18, 1810, he was on the banks of that river and, had it not been for his dispirited companions, would have pushed at once to Kootenay House. In the spring of 181 1 Thompson resumed his explorations on the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, reached on June 15 Spokane House, probably built by him some time before about where the city of Spokane now stands, descended the Spokane River to the Columbia, which he ascended to Kettle Falls; started down the Columbia, and on July 9, 1811, reached the mouth of the Snake River, five years after the passage of Lewis and Clark : this did not prevent him from taking posses- sion of the territory in the name of Great Britain. Thompson reached Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River on July 15 or 16. On his way home he passed the mouth of the Willamette (near the site of the present city of Portland) on July 24, continued up the Columbia through the Arrow Lakes to Boat Encampment at the mouth of Canoe River, which he reached in the beginning of October, having achieved his greatest work. After a few more explorations of lesser importance he left the north-west the following year (1812), and for ten years 42 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD from 1816 was engaged in surveying and defining the inter- national boundary. He also carried out several minor surveys in what is now Eastern Canada. He died at Longueil, near Montreal. " The world can never be allowed to forget the discoverer of the sources of the Columbia, the first white man who ever voyaged on the upper reaches and main upper tributaries of that mighty river, the pathfinder of more than one way across the Continental Divide from Saskatchewan to Columbian waters, the greatest geographer of his day in British America, and the maker of what was then by far its greatest map." ^ Among other famous explorers in Northern America may be mentioned Simon Fraser, another partner of the North- West Company, who lived between 1776 and 1862. He was chosen in 1805 for the new field beyond the Rocky Mountains, when the company decided to carry its operations in that territory. Having established trading posts in modern northern British Columbia, he explored the river which bears his name. In 181 1 he was promoted to the charge of the Red River department. He declined the knighthood offered him as a recognition of his services in the cause of exploration. He was present at the Seven Oaks affair. He retired from the fur trade about the time the Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Company joined forces. In later years and nearer to our days Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) headed the overland expedition of 1819-1822, from York Factory by way of Great Slave Lake to the mouth of the Coppermine River and the Arctic coast, and that of 1825-27 to the same part of the continent. In 1845, he started on a third expedition by sea to make the North- West Passage: his ships were caught in the ice jams of Victoria Strait, and with all his men he perished in the attempt to reach one of the remote northern posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. Although the relations of the several discoveries and journeys which precede may not appear to be altogether germane to the subject of this book, we have judged necessary to briefly 1 Burpee, op. cit. p. 559. ZPi THOMPSON— FRASER— FRANKLIN 43 review them in order to all the better impress upon the mind of the reader the importance of the Saskatchewan and Hudson Bay routes, which for so many years were followed, at some time or other of their voyages, by the many explorers, some of whom we have followed together. From Laverendrye to Franklin, every one of these celebrated men found it necessary to travel by way of the Saskatchewan, which, as every one knows, is none other but one of the main feeders of the Nelson River, at the mouth of which, in a few years hence, will be found, in the very centre of Western Canada, Manitoba's first seaport and one of Canada's greatest inland commercial harbours, Port Nelson. 44 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER VII SELKIRK In a primitive country such as Rupert's Land was in the fur- trading days of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North- West Company, with men bent upon making money fast without the restraint of law to fear, seeing on every side the ready products of the native trapper's thrift available for a small outlay, it may be readily imagined that rivalries between the competing big companies were such that it appeared a titan's work to set them at naught. Debauchery and crime were rampant, traceable to the doors of either company : the two murders committed by Peter Pond in Athabasca and the terrible circumstances which surrounded the death of Ben- jamin Frobisher at Cedar Lake may be cited as examples. Whoever had predicted then that the big corporations would soon unite would have been suspected of insanity. Influenced by the philanthropic ideas of the French Revolu- tion, which had just closed, there lived in those days in Edin- burgh a young broad-minded nobleman, Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk. In the company of Walter Scott and Robert Burns, he had acquired ideas and desires for the betterment of the rustic classes of Scotland and Ireland, which gradually but surely had led him to consider a scheme of emigration of these people to Canada, the ultimate results of which were to be, firstly, the cessation of hostilities between the two companies by the consoHdation of both into one, in spite of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's opposition ; secondly, the settlement of the three modern Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta as agricultural districts destined to be called, in less than half a century, the granary of the world. It is not often that historians, in their labours, come across as noble a figure and as deserving a character as were the attributes of SELKIRK 45 Lord Selkirk, the founder of the Red River Colony. To Laverendrye and to him the sculptor's chisel should be imme- diately requisitioned to carve in marble the first two western statues, to perpetuate their names and deeds in the minds of the rising generation which is to benefit so immensely by their virtues so true and noble. The scope of this book does not permit referring otherwise than in passing to the initial work of Lord Selkirk in Canada : his Prince Edward Island Colony, his first visits to Canada and the United States, his Baldoon Settlement near Lake St. Clair, and his Moulton Colony near the mouth of the Grand River in Upper Canada. Even his several important visits to Montreal, which served to confirm him in the intention which he had previously had of establishing a settlement in Rupert's Land, as evidenced by his memorial of April 4, 1802, to Lord Pelham, Home Secretary, can only be touched upon, as must also the fact that, during these visits, he shrewdly availed himself of the several entertainments given him by the partners of the North-West Company to obtain as much information as possible about the resources of the wonderful country he heard them speak about and longed to visit. Attractive as it may have looked to him, the fur trade did not interest the young nobleman so much as the philanthropic desire of helping his poor countrymen to create homes for themselves and their descendants in a new country where agriculture appeared to have more chance to develop into something substantial than the mere fur trade, the whole craze of those days. By the year 1810 Lord Selkirk had matured a plan to realise his project of a colony in the Hudson Bay Territory. He had consulted distinguished lawyers on the validity of the Hudson's Bay Company's charter, and ascertained that its title to land was as good as that of any landlord in England. His next step had been to purchase a controlling interest in the company, and buy from it a tract of 110,000 square miles of land in the Red River Valley. Alexander Mackenzie, John Inglis, and Edward Ellice, three Nor'Westers who had pur- chased £2500 of stock in the company for the purpose of 46 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD defeating the coloniser's ends, were unable to thwart the skilfully planned schemes which, unawares, they had helped to realise when entertaining the young lord in their Montreal palatial homes and clubs. Lord Selkirk's next step was to present his plan to the pro- spective emigrant: he undertook to provide transportation, means of livelihood for a time, and to give free lands. In Upper Canada he had formed a friendship with a young United Empire Loyalist, Captain Miles Macdonell : he offered to put him in charge of the colony. This was accepted. In spite of strenuous opposition on the part of Sir Alexander Mackenzie and the latter's friends, on July 26, 1811, the first contingent of settlers left Stornoway for York Factory, where it arrived on September 24. It was then too late in the season to ascend the Nelson River: the party had to winter on the bay, and only in the following spring could they start for the Red River, which they reached only in the fall, having found the route a hard and trying one, with its numerous rapids and portages. They settled at the forks, where the beautiful city of Winni- peg stands to-day. The second and third parties came in 1813. Two years later the unfortunate Semple brought a fourth contingent. That same year Lord Selkirk landed in Montreal with Lady Selkirk, their son, and two daughters. Hearing ^ that his colony on the Red River was being seriously interfered with by the Nor'Westers, who could not be reconciled to the idea that the old hunting and trapping grounds should be turned into farms, he appealed to Lord Bathurst, British Secretary of State, and Sir Gordon Drummond, Governor of Lower Canada, for redress. " In entering upon this transaction (the sale of the Red River lands to Lord Selkirk) the Hudson's Bay Company, 1 The man who risked his life to take the news to Lord Selkirk from Red River to Montreal was Jean Baptiste Lagimodiere, grandfather of Louis Riel, the famous Metis chieftain. Asked by Lord Selkirk what he wished in return for the service he had rendered him, Lagi- modiere could not think of anything better than priests to impart to ids young wife, Marie Anne Gaboury, the first white woman of the Red ' Kiver district, the consolations of religion. SELKIRK 47 submitted the complainant, had no reason to suppose that the intended estabhshment would meet with any peculiar difficul- ties. The country on Red River, where it was to be formed, had been frequented by the servants of the company for a long course of years ; and they were in the habits of the most friendly intercourse with the natives. The district had been much exhausted of valuable furs, so that the trading posts in it had proved of late years unprofitable and doubts had been entertained whether they ought to be continued: and the Indians had, on various occasions, expressed much anxiety lest the Hudson's Bay Company should abandon the posts from which they had so long been accustomed to receive their supplies of British manufactures. It was not, therefore, sup- posed that they would object to an establishment, calculated to secure them permanently from such apprehension; and there is no reason to believe that any dissatisfaction would have existed on their part, if it had not been industriously fomented."^ But the power in Montreal was in the hands of the Nor'- Westers or their friends : the secretary and the governor took no notice. Lord Selkirk was reduced to organise a private expedition at his own expense. Early in June 1816 the De Meurons' Regiment started for the west under the personal leadership of Lord Selkirk himself. The winter was spent in camp at Pointe de Meuron, near Fort William. In June 1817 the party was at the Red River. A settlement of the troubles, in which blood had been shed at the Seven Oaks affair, was arrived at, and his lordship returned to Montreal. Before parting with his colonists he took the trouble to meet the chiefs of the different tribes and passed with them a treaty, the good results of which are lasting to this day. Lord Selkirk was not a little astonished, on his arrival at Montreal, to find that his enemies had preceded him and denounced him to the authorities. He bravely faced the charges of theft, riot, assault, resistance, and conspiracy laid ^against him by the North-West Company, paid the unjust * End of Lord Selkirk's statement, Red River Settlement Papers, 1819-58. 48 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD fines in which he was mulcted, himself brought charges against his accusers for the murder of Governor Semple and for theft, and, to his disgust, found that he had failed on all counts. Utterly discouraged by the evident unjust treatment received at the hands of judges, the tools of a powerful organi- sation, he returned to Scotland in 1818. The mental torture to which he had been subjected seriously affected his health. The father of the first agricultural colony in Western Canada, which has now extended to the Rocky Mountains, died a young man of forty-nine years, at Pau, in the south of France. The following year the two big companies, realising that conflicts of the sort which had caused the bloody affair of Seven Oaks could only result in the destruction of both com- panies, decided to bury old feuds and form a union : this took place on March 26, 182 1: the old famihar name of the Hud- son's Bay Company was retained, with Governor Simpson at the head of affairs. HUDSON BAY AND STRAIT 49 CHAPTER VIII HUDSON BAY AND STRAIT Apart from the many difficulties existing only in the imagina- tion of certain writers and their readers, for the most part interested in seeing things in the worst light, the main dangers supposed or reported to attend navigation by the Hudson Bay route are two-fold, viz., ice jams in the strait and local attraction resulting in the inaccuracy of the compass. Of the latter little need be said as science will soon find a way to explain and combat the trouble ; it seems nothing more than an ordinary problem of mathematics to solve : once the medium deviation will have been found, it should be easily rectified. For this purpose, in the summer of 1912, W. E. Jackson, a magnetic expert from the Meteorological Office at Toronto, who had accompanied Captain Bemier in the cruise of the Arctic in 1908-9, was chosen by the Federal Govern- ment to take a trip to Hudson Bay on the Burleigh, with a mission to thoroughly study the deviations in compass and magnetic conditions generally. Where the boats of the Hud- son's Bay Company have sailed for almost two centuries and a half without lights and bell buoys, it would seem that this difficulty is not serious enough to warrant the pusillanimous fear which is expressed in some quarters. And with the opening of the route for practical uses it may reasonably be expected that men of science, finding it relatively easy to study the trouble on the spot, will rediscover what Laurent Ferrer Maldonado, the Spanish navigator of the sixteenth century, had discovered in his days and laid before the Council of the Indies in his country, namely, a plan to render the mag- netic needle unaffected by merely local conditions, as well as his second plan of finding longitude at sea has perhaps been applied from his data.^ Possibly before this difficulty of the * Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental y Occidental, Nautica y Geographica. Madrid, 1629. D 50 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD variation of the compass is conquered, if the new gyroscope compass is not sufficient, accidents in which good men will be sacrificed to the requirements of progress will be heard of: a few boats ill-directed in their course by skippers unfamiliar with the conditions prevailing in the waters of Canada's great inland sea may go aground, and many a brave sailor may find a premature grave in the icy waters of Hudson Bay ; but we must not forget that the betterment of every great invention has met, and is still meeting, at some day or other with terrible happenings, and that " the lintel of every doorway to advance- ment is ever marked with some blood sacrifice." ^ In this age of automobiles and flying machines, surely a little matter like the danger arising from the uncertainty to which mariners on Hudson Bay may be subjected at the start on account of the impossibility to trust to the seaman's now admitted indispens- able guide, the compass, will not be found a suf&cient deterrent where other conditions are present. What has been done before the days of Marco Polo may be done again. Undoubtedly the greatest difficulties in connection with the Hudson Bay route lie in the strait, and for this reason every impartial student of the problem should give this point a good deal of his attention before claiming, as so many are apt to do who do not go fully into the matter, either that the passage is practicable at all times or that it is never safe. Hudson Strait, from the Atlantic Ocean to Hudson Bay, between Ungava Bay and the Upper Narrows, Labrador, and Baffin's Land, is 450 miles. Its widest breadth is 100 miles. It contracts at three points, varying between 35 and 45 miles. The first point at the eastern entrance is to be found between Resolution and Button Islands, the second westward south of Big Island, and the third south of Nottingham Island. Miss Agnes C. Laut, whose several books on Western Canada read as works of fiction, so well has the gentle writer mastered the Enghsh language, describes thus Hudson Strait : " Hudson Strait opens from the Atlantic between Resolution Island on the north and the Button Islands on the south. From point to point, this end of the strait is 45 miles wide. ^ Laut, op. cit. p. 313. HUDSON BAY AND STRAIT 51 At the other end, the west side, between Digges' Island and Nottingham Island, is a distance of 35 miles. From east to west, the straits are 450 miles long — wider at the east where the south side is known as Ungava Bay, contracting at the west to the Upper Narrows. The south side of the strait is Labra- dor; the north, Baffin's Land. Both sides are lofty, rocky, cavernous shores lashed by a tide that rises in places as high as 35 feet, and runs in calm weather 10 miles an hour. Pink granite islands dot the north shore in groups that afford harbourage, but all shores present an adamant front, edges sharp as a knife or else rounded hard to have withstood and cut the tremendous ice jam of a floating world suddenly con- tracted to 40 miles, which Davis Strait pours down at the east end and Fox Channel at the west. " Seven hundred feet is considered a good-sized hill; 1000 feet, a mountain. Both the north and the south sides of the straits rise 2000 feet in places. Through these rock walls ice has poured and torn and ripped a way since the ice age preceding history, cutting a great channel to the Atlantic. Here, the iron walls suddenly break to secluded, silent valleys, moss-padded, snow-edged, lonely as the day earth first saw light. Down these valleys pour the clear streams of the eternal snows, burnished as silver against the green, setting the silence echoing with the tinkle of cataracts over some rock wall, or filling the air with the voice of many waters at noon-tide thaw. One old navigator — Coates — describes the beat of the angry tide at the rock base and the silver voice of the mountain brooks, like the treble and bass of some great cathedral organ sounding its diapason to the glory of God in this peopleless wilderness. " Perhaps the kyacks of some solitary Eskimo, lashed abreast twos and threes to prevent capsizing, may shoot out from some of these bog-covered valleys like sea birds ; but it is only when the Eskimos happen to be hunting here, or the ships of the whalers and fur traders are passing up and down, that there is any sign of human habitation on the straits. " Walrus wallow on the pink granite in huge herds. Polar bears flounder from icepan to icepan. The arctic hare, white 52 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD as snow but for the great bulging black eye, bounds over the boulders. Snow buntings, whistling swans, snow geese, ducks in myriads — ^flacker and clacker and hold solemn conclave on the adjoining rocks, as though this were their realm from the beginning and for all time. " Of a tremendous depth are the waters of the strait's. Not for nothing has the ice world been grinding through this narrow channel for billions of years. No fear of shoals to the mariner. Fear is of another sort. When the ice is running in a whirlpool and the incoming tide meets the ice jam and the waters mount thirty-five feet high and a wind roars between the high shores like a bellows — then it is that the straits roll and pitch and funnel their waters into black troughs where the ships go down. ' Undertow ' the old Hudson's Bay captains called the suck of the tide against the ice-wall; and that black hole where the lumpy billows seemed to part like a passage between wall of ice and wall of water was what the mariners feared. The other great danger was just a plain crush, getting nipped between two icepans rearing and plunging like fighting stallions, with the ice blocks going off like pistol-shots or smashed glass. No child's play is such navigating either for the old sailing vessels of the fur traders or the modern ice-breakers propelled by steam! Yet the old sailing vessels and the whaling fleets have navigated these straits for two hundred years." ^ Hudson Strait never freezes over and the official expedi- tion of 1903 under the command of Mr. A. P. Low has " estab- lished the important fact of two open currents always flowing in the straits, one along the north shore, in and westward, bearing the ice drift of Greenland, so that ships entering could go with the ice drive; one along the south shore, outward, bearing the raft ice of Hudson's Bay, so that the ships going to sea could also go with the ice drift. In both cases, there- fore, it was found that the ships could navigate the strait with the ice drift, not against it." ^ 1 Laut, op. cit. p. 303 et seq. See Appendix B for description by A. P. Low, F.R.G.S. '^ Castell Hopkins, The Canadian Annual Review, 1907, p. 148. ^-r-/ ■5- cr', it also cast its evil spell over Canada at the time the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered. For the sake of the private interests of a few friends of the monarch who wanted to traffic with a public franchise, an incalculable loss of millions of a sturdy race of people was inflicted on the Empire." NATURAL RESOURCES 129 cattle-raising farms, or any other industry which, by bringing population to the country, would forcibly limit the territory of the fur-bearing animals by driving them into the icy deserts of the north. While the fur trade is not so important to-day in Manitoba's new territory as it was in the days of Radisson and Groseillers and the men of the Hudson's Bay Company who followed them, nor even as good as when the Scotch merchants of Montreal first made their appearance in Rupert's Land, the amount of money which is paid yearly to the Indian and white trappers for all kinds of furs is enormous, represent- ing at the Pas alone a sum of $500,000. Of course, with the advent of railway communication, quite a number of the northern ports are served from the Pas, and they in return have their packs of furs transferred there. But there are other important points, such as Grand Rapids and Norway House in the interior. Fort Churchill and York Factory on the bay, which manage their affairs independently of the Pas, and are also similar centres — probably, in fact, more important points. The chief fur found is that of the muskrat, also called muskwash. At the Pas it is figured that over one- half of the trade is represented by this fur. It suffices to have a look at the various fur warehouses of the town to be convinced of this fact. At certain epochs, rooms are filled with the small skins to the ceiling, while only a few others, beavers, fishers, sables, minks, musk oxen, wolves, foxes, etc., are to be seen. Of course these are more valuable than the muskrat and it takes considerably fewer to make up the same amount of money. It is in the early summer and the late fall of the year, after the ice has cleared or formed on the lakes and rivers, that the trappers, native or white, come in with their packs of valu- able crop, in canoes or in carioles according to the season. They are often met at the landing or in the street by the greedy buyers. The white trappers sell as and to whom they please. The Indians receive the protection of the Federal authorities; the packs are deposited with the agent, who receives bids and sells to the highest bidder, when the Indian has not contracted a debt in one of the stores for traps I I30 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD or supplies for which he has agreed to fetch a certain number of furs. With cash in towns Hke the Pas, or goods reasonably valued in the remote posts given in exchange for the furs that the trapper has caught for the market, we are far from the days when the poor Indian had to pile up beaver skins tightly around an old gun to become the owner of that gun, which shows also that the Indian has become educated to the relative value of things and the importance of competition in trade. As early as the beginning of the second half of the i8th century, one of the early writers on the Hudson Bay district, Robson, could see a wonderful future ahead of the country in the fishery line. In our days, that American writer on the north, Curwood, simply falls into ecstasy before the immense possibilities of this industry in New Manitoba. Both justly wonder why better efforts are not made to develop this most interesting and well-paying natural resource. The fact is that the innumerable lakes which, with the many rivers, form the main features of the country, are teeming with fish. True, a few firms have turned their attention that way, and each winter men are employed by them on the lakes in the vicinity of the Pas, whence car-loads are shipped to the American cities. But in comparison to the extent of the possibilities afforded, what little development has taken place so far would hardly be worth mentioning if it were not to show what can be done. No doubt, however, that with the opening of the Hudson Bay Railway, chances for the growth of this most important industry will increase, and it may be expected that before many months this business will be one that will employ a good many men, not only during the winter season, but also in summer, for of what advan- tage to the prairie districts will the facility of procuring fresh fish within the limits of their own territory not be? The time is not far distant when the dealers of Western Canada will abandon the habit of depending on fish from the Great Lakes or British Columbia to supply their customers. There are tons of this natural food going to waste every year in the northern lakes, only awaiting trans- NATURAL RESOURCES 131 portation to the homes of the western farmers within 300 or 400 miles distance. Aknost every kind of fish which may be thought of is found in these northern waters, and large samples weighing a goodly number of pounds are of common occurrence. But the lakes and rivers of New Manitoba are not the only places where an important fish industry can be developed. There is also, and above all, the bay itself, where it is thought a salmon industry will receive sufficient impetus, as soon as the road is open for traffic, to rival that of British Columbia. No doubt, further, whale-fishing and the marketing of this mammal's product will help considerably to furnish freight to the trains of the Hudson Bay Railway bound for the interior. From a table prepared by Dr. Boas, it appears that for twenty-nine years the United States has sent 113 vessels to Hudson Bay whale-fishing, and that they have obtained 1620 barrels of sperm, 56,900 barrels of whale oil, and nearly a milUon pounds of whalebone, which, considering that the average size of these ships was only 240 tons, makes it clear that there must have been a very handsome margin of profit. The white whale, which, in consequence of the high price of whalebone, namety Si2,ooo a ton, is by far the richest prize a whaler can capture, attains a size of from fifty to sixty feet. It is, of course, getting scarce, but the white whale still abounds, going up the rivers with every tide. So tame is it that it approaches within twenty feet of the boats. These whales will each average about forty gallons of oil, and the skin is valuable, bringing from $20 to $30 apiece. The marshal (or unicorn) and the walrus also exist in considerable numbers, and well repay the trouble of hunting them; while the seal swarms upon the ice. It does not seem unreason- able to expect that the completion of the Hudson Bay Railway will mean interesting developments for the fisheries of Hudson Bay by giving them rapid communication with the markets of the interior for the disposal of their products. Very little prospecting has so far been done with a view to discover what mineral resources are to be found in the country 132 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD which will be traversed by the Hudson Bay Railway. Yet it is already known that the following minerals exist: Iron- stone, nickel, manganiferous iron ore, gold, silver, molyb- denum, copper, hgnite, gypsum, petroleum-bearing limestone, anthracite, various kinds of ornamental stone, mica, clays, plumbago, carbonate of iron, amber. It is, of course, hard to say in what quantity each of these minerals exists; in some instances the signs are very encouraging, while in others only traces have so far been noticed. The best and most authentic results seem so far to have been obtained by the Wright-Bancroft party, which has been busy for the past year ^ in the district about Thicket Portage, 150 miles north of the Pas along the Hudson Bay road. Fitted up at con- siderable expense by some of the directors of the Canadian City and Town Properties, Limited, and this company's western manager, Mr. Edward Baillie, as a private under- taking, this party spent several months last winter and this spring studying conditions on the spot. It returned to town in the first part of April, and has since returned to its field of labour. According to the gentlemen composing this party, the chiefs of which have spent the greater portion of their lives in this work, and can, therefore, be relied upon for any information which they choose to give out, samples which have been assayed have shown $11 worth per ton of copper and gold in most of the groups of claims located by them; in one case nickel proving out $10 to the ton has been found, while it is, they say, of common occurrence to find gold turning out $5 to $6 to the ton. In one instance a sample found at a depth of five feet only, which was assayed by E. W. Widdowson, provincial assayer of British Columbia, proved out at $17.47 for copper and $1.66 for gold and silver, making a total of $19.13 value per ton. In no place where any digging has been done so far has any wall been found. The greatest difficulty which will be encountered where actual exploiting is attempted will be the keeping out of water. If means can be devised to conquer this trouble without excessive expense, from the present indications, none of which * 1912. NATURAL RESOURCES 133 are the result of deep digging, it may be reasonably surmised that developments of the mineral resources of the north will prove out very valuable. The most common mineral of all, however, and one which has attracted very httle attention, although it is the handiest of access and the easiest to develop, with an assured market, is the limestone rock. This rock is found in small quantities at the Pas. When one gets up along the railway, extensive beds spreading sometimes for a considerable distance under the ground are met with until one reaches Cormorant Lake, the Narrows and Moose Lake, where untold quantities are to be found. The contractors have used and are still using an immense quantity of this rock in building the very roadbed of the Hudson Bay Railway, and it is hardly possible to tell where they have taken it. Being situated right along the line of a railway, and along the shores of lakes and rivers accessible to boats, there seems to be no reason why this important natural resource should not be developed in the near future, as the demand for this kind of building material can only be on the increase, and a market exists for it at the present time, not only at the Pas, where more substantial buildings are on the eve of being erected, but also in the territory in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan accessible from that town. Indeed, the limestone to be found along the Hudson Bay Railway in the vicinity of the Pas is destined in the near future, as Chief Engineer Armstrong predicted in 1909, to become the future source of supply for the greater part of these two provinces.^ 1 Since this was written, important gold finds liave been made at Beaver Lake, north of Cumberland House, and within a reasonable distance from the Pas, whence most of the expeditions have started. Everything indicates that gold exists in pa^'ing quantities, and an important settlement has now been established. The Beaver Lake Gold Mining Company, the main company making operations, has now important machinery on the ground. Samples extracted from veins in that company's holdings assayed by Milton, Hersey & Company, Limited, of Montreal, have shown gold values ranging from $io to $226.80 per ton: one sample has given $560 and another S1600 to the ton. Other samples treated by Crittenden & Cullity, mining engineers, at the company's office at Beaver Lake, have shown values ranging from $4.20 to $16.00 per ton, while two samples have 134 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD It is well known that between the Pas and Split Lake there exists an area of about 10,000 square miles which is charac- terised by a heavy clay soil entirely free from boulders.^ Rock flour deposited by glacial streams in the quiet waters of a great lake has formed lacustrine clays, of which both the soil and the subsoil are composed, so merged together that it is excessively difficult to tell where the difference begins ; in places, immediately the leaves, moss and other packed vegetation are removed, pure clay appears. Generally, however, about six inches of loam have already formed on the clay, from the slow decomposition of the numerous vegetable matters which have lain there for centuries, slowly turning into a rich soil; while on the ridge tops, where the moss and other plants do not abound, the brown clay is almost on the surface. The 10,000 square miles which extend from the valley of the Nelson River westward to near Bumtwood and Wekusko Lakes form a gently rolling plateau, rising in places as high as 50 feet above the neighbouring rivers. Fair, natural drainage is available. In getting away from the valleys of the larger streams, however, the land is so low that it would be necessary to employ artificial means to get rid of the surface water which renders the land unsuitable at present for agricultural purposes. gone as high as $208 and $492 per ton|respectively.^ On the other hand, early in 191 5, important gold finds have been made at a point known as Herb Lake, a short distance from the Hudson Bay Railway north-east of the Pas, in the district visited in 191 3 by the Bancroft- Wright party. While no reliable figures have yet been published, values are said to range so far from a trace of gold to $39.08 per ton.^ One of the original locators is reported to have sold his claim for $3000. Acknowledging the importance of the mineral developments at Beaver Lake and Herb Lake, the Government of Manitoba has placed S500 and Si 000 respectively in the hands of the officers of the Pas Board of Trade for the building of roads to help miners and pro- spectors to reach their destinations, from the various lakes over a portage in the case of Beaver Lake, and from the railway in the case of Herb Lake. '- A portion of this district is now opened to homesteaders. " From prospectus of the Beaver Lake Gold Mining Company, Limited, p. 18 et seq. ' From the Pas Herald and Mining News, Vol. IV., No. 16, March 26, 1915. NATURAL RESOURCES 135 Apart from this large tract of land which the spending of a few hundred thousand dollars would render available for settlement, one must not forget that along the Saskatchewan River and the different streams which flow into it between Cumberland House and the Pas, and east of this town as far as Grand Rapids, there is a considerable tract of land which is sure to become, within the next quarter of a century, one of the best farming districts of Western Canada. All that is required is that the project of lowering the level of the river by dredging it and cutting through the head of the Grand Rapids at Lake Winnipeg be given the necessary impetus to bring it to an accomplished fact. Nature, which, if given time, does not fail to attain any aim which may be set for it, is doing its best to that end, and year after year carries in the course of its main river a large quantity of sediment which it deposits here and there, slowly elevating the numer- ous marshes over which it spreads its muddy waters: for they are nothing but marshes with an excess of water, all those so-called shallow lakes which border the Saskatchewan River and its tributaries from Grand Rapids westward almost to Fort k la Come, this side of the point where the two Sas- katchewans meet below Prince Albert. One may imagine what a rich soil would be conquered on the floods of this mighty river, if its course could be in some manner regulated and kept within safe bounds, since this soil would be entirely alluvial, and therefore of the best quality which may possibly be desired. The Federal Government has now an engineering party working up from Grand Rapids, and it is understood that part of the men's work will consist in figuring out the feasibility of a scheme whereby the level of the river may be lowered, and the immense marshes, low lands and shallow lakes, which would then be from 10 to 12 feet above high- water mark, may become a rich agricultural country, where furrows fifty miles long could be ploughed without a stone or any other impediment in the way. The question arises here : granting that this work be done and this land be reclaimed, would not the northern climate be a natural bar to the growing of ordinary cereals and 136 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD principally wheat? In this respect, it is well to remember that daylight is the main requisite for the fast ripening of grain. Vegetation matures wonderfully in northern latitudes, owing to the very long days during the growth season. Accord- ing to Chief Engineer Armstrong of the Hudson Bay Railway, a study of records of the Meteorological Office indicates that there is no reason why farming operations would suffer more in the district between the Pas and the Hudson Bay than they do at Prince Albert. The fact that most of the land between the different rivers which empty into Hudson Bay, by means of the Churchill and the Nelson Rivers, has remained more or less unexplored all these years is no doubt the main basis for the assertion often made that this northern country is too cold for the growing of grain. But when one knows that at several of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts as far north as 56° wheat has been successfully grown, that at Lac la Ronge by 55° it nas been harvested for seven years in succession without frost, that at Cross Lake by 55!° it ripens well, that at Norway House by 54°, Stanley House 55^°, Nelson House 54°, it has been cultivated with equal success, one wonders why this false opinion about the north should exist. The amazement increases when one reads that Hudson Bay was the first part of Western Canada to become known, and that many of the experiments just mentioned were made at York Factory before there had been any attempt at growing any sort of cereals or vegetables in the Red River valley and on the western plains, indeed even before these were known to exist. A few years before Captain de la Corne made his first experi- ment at farming in the Carrot River valley,^ in 1754, was not Robson writing: "The climate of Hudson's Bay is very habitable: the soil is rich and fruitful, fit for growing corn " ? Even if it had not been proved beyond doubt, by the trials made during the last century and a half at the posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, that wheat may be successfully grown, is it not generally admitted that the possibilities of 1 A number of farmers and families are now settling in this district as squatters, the lands having not yet been surveyed. NATURAL RESOURCES 137 acclimatisation and selection are countless, and that tropical plants are daily working their way northward by a natural and gradual process of adaptation, a fortiori more hardy cereals ? The next farming country to which the farmers coming from all parts of the world will migrate will be Manitoba's new territory; the sturdy men who will not fear a little hard work at the start will in time become the most prosperous farmers of Western Canada, for they will be settled the closest to the markets of the world, within a few hours' run from an ocean port. Millions of dollars will no doubt be required to bring about these conditions, but it will be money well spent and which will soon be repaid a hundredfold and more. Indeed, Mani- toba as a farming province is far from having used up its territory.^ Next to the furs, the forests are at present an important source of revenue in New Manitoba, although they are far from having received the attention and the consequent development that they well deserve. The timber is of two kinds, that which is large enough to be sawed into lumber or turned into ties, and that which is of the size which is used for making pulp.^ The Finger Lumber Company, Ltd., have erected a monstrous mill at the Pas where they manu- facture all kinds of lumber, employing the best machinery procurable, which does away with the necessity of employing as large a number of men as is generally found in mills of its size ; it is recognised to be one of the largest, most up-to-date saw-mills on the continent. It is equipped with gang-saw machinery, gang-sawed lumber being admitted as the best that can be manufactured. The capacity of the mill is 125,000 feet per ten-hour day. The drying yards occupy 1 The whole of Chapter XVIII. has been devoted to the study of the climate of the Hudson Bay Territory. ^ It has been estimated that there are 5,756,660 cords of pulpwood in the sole region between the Pas and Split Lake, extending 10 miles in width on either side of the Hudson Bay Railway. At $6.50 per cord, which is 3 cents less than the average price of pulpwood in Canada in 1913, this represents a value of $37,318,290.00, 138 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD 480 acres of land. The statement has been made by their President that once their intention of dupHcating the present capacity of their mill has been carried into effect, the limits that they have secured on the Carrot River, on the Saskatche- wan River, and on the adjoining lakes, will contain enough timber to last them fifty years. Spruce is the most common, not to say the only timber available : it is not of a very large sample, but the supply is quite abundant in places. It is now admitted that along the Hudson Bay Railway forests exist where lumber of a marketable quaUty will be found in sufficient quantity to guarantee the erection of several mills on the different rivers and on the numerous lakes of this northern country. The Hudson Bay Construction Company have a tie mill near Westray on the Pas River south-west of the Pas, and have several tie camps along the Carrot and the Saskatchewan Rivers, as well as on Clearwater Lake and other lakes up the line : they will be able to procure all the ties that they will require for the construction of the road along the line at a short distance on both sides of the right of way. The timber not being of a large size would naturally make splendid material for the pulpwood industry,'- which, so far, has re- ceived no one's attention, no doubt on account of the facility there is of procuring all this material in Northern Quebec and Northern Ontario in proximity to railroads. But once the Hudson Bay Railway gives the necessary connection, this industry in New Manitoba is sure to attract attention. It has been figured that the press of Western Canada alone could make use of all the products that would be turned out of the mills for some time, and that the manufacture of paper, so to speak, on the ground, should mean a great saving to these newspapers. Most of the parties who have travelled in this northern country, either as prospectors or employed in connection with the location of the Hudson Bay Railway, all by different routes, agree on having come across areas of timber of com- mercial value around the lakes and streams that they found on their way, varying in size from a few acres to some as large ^ M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 51. NATURAL RESOURCES 139 as fifty square miles, aggregating several thousand square miles. It must be noted, however, that for these areas which have been seen by these prospectors and surveyors, always more or less in the vicinity of the line being traced for the railway, immense areas on both sides no doubt exist that no one has ever seen and which may well be expected to con- tain timber of as good value. Whatever meagre information which may have been obtained fully guarantees the recom- mendation of a thorough examination of this most important resource in Manitoba's new territory. There is possibly no natural resource in Canada about which so inaccurate data are published as its water powers. People are in the habit of talking about these, without ever giving them- selves the trouble of fully studying out whether these data are based upon carefully ascertained facts obtained in the field or not, with the result that they are easily misled about the actual facts. It is very important to remember that to arrive at the proper value of a water power, other interests, such as municipal and domestic water supply, navigation, agriculture and irrigation, are just as much dependent upon precipitation, which is the primary source of water powers, as the water powers themselves. Fair allowance for the demands of the other interests that have just claims upon water as a natural source must, therefore, be made, from which it will be un- reasonable to judge of the exact value of a water power without first discounting considerably from what it may appear to be worth at first sight. There are rules for the calculation of this natural physical allowance that necessarily reduce considerably the figures which may be procured from actual examination. All these facts have, of course, been taken into consideration by the Commission of Conservation of Canada, from whose report most of this information is bor- rowed, in the publication of the data that it has procured on the subject, the result of nearly two years' work of investi- gation and compilation. With this little preface well understood, it will be interesting to know that New Manitoba contains one-third of the whole available water power in the Dominion. Not stopping to 140 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD mention numerous falls and rapids in the rivers which are known to exist, but about which no reliable data have yet been gathered, in fact limiting information to the Nelson River, one who has not given the matter much attention is surprised to find that almost 7,000,000 horse-power has been estimated as being capable of development on this wonderful river alone, which has a draining area of 430,000 square miles. The following are the best known of the rapids on the Nelson: Limestone Long Spruce Kettle Gull . Birthday . Grand Sepewesk Lake Bladder Whitemud . Ebb and Flow Cross Lake Horse-power 1,140,000 1,140,000 1,290,000 900,000 320,000 270,000 416,000 147,000 403,000 148,000 605,000 Nearer to the older portion of the province, on the Saskatche- wan River, are to be found the well-known Grand Rapids, situated near the mouth of the Saskatchewan River on Lake Winnipeg. Opinions as to the importance of these rapids vary considerably, some placing them as high as 350,000 horse-power; the figures supplied by the Commission of Con- servation are 80,000. The stretch of the river from Cedar Lake is seven miles, and the rapids extend over the last two miles. Over these rapids there flow the accumulated waters of the two Saskatchewan Rivers and all the other rivers to a point forty miles west of Banff. It is estimated by the most sanguine that Grand Rapids can be made to develop power enough to operate all the industries of the three provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. As to the millions of horse-power on the Nelson River, it is possible that in future years, after the Hudson Bay Railway is well in operation, the motive power will be changed from steam to electricity. The eventual feasibility of this was greatly impressed upon the Hon. Frank Cochrane NATURAL RESOURCES 141 during his trip over the hne last summer.^ The power plant would probably be located at Whitemud Falls, about half-way between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson Bay. By operating the line with electricity, it is estimated that not only would the cost be less, but that the difficulties experienced in keeping up steam during cold weather would also be obviated. As Dr. Orok, M.P.P. for the Pas, put it in his maiden speech in the Local House last winter, there is enough water power in New Manitoba not only to turn every wheel in the country, from the farmer's grindstone to the city's street railway, but also to light every home, every place of business, every village, town and city. Unfortimately, according to trustworthy tra- vellers and engineers, very few, if any, of the Nelson rapids or falls are susceptible of development, except at immense cost: the best and easiest water powers in that region, those of the Grass River, strangely enough, do not appear in any of the government reports. The onty railway which, up to the present, has been enter- prising and foreseeing enough to tap the north country besides the Hudson Bay Railway, now under construction, is the Canadian Northern Railway, which has a line running from Hudson Bay Junction on the Winnipeg- Prince Albert line to the Pas, about 90 miles north-east. The Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk Pacific Railways have both expressed their intention of also connecting with the Hudson Bay Railway, the former by buying out the charter of the Alberta Central, which is to go through Saskatoon and the Pas, where it is to branch out towards Port Nelson and Fort Churchill, the latter by showing on the large maps of North America, which it distributes to its clients, a line from Canora to the Pas and north to Fort Churchill. Besides those of these two companies, a number of charters have been secured, among others the Canadian North- Western, from Lethbridge in the west and Winnipeg in the east, the High River-Saskatchewan-Hudson Bay, the Saskatoon and Hudson Bay, the Brandon Saskatche- wan and Hudson Bay, and the Canadian Northern Railway two more lines, one from Melfort and the other from Prince ^ 1912. 142 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Albert. All these lines, in the intention of the promoters, are to connect with the Hudson Bay road at the Pas; the Canadian Northern Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and Cana- dian Pacific Railway only seem to have shown their intention of continuing further north after reaching that town. Other Canadian Northern Railway lines will also ultimately join the government road by using the piece of line already built by the company from Hudson Bay Junction to the Pas, such as the Craven branch, the Maryfield branch, while the same com- pany's lines from Regina and North Battleford to Prince Albert, and from Saskatoon and Humboldt to Melfort, will also have connections with the Hudson Bay Railroad over the projected Prince Albert-Pas and Melfort-Pas lines. The Saskatchewan Central is the name of a company which has a charter from the International boundary near North Portal to Yorkton: no doubt, when it begins building operations it will find it necessary to continue further north and also connect with the Hudson Bay Railway. So far the different companies which already operate lines in the rest of the country have been waiting to see what practical results will be attained by the building of the Hudson Bay Railway before connecting their system with the new road, and the main point they have taken into consideration has been the practicability of navigation on the bay and through the strait. As the building of the railway progresses, however, these companies will find that, from the point of view of local business alone, they will be warranted in entering Manitoba's new territory, as it is getting more evident every day that the natural resources are quite plentiful enough to necessi- tate railway communications almost immediately. Already statistics are being prepared by the Board of Trade of the North Country's chief centre, the Pas, with a view to draw the attention of the Canadian Pacific Railway and Grand Trunk Pacific Railway authorities to the necessity of making arrange- ments to get their share of the trade which is sure to almost immediately arise from the exploitation of local natural resources. In the case of the Grand Trunk Pacific, only a short line would be required to be built, as this company is now at NATURAL RESOURCES 143 work north of Canora towards Hudson Bay Junction, south of the Pas. There seems no reason why these two companies should not desire to get, as soon as possible, a share of the business which is now offering or will soon offer in lumber, minerals, fish, etc., as well as passenger service to and from these new districts, in which much settlement is bound to take place in the very near future. For the development of the many resources of New Mani- toba, it must be remembered that there will always be very important water routes besides the Hudson Bay Railway and the other railways which may decide to build through the district, and these will, no doubt, always be big factors in the transportation, to the different markets which will gradu- ally open up along Canada's new transcontinental, of the products of various kinds which, little by little, will be offered for sale by the settlers of this new district. In fact, these water routes from time immemorial have been the only ways of communication used, first by the Indians in going from place to place, later in trading with the posts of the Hudson's Bay Companies invading their territory, then by the men in the employ of these firms, when it came about that competi- tion forced them to go after the furs instead of waiting for them. At the present time they are still the only routes used by these people or by those who are beginning to go through the country prospecting, locating railways, or even pleasure seeking. In the remote portions of the country, owing to long portages occasioned by falls on rivers, or stretches of land between lakes, the birch-bark or Peter- borough canoes have been the only crafts used; but on the Saskatchewan River and on the lakes adjoining and com- municating, much heavier boats, moved by steam or gasoline, have for some time been utilised. The main port for these for years, but principally since the advent of the Canadian Northern Railway and Hudson Bay Railway, has been the Pas: there the Ross Navigation Company, who have four steamboats and a proportionate number of barges, have their quarters. They have established a regular service between the Pas and the neighbouring points, going as far west as 144 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Cumberland House and as far east as Grand Rapids. At high water their boats are able to navigate the Pas River. Other points served by them are Red Earth on the Carrot River, and Limestone Portage on Moose Lake, the latter point having been extensively used, during the last two years, in connection with the transportation of men, provisions, and material for the Hudson Bay Railway. The Finger Lumber Company, Ltd., have also two tug boats for the taking down of their rafts of logs from up the Carrot River, while the Hudson Bay Construction Company have one for their ties up the Saskatchewan River. Besides these, there are quite a number of gasoline tug boats and launches of all sizes and de- scriptions. Although the Pas is the most important river port between Winnipeg and the Rockies, so far nothing practical has been done toward the building of proper boat accommoda- tion, except an appropriation of $30,000 for docks voted upon at the last session of the House of Commons. As the Hudson Bay Railway extends into the northland and facihtates the transportation of heavy material, it may be expected that important river and lake traf&c will be estab- Hshed on several of the streams and lakes, on which the canoe is at present the only sort of craft seen. Apart from the main natural resources which have just been briefly enumerated and defined, there are a number of other natural features, which though perhaps less important are none the less as attractive to a certain class of people; such are the beauty spots of this immense territory where thousands of streams and lakes, surrounded with evergreen forests, stretch on all sides for miles. It has been truly said that New Manitoba will soon share with New Ontario the advantage of attracting, in the summer time, the lovers of grandiose scenery and the pleasures that nature affords. The hunter, the angler, the canoeist, will find in this northern country innumerable opportunities of enjoying themselves in the practice of their favourite sports. Lakes and rivers, with water as pure and as clear, and with sandy shores as pretty as those of Clearwater Lake, abound: these are replete with fish of all sizes, while the forests, the plains, the marshes. NATURAL RESOURCES 145 are full of game of aU kinds from duck to pelican, whisky jack to ptarmigan, rabbit to moose, or musk ox if one is pre- pared to go far enough. The climate in summer is ideal, there being none of those hot nights which further south prevent people from enjoying their rest as they should; this, no doubt, is due to the myriads of rivers and lakes which keep the atmosphere in a relatively constant state of coolness. It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that the climate of New Manitoba attains at any time any disagreeable ex- tremes. In winter, while the thermometer may at times go down a few degrees lower than in the older parts of the pro- vince, the lack of wind, due to the surrounding forests, renders the temperature perfectly bearable; many are the houses at the Pas which never use storm doors or windows. In the summer the very hot waves so common to the prairie are un- known; the days are bright and long, there being practically no night at the summer solstice. While the rainfall is suffi- ciently abundant, hail and thunder storms are not of common occurrence. After having portrayed as accurately as possible the main features of New Manitoba, it would not do to say that there are none of an unpleasant nature : where is the country which has not its quota of bad points to contrast with its good ones ? Whatever these may be in the case of New Manitoba, there can be no doubt that there are enough serious advantages to warrant the statement that the province in the boundary settlement has acquired an immense stretch of territory which, some day in the near future, will prove to be a gold mine for the people of divers aptitudes who will little by little choose it as their future home.^ * Dr. William Sinclair of the Pas, who made a canoe trip to and from Port Nelson in the late summer and early fall of 1914, on his return gave a short account of his impressions on the subject of this chapter in an interview with the Telegram of Winnipeg, which will be found in extenso at the end of this book under head of Appendix G. Read also the summary of that part of Major Chambers' book, The Unexploited West, dealing with the natural resources of Northern Manitoba, given in Appendix I. 146 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER XV THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER At Winnipeg, on July 12, 1910, the Honourable Mr. Pugsley, Minister of Public Works in the Federal Government, who was accompanying Sir Wilfrid Laurier in his western tour, was the first pubUc man to refer to an important though purely western transportation problem intimately connected with the Hudson Bay Railway. He said: "Nature has provided right at your doors a great river running down into Lake Winnipeg, a lake that is greater than Lake Ontario. The River Saskatchewan rises some 1300 miles to the west- ward, in the foothills of the Rockies. I am one of those who believe that with a reasonable expenditure of money, it will be possible to create a great system of inland navigation extending from the city of Edmonton and beyond, right down for 1300 miles to this great city." ^ Two days later, at the opening of the St Andrews locks, on the Red River, connecting Winnipeg with the lake. Sir Wilfrid had the following to say on the subject: " We have opened the Red River up to Lake Winnipeg and it now re- mains for my friend Dr. Pugsley to open the Saskatchewan River from Edmonton to Winnipeg. I am glad to say that my friend, the Minister of Public Works, is already at this work. He has engineers in the field surveying the Saskatche- wan River, and before many years are over I hold that we shall witness such a thing as has been witnessed to-day — that is to say, the opening to navigation of the Saskatchewan River up to the city of Winnipeg; and if God spares me, and 1 Castell Hopkins, op. cit. 1910, p. 265. " I have the greatest possible confidence that in the immediate future a great trafl&c will be developed on the Saskatchewan River between Edmonton and the Pa^, on the line of the Hudson Bay Railway leading to the Nelson River." — Hon. Robert Rogers, Minister of Public Works, at Edmonton, September 1913^. 7. c'? '^'Kr'^ QJ OJ THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER 147 if the Grace of God and the will of the people keep me where I am, I am sure that I shall see the day when a barge laden with coal at Edmonton, nay, at the very foot of the Rocky Mountains, will be unloaded at Winnipeg without breaking bulk on the way." ^ These two utterances were no doubt in answer to the resolution passed by the Associated Boards of Trade of Western Canada, a month earlier, " urging the improvement of navigation of the Saskatchewan River." In 1895 Mr. John Ross, who built the north shore line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, had written: "When the population of these territories comes to be counted by millions and tens of millions, as in course of time it will be, all the rail- roads likely to be built would not suffice to carry their surplus productions to the ocean, at least at such rates as would be satisfactory to agricultural communities. But through these wide regions Nature has provided a highway for cheap trans- portation, which can, at an outlay which the government might well bear, be rendered available." With the advent of the railway, and the settling of the southern portions of the western provinces, what had been the principal highway of the traders and explorers since Lav6rendrye's sons had discovered it in 1741, the River Saskatchewan, had been more or less forgotten. Only the Indians with their birch-bark canoes and the Hudson's Bay Company with its York boats, steam vessels, and barges had continued to navigate its waters, from Edmonton on the North Branch and Medicine Hat on the South Branch to Grand Rapids on Lake Winnipeg. As soon as the Hudson Bay Railway became a possibility of the near future, it appeared evident that this immense waterway of the old trading days should again be utilised, this time in transporting the grain of the western plains to the Pas, the south terminus of the new projected railway. The Peace River country was just commencing to attract the attention of the settler, offering the same advantages for colonisation that Manitoba and the south portions of Sas- * Castell Hopkins, op. cit. 19 lo, p. 266. 148 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD katchewan and Alberta had offered since the opening of the country by the Canadian Pacific Railway. On account of the remoteness of the district from the eastern markets and the consequent high cost of transportation, it seemed reasonable to expect that the settler would be encouraged in the task of opening these last immense plains by an effort to give him a means of transportation with the help of which he could compete successfully against the excessive charges which would necessarily be made by the railways entering the new territory. As early as 1858 the government of Canada, which was already looking with envy at the North-West Territory of those days over which the Hudson's Bay Company held sway, had sent an expedition to, among other objects, survey the River Saskatchewan with a view to study its navigability. Dr. Henry Youle Hind, M.A., professor of chemistry and geology in the University of Trinity College, Toronto, had been placed in charge. His report, published the following year, is one of the most extensive works on the subject, and, to this day, remains an authoritative record. The explora- tion, however, did not extend to the North Branch of the river, which, from all precedent reports handed down from the days of Henry and Thompson, had proved, beyond doubt, to be the more navigable of the two branches. Hind thus describes the South Branch and the main river : " The south branch of the Saskatchewan is a noble river, varying in width from half a mile to three hundred yards, for a distance of 100 miles from the Elbow; it then gradually contracts its channel and changes its character from a river full of sand-bars and mud-flats, pursuing a comparatively straight course, to a rapid and uniform torrent of water, sweeping down the narrow but deep valley it has excavated, irom one bank to the other in magnificent curves, until it joins the North Branch. . . . The main Saskatchewan is a river of very imposing magnitude. Like the South Branch, it occupies a narrow, deep valley, varying in width from i| to 3 miles, extending a few mOes below the Nepoween Mission. It flows in grand curves from side to side, and its general level is about THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER 149 300 feet below the country through which it has excavated its channel, after which it enters the low region." " About 158 miles below Fort a la Corne, near Tearing River, the main Saskatchewan is 330 yards broad, 92 feet deep in the channel, has a mean sectional depth of 20 feet, and flows at the rate of 2 miles an hour. 291 miles below the Grand Forks the main Saskatchewan enters Cedar Lake, 30 miles long. Issuing from this large body of water, it expands into a small lake, but soon again contracting its channel, the Cross Lake Rapids come into view; these rapids have a fall of 5| feet. Hudson's Bay Company's boats of 4 or 5 tons are tracked up them with half cargo, but loaded boats descending run the rapids. The length of the portage involved in ascending the river is 230 yards. The Saskatche- wan now enters Cross Lake, and after issuing from this elon- gated expanse of water, begins a rapid course to Lake Winnipeg, with a current often 3 and sometimes 3^ miles an hour. The head of the Grand Rapids is about 4 miles from the mouth of the river. The length of the portage is r mile 7 chains. The rapids below the portage are about i| miles long, so that the total length of the Grand Rapids exceeds 2| miles. The fall from the west to the east end of the portage, as ascertained by levelling, is 28^ feet. The fall below the portage is estimated to be 15 feet, consequently the total fall is about 43 feet." ^ In the course of his report, the author, in connection with the discoveries of gold in British Columbia, shows how, until the construction of a railway, the great Saskatchewan River seems to be the natural highway between the valley of the Mississippi on one hand, and the St. Lawrence Valley by way of Lake Superior on the other, with the province on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains. Already parties of American emigrants coming from St. Paul had been met, which were proceeding to Frazer's River via the North Branch, instead of by the Missouri route, which was considered more hazardous. A company, calling itself the Canadian North- West Trans- portation Company, was proposing to put in a Une of steam- ^ Hind, op. cit. pp. 9 and 29. ISO THE HUDSON BAY ROAD boats between the Red River as far as St. Paul and the North Saskatchewan, with a possible connection with Lake Superior by the Lake of the Woods, " In these projects, so rapidly approaching completion, the North Branch of the Saskatche- wan is the route to be followed to British Columbia. In a word, public attention seems to be almost exclusively directed to Lake Winnipeg and the North Branch." ^ As to the South Branch, the diversion of its waters down the Qu'Appelle Valley would make a communication for steamers possible from Fort Garry to near the foot of the Rocky Mountains, by way of the Assiniboine River: for this, a dam 85 feet high and 600 to 800 yards long across the South Branch, below the point of its junction with the Qu'Appelle River, should be sufficient. The settlements on the Red River would easily be protected from any possible resulting flood by means of a shallow cut through the gentle rise separat- ing the Assiniboine from the Rat Rivulet, which would permit the excess waters to flow into Lake Manitoba. While the project of the South Branch via the Assiniboine and Qu'Appelle Rivers has since been abandoned, the other has been mentioned from time to time, principally during the last few years. The main difficulties are the Grand Rapids, at the point where the main river flows into Lake Winnipeg, and where a canal with locks has to be built, and the Coal Falls on the North Branch, just above the Grand Forks, where 18 miles of rapids obstructed by boulders, many of which are exposed during low summer levels, create serious engineering problems. These, however, may be in part solved after the construction of the big power dam being presently erected by the city of Prince Albert at that point. Under the direct supervision of Mr. L. R. Voligny, District Engineer of the Department of Public Works, a survey of the Saskatchewan River from Prince Albert to the Pas was made in 1910 and 191 1, disclosing the fact that between these two points, about 300 miles, a channel for boats drawing 6 feet of water could be provided at the comparatively low cost of $1,500,000. In IQ12 the same work was continued between 1 Hind, op. cit. p. 23. THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER 151 Edmonton and Prince Albert, and in 1913 the work done in the three preceding years was reviewed, extending, however, beyond the Pas to Grand Rapids. Mr. VoHgny's confidence in the feasibility of the project is well known. It embraces both branches, although the North Branch has been the only one to receive any attention so far, presumably because the cities and smaller places along the South Branch have not yet thought it advisable to ask for a survey of the latter. In the meantime, the different bridges which span the South Saskatchewan at different points are built with the end of navigation in view. The time set for the whole work from Edmonton to the Pas is five years. The importance of the navigation of the two Saskatchewans in connection with the Hudson Bay Railway will be readily seen. Water routes being recognised to be so much cheaper than railways, barges laden with wheat may be floated down these two rivers, at an immense saving, to the Pas, there to be unloaded into the Hudson Bay trains for the last 424 miles of the inland route. The immense possibilities of the project have made a writer, in one of the numbers of the Canadian Magazine, in 1911, ex- claim with considerable appropriateness and foresight: " The future of the Saskatchewan is assured. To-day the Peace River country is on the eve of its development; to-morrow, as a new province, it will be sending its wheat to European markets by the cheapest and shortest route. And what is that route ? Beyond all doubt, it is by way of the Saskatchewan River and Hudson's Bay. The expenditure of a few million dollars would make the river safely navigable as far as the Pas, where waiting trains would whisk the golden grain to the hold of transatlantic steamships. This is not a dream, but a prophecy. Railways may scoff, but the fact must soon be faced; the Saskatchewan is again coming into its own." ^ In the expectation of the traffic which should take place in this connection at the Pas, the Federal Government is now spending several thousand dollars in dredge work and on a wharf. What has been to this date the most important ^ The Navigation on the Saskatchewan, by W. Everard Edmonds. 152 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD inland port between Winnipeg and the Rockies thus sees another impetus given to its already advantageous geo- graphical position. With time and the spending of several more milhon dollars it may be reasonably expected that the navigation of the Saskatchewan River, in relation to the Hudson Bay route, shall not stop at the Pas, but that it shall be continued past the Grand Rapids northward on Lake Winnipeg to Norway House and down the Nelson River, provided with a system of canals around its numerous rapids on the 200 odd miles where it is not now navigable, on to Port Nelson. The dream of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in which he saw an immense waterway from the foot of the Rocky Mountains to Winnipeg, forsooth to Quebec via the Lake of the Woods and the Great Lakes, will then not only be realised but exceeded to the extent of making several western cities seaports in minia- ture, in which the products of the farms may be loaded in barges which will only be transhipped to the transatlantic vessels at the terminals of the Hudson Bay route. Imagina- tion may even go one better and picture to itself the ironclad monsters steaming along the different rivers of the Nelson basin, far inland, for or with their cargoes. In the mean- time, on March 5, 1912, an organisation called the " Red River to the Hudson Bay Navigation Association," with Mr. R. D. Waugh, then Mayor of Winnipeg, as president, was formed at Grand Forks, in North Dakota, for the purpose of advocating the creation of an all-water route to Hudson Bay : which may serve to demonstrate that the scheme is not all dream for some enthusiastic westerners.^ 1 It may be safely said, however, that many generations wiU pass before the immense difficulties along the Nelson River will be sur- mounted. Indeed, what is required, except possibly for the 60 miles between Cross Lake and Manitou Rapids, is a continuous canal. Even that will be found hardly sufficient on account of the rapid drop towards Hudson Bay. As an example, it may be stated that reliable engineers in the employ of the Hudson Bay Railway have figured on the necessity of providing no less than twenty-seven locks to go through Gull Lake alone, a mere expanse of the Nelson River. As one of them puts it : "A season would not be sufficient to carry a boat from Port Nelson to Lake Winnipeg." Of course, it is difficult to picture to one's mind THE SASKATCHEWAN RIVER 153 " With the advent of the iron horse the west went railroad mad," some one has said very pointedly. This madness will pass away and the rivers will again have their days of useful- ness as the most natural highways of commerce. the millions which would have to be spent to build this gigantic canal from lake to bay. The possibility of a continuous navigation from Port Nelson seems to be wholly of the domain of conjecture and utopia. 154 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER XVI EXTENSION OF MANITOBA'S BOUNDARIES " It is more than thirty years since I made my first speech claiming extended boundaries and equahty in regard to our financial relations with the Dominion." So spoke Premier Roblin on February 29, 191 2, on learning that the agreement arrived at between Premier Borden on the one hand and himself with the Honourable C. H. Campbell on the other, the previous fall, had at last been practically ratified by the House of Commons. The victory of Manitoba in this connection was the pro- vincial event of the year. Manitoba, since its formation in 1870, had been curbed in her eastern and western expansions by the claims of Ontario, the requirements of the Hudson's Bay Company, the evolution of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the development of Dominion-wide educational and political problems. With its 73,732 square miles it had long remained the " postage stamp " province. Apparently on account of political differences, no agreement could be arrived at with the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier; when Mr. Borden became Premier in 1911, it was evident aU difficulties would be levelled : Manitoba would have a part of Keewatin with at least one port, possibly two, on Hudson Bay. At the end of January, conferences were held in Ottawa between the Federal Cabinet and Premier Roblin assisted by Honourable C. H. Campbell. The following agreement was struck : SUBSIDIES. ETC., FOR YEAR ENDING JULY i, 1912 Allowance for government and local purposes, B.N. A. $ Act, 1907 ........ 190,000.00 Eighty cents per head per annum on 455,614 population as ascertained by the census of June 191 1 . . . 364,491.20 Indemnity for want of public lands (cap. 50, Acts of 1885) 100,000.00 Interest at 5 per cent, on capital allowance in lieu of debt 178,947.66 Total .... $833,438.86 MANITOBA'S BOUNDARIES 155 Allowance for government and local purposes, B.N. A. $ Act, 1907 ........ 190,000.00 Eighty cents per head on 455,614 population as per the census of June 191 1, B.N. A. Act, 1907, sec. i . . 364,491.20 Indemnity for want of public lands . $562,500.00 Swamp lands deduction, about $134,230.00 University lands deduction . 15,000.00 149,230.00 Interest at 5 per cent, on 413,270.00 $8,107,500 . . . 405,375.00 Less interest at 5 per cent, on $475,816.15 . . . 23,790.81 381,584.19 Total $1,349,345-39 While the Manitoba ministers insisted on recognition of the allowances dating from 1905, being the year in which the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta had been formed, the Ottawa authorities refused to acknowledge them except as from July 1908, the date on which the Parliament of Canada had assented to the extension of the province's boundaries. The arrearages payable to Manitoba on that account were as follows: $ (a) Annual allowance in lieu of debt under Bill . . 381,584.19 Annual allowance already received .... 178,947.06 Arrearages each year ...... 202,637.13 Arrearages for four years, July i, 1908, to June 30, 1912. ........ 810,648.52 (b) Annual allowance in lieu of lands under Bill . . 562,500.00 Swamp lands deduction, average, say $105,500.00 University lands deduction . . . 15,000.00 Already received ..... 100,000.00 220,500.00 Deducting that sum of $220,500 from the proposed annual allowance in lieu of lands under this resolution, namely, $562,500, the difference is found to be $342,000. The estimated arrearage each year will, therefore, be $342,000, or for four years the sum of $1,368,000. Adding that to the sum of $810,648, above mentioned, we have the estimated total arrearages of $2,178,648. Swamp lands to be reconveyed to the Dominion totalled 8,232,831 acres. 156 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Honourable W. Pugsley both objected to the arrangement as being unfair to the older provinces. Mr. Borden showed that the arrangement was a fair, equal treatment: Manitoba would thus receive $1,349,345, Alberta $1,260,105, and Saskatchewan $1,551,280. Subsequent to the passing of the resolution, Premier Borden stated that the area of Manitoba would change from 73,732 square miles to 251,832 square miles. Premier Roblin, in expressing his satisfaction at the arrange- ment, outlined what uses his government would make of the $2,178,648 grant: a new agricultural college would be built, technical and industrial education would receive special attention, a good roads policy would be inaugurated, the new territory would receive considerable financial help. The Liberal element of the province complained bitterly of two aspects of the agreement reached : the five -mile- wide strip through New Manitoba given to Ontario in order to connect that province with Port Nelson, and the reconveying of the natural resources to the Dominion. Shortly after the Bill had become law in the Dominion House, Premier Roblin presented an Act in the Legislature of Manitoba, March 28, to corroborate it. The total amount to be received from Ottawa, including arrearages, stood at $2,896,387. Mr. Norris, Opposition leader, congratulated the premier on the cash bonus secured, but pointed out that if the province had retained her natural resources, the interest on the value of the swamp lands alone, as offered by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, would have represented a better revenue, with the $200,000 annual grant for the added territory, than had been secured under the present arrangements. The Bill passed, however, without division, on April i, and on May 20 a cheque for $2,178,648 was received from Ottawa. Arrangements were also made for a continuance of Mounted Police duty in the new territory, with the province paying a share of the expense. At Ottawa, however, the settlement of the Manitoba boundary question had not gone through the House of MANITOBA'S BOUNDARIES 157 Commons and the Senate without considerable debate on the school question in its relation to the new territory. It was alleged that under the North- West Territories Act of 1875 separate schools were permitted in Keewatin, and that there- fore the existing Roman Catholic school established by Bishop Charlebois at the Pas should be considered as a precedent in the safeguarding of the minority's rights in New Manitoba. The Quebec supporters of the government were unanimous in demanding that such a clause should be inserted in the Bill before the House. The Nationalists, by speech and in the press, worked strenuously to force the government's hand. On February 23, however, the resolutions presented by Premier Borden contained nothing in reference to educa- tion : nor did the amendment of the leader of the Opposition mention the question. The amendment was rejected by 103 to 65. It was only after the vote had so been taken on the second reading that P. E. Lamarche of Nicolet dealt with the matter, stating that " it would not be a policy of coercion but rather a policy of conciliation to insert in the Bill a saving clause for the rights of the minorities in the new district to be annexed." Mr. Monk, who followed, contended that inasmuch as the petitions of the Roman Catholics of the Pas for schools in 1909 had not been granted by the late government, by reason of lack of ordinances to that effect applicable to the territory, there were no legal rights whatever to safeguard: "As a matter of pure policy to say we will place that condition upon any transfer of territory would be absolutely contrary to the best interests of the minority in that province." Honourable L. P. Pelletier, who followed, believed Premier Roblin would yet do justice to the Catholics of Manitoba. Honourable R. Lemieux, for the Opposition, described Kee- watin as being under the revised statutes of Canada since January 31, 1907. Section 10 of these statutes provided that certain things could be done in an educational connection by the Commissioner-in-Council, if and when a territorial council was appointed and authorised to make ordinances ; neither of these conditions had yet been carried out, so that there could 158 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD be no separate schools, by law, in existence. He expressed the opinion that Manitoba would not accept the extension of her boundaries coupled with any restriction as to education: besides, it was not constitutionally possible, and it was cer- tainly politically impracticable. The second reading passed by 114 to 76 without any reference to separate schools, the new territory thus passing automatically under the laws of Manitoba. In committee the discussion continued. A. A. Mondou of Yamaska moved that " nothing in the present Act shall affect prejudicially the school rights of the minority, Roman Catholic or Protestant, which inhabit the territory now annexed to Manitoba." It was negatived on division. On the third reading of the Bill, March 12, the Honour- able J. C. Dohert}', Minister of Justice, spoke and defined the issue as follows: "The question that does arise, which has been the source of a very great deal of strong feeling and which has given to man}' of us who have a sense of responsi- bility much matter of careful thought, is the question whether in this territory that is going to be annexed to Manitoba there are existing rights established by law and which would require for their protection the inclusion of some special provision in this legislation." He answered the question in the negativ^e and with a clear, concise summary of the whole matter. Mr. Mondou moved again the amendment which he had presented in committee, though with some changes: " Nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or pri\dlege with respect to denominational or separate schools, which any class of persons have, at the date of the passing of this Act, by law or practice, in the territory' added to the province under the provisions of this Act." Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who then spoke for the first time since the commencement of the debate, gave it as his opinion that unless Manitoba agreed to the law of 1875, parliament had no authority to force it upon her; that it was a matter of conciliation. Mr. Mondou's motion was defeated with 160 against and 24 for. Another amendment, moved by Dr. Beland, asking for amicable negotiations with the Manitoba MANITOBA'S BOUNDARIES 159 Government to define the status of minorities, was also defeated by 108 to 52. The Bill was then read a third time. It passed the Senate with hardly any discussion, in spite of the many petitions presented to this honourable body by the minority of Keewatin and its friends in Quebec, where Henri Bourassa, Armand Lavergne, and C. H. Cahan addressed meetings and adopted resolutions, urging the government to recognise the rights of the Catholics in the territory to be annexed to Manitoba. On the other hand, the Orange factor was not inactive: it availed itself of every opportunity to denounce " all forms of sectarian education in any part of the province," and after the third reading of the Bill, approved the Dominion Govern- ment's action. At the 53rd annual meeting of the Grand Lodge of Ontario East, Kingston, on March 20, Colonel John Hughes, Grand Master, made this statement: " The French- Canadian bishops and their emissaries wished for a separate school clause for the territory included in the Bill, and brought all the pressure they could possibly do upon the members of the house and the government to secure such a result. They did all in their power by intimidation, by threats, and by appeals to race and religion. It was a supreme struggle between Church and State for supremacy. The government were threatened with defeat, but they stuck manfully to their guns." The denominational Roman Catholic school established by Bishop Charlebois at the Pas in the fall of 1911 is still in existence: it is supported by the voluntary donations of the parents and their friends.^ At the census taken by the Board of Trade of the town in August 1913, it showed an enrolment of 63 with an average attendance of 59.^ ^ Since this was written, the Roman Catholic School has been taken over by the Public School Board of the town, on the understanding that only Roman Catholic teachers shall be employed to teach Roman Catholic children, and that the latter shall occupy separate rooms. - The greater portion of the data for this chapter have been furnished me by the great work of Mr. Castell Hopkins. The Canadian Annual Review. i6o THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER XVII POLITICAL ORGANISATION When it became evident that the Manitoba boundary question would soon be settled, the few white inhabitants of the district to be annexed, while considerably removed from the rest of the country, began to organise to have their rights and claims recognised. The movement was started by the Hudson's Bay Herald, a newspaper recently established at the Pas, which in an editorial under date of January i8, 1912, called the attention of its readers to the advisability of being consulted by the men at the head of affairs in Manitoba. Said the Herald : " We are not without information as to what Manitoba is to receive, but, so far as we have seen, no one proposes to consult the inhabitants of the area to be added. They all calmly assume that the inhabitants of the north are willing to be Manitobans, and so we are, but on fair and equitable terms." Then, after enumerating the different claims of the new territory: " The Hudson's Bay Herald therefore suggests that a meeting of the citizens be called to consider these questions. We believe the meeting would be well advised if it would extend an invitation to Premier Roblin to visit Le Pas at an early date and ' press his suit.' Mr. Robhn to-day is, as far as we are concerned, in the position of a wooer who has got the consent of the old people first. It is time that he paid some attention to the fair daughter that he proposes to wed. Let him come. Let him be cordially invited to come to Le Pas and discuss the terms of the marriage settlement." Meetings of the citizens were held,^ an invitation was wired 1 The members of the committee chosen to invite and welcome Premier Roblin were: G. Halcrow, Senior (Chairman), Dr. Wm. Sinclair, J. Clark, Dr. A. Larose, H. S. Johnson, J. E. Rusk, Captain H. H. Ross, W. H. Bunting, T. H. P. Lamb, Rev. A. Fraser, Rev. E. Trigg, F. Fischer, R. Kerr, and A. H. de Tremaudan (Secretary). POLITICAL ORGANISATION i6i to Premier Roblin to come to the Pas to discuss the proposed admittance of Keewatin into Manitoba. The invitation was readily accepted, and on February i6, 191 2, Premier Roblin, accompanied by Honourable Hugh Armstrong, Provincial Treasurer, and a number of Winnipeg friends, arrived at the Pas. In the evening the following address^ was read to the honoured visitor: " To the Honourable Rodmond Palen Roblin, Member of the Legislative Assembly, Premier, Minister of Agriculture, Commissioner of Railways for the Province of Manitoba. " Honourable Sir: It is a great pleasure and an unprece- dented honour for the district included in the proposed extension of the Province of Manitoba, and for the town of Le Pas in particular, to have the opportunity of welcoming you on your first official visit to Greater Manitoba. " While the citizens of this place take the liberty of calling it a town, no organisation has taken place, otherwise we would have been pleased to extend to you and your party the franchise of the corporation, " We are pleased that you have recognised that this territory should not be considered as a mere chattel, but that matters pertaining to its admission into the Province, at the head of whose affairs you have been placed, by the public confidence, should be discussed with its citizens. " We have claims, which we consider just and reasonable, to present to you. We have studied them carefully, and will define their importance as clearly as possible. " The most important of these claims is parliamentary representation, both in the Federal House and in the Legisla- tive Assembly of Manitoba. " The representation at Ottawa is a matter which we think may be defined in the Bill which will be presented to the Federal House and approved by the Legislature of your * This address had been prepared by G. Halcrow, Senior, Dr. Wm. Sinclair, and A. H. de Tremaudan, and revised by a committee com- posed of those three gentlemen with the addition of Captain H. H. Ross and H. S. Johnson. L i62 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Province. We feel that provision should be made whereby the new territory should have one member in the present Parliament. " As to our representation at Winnipeg, owing to the vast- ness of our district and the difficulty for the elected members to visit their constituents, we feel that no less than two members should be allowed to us, and that provision should be made for their election as soon as the boundary question is settled. " There are several public institutions which we shall require immediately, prominent among which are a judicial district, a land titles office, police headquarters, telephones, with the usual officials connected therewith, and the buildings required for the different departments. " Accompanying the construction of the Hudson Bay Rail- way, the influx of settlers, labourers, and industrial workmen will be so large that such institutions shall be found an im- mediate and absolute necessity. A court house and jail with a resident judge and the usual minor officials, together with poHce headquarters, must be provided at once. " These are most important and urgent needs, in a country where for some time there will be so many men of all nationaU- ties, working on railway construction, and in the lumber camps and mills, and possibly, also, in the mines and quarries which are expected to open up with the advent of the railway. " Le Pas, having been recognised for almost a centur}' as one of the strategic points of Canada, is the only natural place where these buildings and offices may be located to any general advantage. " Le Pas v/ill also soon be the radiating point of a district where settlers will take up land. A land titles office will therefore be found necessary from the beginning to deal with the business properly. Already many parties here, and in the surrounding district, have titles to land with which they find it very difficult to deal under present conditions. " The telephone system could easily be extended from Dauphin through Swan River and Barrows to connect at Le Pas, while a local system is an absolute necessity. POLITICAL ORGANISATION 163 " We are informed that the debt of Manitoba is about $15,500,000, in addition to many millions of indirect liability in the form of railway bonds, etc. These liabilities are at present spread over an area of 73,732 square miles. When the boundaries are extended they will be spread over 251,832 square miles. We will not have benefited through the ex- penditure of any of that money, though it is quite evident we shall have to help repay a very large portion of it. It seems, therefore, only reasonable that a compensation should be allowed in the form of special grants for roads, drains, high schools, hospitals, etc., as the needs arise. " Again, the allowance by money payment from the Federal Government will be considerably increased on account of this added area. All of this increase, with the exception of the added cost of administration, should be spent in bringing the new district on a par with the older portion of Greater Manitoba. " As the fur trade is a very important part of our resources, especially in the northern part of the district, and as the restrictions of the present game laws of Manitoba are too drastic in some cases, we think that a special game act could be made applicable to the new district, retaining for the Indian, trapper, voyageur and traveller, the privileges they now enjoy, at least until such time as conditions will warrant the intro- duction of more severe legislation. " There are also some matters that may be of a federal nature, but which we believe may be brought to your attention with the humble request that you use your influence and that of your government in dealing with them to our benefit, and that of the Manitoba to be. " As construction progresses settlers will be taking up land along the Hudson Bay Road, as it is shown that thousands of acres of good grain-growing land are available for cultivation. A Dominion land office will be an almost immediate necessity. " The value of the equipment of boats saihng from Le Pas amounts alread}' to $100,000 or more. An}^ harbour, docks, or facilities of this nature have so far been provided by private efforts and finance. Immediate improved accommodation is required. 164 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD " Data already published by the Federal Government show that there are several millions of acres of the best alluvial soil along the Saskatchewan River and its tributaries which could be reclaimed at a very inconsiderable cost per acre, by lowering the basin of the river. Dredging and providing the river with locks, would at the same time improve navigation. Your government would be well advised to co-operate with the Dominion Government in carrying out this work. " Speaking generally, we naturally expect that it will please you and your government to accord us a treatment propor- tioned to the conditions in which this district will be found on its admission into Manitoba. " Such are the different claims and requests that we feel justified to place before you. We trust that none of them will appear unreasonable, and that the marriage settlement, mentioned some few weeks ago by our local press, may be both easy and agreeable. " For the citizens of the new territory to be added to the Province of Manitoba in meeting assembled at Le Pas, this twelfth day of February, a.d. 1912. " G. Halcrow, Sr., Chairman." In advancing to make his reply, Premier Roblin ^ was greeted ' A copy of the Herald, containing a full report of the different functions of the day, including the address to and the reply of Premier Roblin, was mailed to him under special cover. His reply follows: Province of Manitoba, " Premier's Office. •' Februaiy 27, 191 2. H. DE Tr6maudan, "Le Pas, N.W.T. Esq., " My dear Tr6maudan. — I have just received the issue of the Herald of the 22nd, and have read both your editorial and the report of the public meeting at which I was present recently in your town. I write to thank you for the exceedingly kind words that you there set down, and to assure you that it will be my ambition to merit every good thing that you have said. "Unfortunately not much progress has been made at Ottawa since I was with you. I hope that the matter will take shape and form at once, and that we will know just what is going to happen in the course of a few days or weeks at the furthest. In the meantime we have nothing to do but wait, but I firmly believe everything will come out right, and 'VM' H 0^1 S t3 OCJ POLITICAL ORGANISATION 165 with long and repeated applause. He thanked the people of the Pas for their kind invitation of a few days past to visit their city, and expressed his pleasure at meeting them. The fact that he had travelled almost 500 miles to judge de visu of the great resources of Northern Canada, was a proof of the interest that he was taking in this great hinterland. His coming to the Pas reminded him of his arrival at Winnipeg thirty-five years ago, when that city was nothing more than a small village, far from having the advantages that the Pas had. There was a great future ahead of this town. A more beautiful site for a city he had never seen ; with unity amongst its citizens, industry, and enterprise, there was no reason why this town should not grow rapidly. Everything that he had expected, and more, had been realised. His reason for coming, besides the invitation that he had received, was the change of boundaries of the Province of Manitoba soon to take place. He felt that it was right for him to come and discuss the conditions under which the new territory would be admitted into Manitoba. He had been thirty-one years in public life, and during that time had never seen a greater opportunity for development in the country than at the present time, with the Hudson Bay Road being rushed to completion. For thirty years he had advocated the construc- tion of this road and the extending of Manitoba's boundaries, but not until the Borden Government had come into power had there been any likelihood of these two requirements being fulfilled; for thirty years he had pressed upon the different federal administrations the justice of Manitoba's claim that the eastern boundary along the 89th degree of latitude which had been recognised in 1880 should be adhered to. But if it does, with the union of the north-west territories as outlined as a future portion of Manitoba, and the older part of the province, we can together go forward along the line of provincial development to a point of greatness that will give us a proud position in this Dominion. To this end I am sure that we will all work, and a great deal depends upon leaders of public thought like yourself, and I must say that I am pleased with the high and patriotic course and position that you are taking in this connection. "With assurances of my kindest regards, believe me to be, Yours very truly, — R. P. Roblin." i66 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Ontario, in the reference of the matter to the Privy Council, had won its case. In 1901 the Parhament of Canada had recognised the justice of Manitoba's claims for an extension of boundaries, but a settlement had been delayed until after the formation of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Since then, owing to the late federal administration having refused to treat Manitoba on the same financial basis as the new provinces, it had remained a postage stamp on the map of Canada. It had been left to Premier Borden to say that Manitoba's boundaries should be extended to Hudson Bay and that it should receive a subsidy on a par with those of the new provinces. The greatest difficulty had been the minority in Manitoba who would make people believe that he was a " being with hoofs and horns " ; an evil spirit. He had thought he should show that he was not quite so bad as that. He would now deal with the address, which looked to him a rather considerable bill of fare, in which nothing had been left out. He felt that if he was able to digest it all there would not be much left of him to continue his duties as Premier of Manitoba. He would explain that the part of the territory which was to go into Manitoba was a part of land which no one had ever asked for. While he was not in a position to guarantee anything, the bill not having been introduced in the House of Commons, he could state that both the Federal and his government had agreed on boundaries and financial arrangements, and that confirmation by both Houses was all that was needed; this being done, Manitoba would have equality with the other provinces. He thought that if he were able to accomplish this, not only would Manitoba lead, but it would outstrip all other provinces and become the key- stone of Canada. He admired the business-like, direct way in which the address had been constructed and the citizens of the Pas had approached him. He felt sure that the Federal Government would give them fair play as to representation. As far as the Legislature of Manitoba was concerned, the House would meet on February 22, when he would introduce a measure for one member to represent this territory as soon as possible, if not for this session, certainly for the next one. POLITICAL ORGANISATION 167 Then the people of the new territory would have a man in the House to see that their rights were protected. As progress would take place, additional representation would be granted.^ There were here wonderful possibilities in the fisheries, the forests, the minerals, and other resources, including agriculture. Farmers would soon come and locate here. All institutions asked for would be granted as conditions warranted. Regarding telephones, there had been enough noise made on the adver- tised question to deafen a bronze statue, and if the opposition papers were to be believed, the system was bad, and it should be undesirable for any town to obtain the installation of any. He could not promise any long-distance connection at present, but a local system would be built just as soon as the boundaries were extended and the place had organised municipally. He would deny most emphatically that the debts of Manitoba were as high as mentioned in the address, which showed the evil ways his opponents were using to discredit him. Pro- vincial Treasurer Armstrong would deal with the question. This statement regarding the debt and also the following statement, that the increase of subsidy should all be spent in the new territory, showed how carefully the address had been prepared. However, the increased portion of the subsidy was not being granted wholly on account of the new territory, but by virtue of a rearrangement of financial terms. If Dr. Sinclair^ meant that the portion granted on account of the new territory should be spent so, then he was quite prepared to promise that there would be no cause for complaint. As to the game laws, he would admit the fairness of the request made and see that the law of Manitoba was so amended as not to disturb the present conditions. He would suggest that the game guardian be sent to Winnipeg to present the claims of those interested to the House. He would promise to use his influence with the Federal Government to obtain the necessary harbours, docks, and other facilities of the same nature required. The greater part of the efforts of Greater Manitoba would no doubt be * New Manitoba has now three members. The names of the seats are: The Pas, Grand Rapids, and Churchill-Nelson. * Dr. Sinclair had read the address. i68 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD spent on the new territory. If the developments at the Pas, which had surprised him and his friends, were indications of what could be done in the district, there was every probability that with the added advantages that it would have, Manitoba would become the foremost province in the Dominion. If, as small as it had been in the past, Manitoba had attained such an enviable place as it had attained, what would it become when maritime opportunities would be given it? We would then all be proud of being citizens of Manitoba, \\nien he would return in the fall he felt sure that he would then find at the Pas a city of 4000 or 5000 people. The loud applause having subsided Provincial Treasurer Armstrong followed. He had tried to get out of coming but Premier Roblin had insisted, and as they of the cabinet had always been accustomed to consider him as " the boss," he had had to surrender. The rest of the province would be very pleased to welcome the new territory. There could be no doubt about the Pas becoming one of the great cities of Manitoba. On account of its geographical position, in fact, it should become the second city in the province. The statement con- cerning the debt of Manitoba embodied in the address was a proof of what the Opposition was ready to resort to for the sake of discrediting the present administration of Manitoba. Recently it had gone so far as stating that he would resign on account of disagreement with the other ministers. Since 1900 not $1 had been borrowed for current expenses, and out of the revenue of the province, buildings, representing a large sum of money, had been erected. There w^as an indirect liability by way of railway bonds, but this was secured by a mortgage on the properties of the railway companies which had secured the government's signature. Manitoba had $9,000,000 invested in telephones, and $1,000,000 in grain elevators. Outside of these sums there was not $1 of public debt. The fact that the province was able to borrow money on the London market at 2t\ per cent, was pretty good evi- dence that its credit was as good as that of any other province. Under the old federal S3'stem Manitoba had been receiving $1,000,000 less than the other two western provinces, which POLITICAL ORGANISATION 169 received interest on $8,000,000, while Manitoba received interest only on $3,700,000. Saskatchewan was receiving a subsidy of $800,000. Manitoba was getting only $500,000. He was pleased that Premier Roblin was on the eve of obtain- ing a square deal. There were in the party men representing various industries, finances, and newspapers, who were most taken up with the position of the Pas and the new district. He would thank the citizens for the splendid reception given to the party, and hoped that some one would convey his and the rest of the visitors' thanks to the ladies, who had prepared the beautiful banquet at which they had dined. A local speaker showed the absolute necessity for the estab- lishment of a customs office for the new district of the Pas, a request which had been inadvertently left out of the address. There were a number of other speakers on the different questions at issue. In reply to a remark by one of the local men that he had not specifically promised granting the requests of the new terri- tory, Mr. Roblin stated that he wished the people to under- stand that public money was not expended according to the size of a district, but as needs would arise at local points, such as the Pas, Churchill, or York Factory. Manitoba was not absorbing the North-West Territory, but was forming a union with it, to make Greater Manitoba the greatest province of the Dominion. He was very much impressed with the business manners, not only of the white people, but also of the Indians, and wished to thank their chief for his words of welcome.^ He would assure them that their rights would be protected. He did not know of any place where public moneys could be expended to better advantage than at the Pas ; no place had a greater future; nothing could stop its progress. He had visited many places in his public life, and, honestly and truth- fully, he had never gone to a town, where he was a total stranger, where he had been so well received. He would rather have the good-will and the esteem of his countrymen 1 See the whole of the ladiaa chief's address, infra, end of Chapter XIX. 170 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD between the 45th parallel and the shores of Hudson Bay than the fortune of a Rothschild or the wealth of the Orient. The address presented to Premier RobHn and his reply on February 16, 1912, at the Pas, form, so to speak, the charter of New Manitoba : grants and other public measures affecting that portion of the northland since that date have all been and are still based on the demands and promises made on that memorable day; as Premier Robhn said, in a familiar way, in the course of his main speech, there had been nothing forgotten in the address, and he had found himself in the obligation of defining the policy of his government on every important point in which the new territory was interested.^ 1 A tangible result of the intelligent move taken by the citizens of the Pas on this occasion is that the following institutions, or improvements, have been, or are in course of being, secured for their town: judicial centre with court house and jail, headquarters for Royal North-West Mounted Police detachment, cash grants, guarantee of civic debentures, Dominion land office, customs house, river dredging and wharves, local telephones, etc. CLIMATE 171 CHAPTER XVIII CLIMATE Because Manitoba's new territory is some hundred miles further north than the rest of the province it is imagined that the climate is very rigorous. This is a totally wrong im- pression. No doubt, in winter, the thermometer will go down somewhat lower than at points a distance south, but it must be remembered that in summer the days are longer. " A region lying in a higher latitude, though showing a lower yearly average temperature, may during the growing months, owing to its longer hours of sunshine, have quite as good an average."^ A traveller in those regions, Mr. J. W. M'Laggan of Strath- cona, remarks: " The summer seems to be good, and where good land is found there should be no trouble to raise crops of all hardy grains and vegetables." The climate seemed good to Mr. M'Laggan in the first week of September. The foliage was green; there was no sign of severe frost, and butterflies, hornets, and other insects were numerous and active. The first frost noted was on August 31, " but not enough to damage wheat." The weather was fine in the morning and it rained in the afternoon. Near Cormorant Lake he saw, on August 27, a garden of " potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, and cabbage doing well with no sign of frost." On September 13 he noted that the weather was fine but cold, with a heavy frost in the morning; that the leaves were falling, and that it began to look like autumn. Considerable rain followed, which, on October 4, gave place to snow, to be followed by rain. The night of October 7 is noted as the first really cold one of the season; but the morning brought rain. There was snow again on the 8th with 1 M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 25. 172 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD high wind and ice on the water along the shore of Goose Lake. It was " fine and warm " on the nth, and " clear and cold " on the 13th when he reached the Pas on his return.^ " The cold at Nelson House is no more intense than that of a winter in Northern Manitoba as at present constituted," says the Reverend John Semmens, who spent several years as a missionary in the north countrj^ on the banks of the Bumtwood River at Nelson House, " but the frost sets in rather sooner, and tarries rather longer than it does at the north end of Lake Winnipeg. Roots and vegetables planted about May 24 do well and are gathered about September 15. The presence of so much water so regulates the temperature that there are few frosts either early or late to make growth uncertain; yet, in my experience, wheat is not a sure crop. All depends upon the season. Oats and barley will do well any time." ^ Rev. Dr. John M'Dougall, a pioneer missionary of the west, thus describes the country to the south of Spht Lake: " There are but two seasons there — summer and winter — each fitting into the other with little or no spring or fall. This, to a large extent, does away with the broken weather which is so often experienced in the east at the changing of the seasons, and makes the conditions more favourable for settle- ment. The winter is steady and pleasant, and although cold, is not nearly so severe as is generally supposed. In fact, the climate is far more moderate than in Southern Manitoba, the home of 'No. i Hard ' wheat. The summer begins early and the growth and vegetation are almost of a tropical character. This is attributable to the longer hours of sunshine that prevail and the proximity of streams of 1 M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 27. In his very interesting little book entitled First Pastoral Visit to the Indian Missions, Mgr. Ovide Charlebois, O.M.I. , Bishop of Berenice, Vicar- Apostolic of Keewatin, with residence at the Pas, writes under date September 29, 5 p.m. (191 1), from Grand Rapids: " The weather was calm this morning, but very cold. The water froze at the sides of the canoe, and on the paddles. It did the same in my cruet while I was saying Mass in the tent. However, a fine sun came in good time to warm up the atmosphere, so that we feel more comfortable at present" (p. 69). ' M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 28. -a. X a. CLIMATE 173 living waters everywhere in the district, each of which is conducive to plant nourishment." ^ As early as 1774, Arthur Dobbs, the historian of La France about whom we have read, wrote: " There might be com- fortable settlements made in most places, and very tolerable even in the worst and coldest parts of that continent, which are the north-east and north-west sides of the bay; but on the southern and western sides of the bay there might be made as comfortable settlements as in Sweden, Livonia, or on the south side of the Baltic; and farther into the country south- west the climate is as good as the southern part of Poland and northern part of Germany and Holland." ^ In 1752, Robson, the architect of Fort Prince of Wales, had a similar opinion: " I have seen a small pea growing without any culture (at York Factory). Most kinds of garden stuff, particularly pease and beans, grow here to perfection. ... I am of opinion that barley would flourish. . . . Gooseberries and red and black currants are found in the woods growing upon such bushes as in England. ... I should expect by no more labour than would be proper for my health to procure a desirable livelihood; not at all doubting of my being able to raise pease and beans, barley and probably other kinds of grain (on Hayes River) .... The natural produce of Hudson Bay grows very fast, and comes to perfection much sooner than that of England. There is no spring or fall — a leap from winter to summer. . . . The soil is fertile, the climate temperate, fit for the produce of all kinds of grain and for raising flocks of tame cattle. ... At Churchill horses and cows have been kept in winter, though greatly exposed to the frost and cold, ... at Moose Factory sown wheat has stood the winter frosts and grown very well the summer following, . . . black cherries also planted here have grown and borne fruit, as would other trees if propagated; . . . the climate is not worse than that of Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Poland and North Germany." ^ " Captain Middleton reached Churchill on August 10, ' M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 30. ^M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 39. * M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 38. 174 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD 1741, and wintered there. His records evidence no great severity of weather. The first snow fell on September i. The geese then went southward. By October 18 it became reaUy cold and winter weather continued; but by March 17 it grew milder, and by April 2 the record is, ' calm and warm, with a clear sky.' There was, of course, frost after that."^ Mr. E. Mosher, of Halifax, was at Churchill from Sep- tember 2 to January 7, superintending the construction of buildings for the Royal North- West Mounted Police. " So far," he said, " as the weather is concerned, I would as soon have spent the months in Churchill as in Halifax." He " did not find the cold any more severe than in the east." According to his observations, " the lowest temperature registered was 39° below zero." ^ Speaking of his trip between Fort ChurchiU and the Pas in the fall of 1906 and the following winter, W. Thibeaudeau, civil engineer, writes in his report : " September was very windy, rather cold, and a few days of rain. October, splendid weather, bright and clear. November, some snow and rather windy. December, colder and more snow. The coldest day was 49° below zero on one day." ^ Professor Macoun, whose optimism with regard to the north country is well known and whose name wall be handed down to posterity in Canada in this respect, says: " In con- clusion, I may say that the climate of the whole northland is a stable one, and as local conditions change it will improve, and where small spots are now called good land whole areas will take that term. The low altitude and the long da}' are fixed conditions and will always be the Scime. The forest will be cleared and the muskegs drained, and as the land becomes drier the frosty conditions will pass away and a good country will result." ^ Let us now hear what Mr. R. F. Stupart, Director of the Meteorological Service for the Dominion of Canada, had to 1 M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 43. ^ M'Keana, op. cit. p. 43. 'M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 52. * Canada's Fertile Northland, Evidence of Mr. R. E. Young, D.L.S.. Superintendent of Railway Lands, before the Select Standing Committoc on Agriculture and Colonisation, 1907-8, p. 151. CLIMATE 175 say in his evidence before the Select Committee of the Senate, April 5, 1907. The report, published under the direction of Mr. R. E. Young, D.L.S., Chief Geographer, reads as follows: "As to the isothermal lines of that part of the country lying south and west of Split Lake on the route of the proposed railway between the head of the Pas and Churchill, Mr. Stupart explained that in the month of June the district in question is between the isothermal line of 50 and 55. The corresponding isothermal district in Europe would be the extreme north of Scotland in June. In July that district is between the isothermal lines 55 and 60, and that would corre- spond with Scotland and a portion of Scandinavia. In the month of August the district in question is about 55, and there you have Scotland again. That country had a reasonably fair climate for the three summer months, June, July, and August." The lowest temperature he had at Cape Prince of Wales in the winter of 1884-85 was 38° below zero, but the average temperature was 23^°.^ In the same book there is given the report of Mr. William M'Innes, M.A., geologist, before the same committee: " Mr. MTnnes said he could not very well closely indicate the isothermal line on the part of the country he had explored last year, but he could say that the country averaged from four to five degrees in the summer months higher temperature than the same latitude further west. He thought that the isothermal line which would go past the north end of the country he had been speaking of would come down as far as the north shore of Lake Superior, which would be a very long distance south. He had records kept during all summer of the temperatures through that western country, and he had a summary of the record kept in the preceding summers. " He was rather surprised at the warmth of that western country in summer. He was surprised at the way heat kept up in the evenings. He kept the thermometer readings morning, noon and six o'clock in the evening, and found the six o'clock temperatures were almost as warm as the noon ^ The New North-West, The Senate Report of 1907, published under the direction of R. E. Young.'D.L.S., Chief Geographer, etc., p. 133. 176 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD temperatures. That country has a very long day in summer. The day in those high latitudes is very much longer, and the growing time proportionately longer. In June they have about eighteen hours of daylight. " As to the district where he found the 170 miles of agricul- tural land he had described, he only reached there about the middle of June. There was no frost in the balance of June or in July, and no frost in August, excepting once, on, he thought, the 29th, when the thermometer dropped just to freezing point. There was not enough frost to touch vegetation at all in the valley of the river where he was. He noticed when he got out to the Saskatchewan there was rather a high ridge on which there were a lot of half-breed settlers. He got there on September 6, and noticed on top of the hills where they had potatoes that they had been touched just on the tops, but down in the \dllages the potatoes in the garden of the Hudson Bay post had not been touched at all. He presumed that frost was on August 29. " The witness had often been over the Canadian Pacific Railway between Lake Nipissing and Port Arthur, and the country he had traversed from the Pas eastwards as com- pared with the country north of Lake Superior was much superior." ^ The evidence of Donaldson Bogart DowUng, B.Ap.Sc, of the Geological Survey, is given in the following words : " With reference to the climate, witness did not care to say very much, because he had only been in the country in the simimer time, and without having taken records of temperature it would hardly do. The country was in a flourishing condition, and they never expected to have anything frozen. The most northerly point where he had seen vegetable products in Keewatin was on the Nelson River about 56°, which would be 180 miles north 2 of Churchill. At Churchill they had winds from the south-west all summer long, which made it very warm, but there were two days when the wind shifted and came from the north, the people wanted their overcoats at 1 The New North-West, etc., p. 70. * No doubt Mr. Bowling means " south.'" CLIMATE 177 once. Then the warm weather returned. It did not freeze, but it was very cold. It was very pleasant in the summer. Sometimes there are very heavy rainfalls, but witness was fortunate in having dry summers. He had a couple of showers. However, it is not a very dry climate." ^ For sixteen years that potatoes were grown at Fort Albany, on James Bay, by Father F. X. Fafard, O.M.I., for some time Vicar-General of the Bishopric of Keewatin at the Pas, not one failure of crop was recorded. The following is from the book of Professor Henry Youle Hind, M.A., on the North-West Territory conditions: "The vegetable productions in the gardens attached to Fort a la Corne, with a brief notice of the periods of planting and gathering, will show that the climatic adaptation of the North Branch (of the Saskatchewan) near the Grand Forks is not of a character unfavourable to agricultural operations. . . . On August 7, in the garden attached to Fort a la Corne (about 18 miles below the Grand Forks) potatoes were in flower, and the tubers of early varieties of the size of hen's eggs. Cabbages were well formed. Beet-roots and carrots quite ready for the kitchen. Indian corn in silk, from seed which was grown in the garden last year. Peas ready for gathering. " In the garden attached to the Nepoween Mission, under the charge of the Rev. Henry Budd (a zealous missionary of native origin), all the vegetables gave promise of fair and remunerative crops. The potatoes were superb; turnips, both swedes and white, remarkably fine; Indian corn, from seed grown on the spot last year, in silk; wheat rather too rank in the stalk — it measured 5 ft. 3 in. in length to the ear, which was well formed but green, and it seemed doubtful that it would ripen. Mr. Budd speaks very favourably of the soU, climate, and extent of land available for agricultural purposes." ^ I will quote again from the Hudson Bay Route of J. A. J. M'Kenna: " Mr. MTnnes gave particular attention to the question of climate, which he rightly considered of vital ^ The New North-Wesi, etc., p. 60. ' Hind, op. cit. p. 34. M 178 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD importance in connection with this region. He kept a careful record of temperatures, and from the time it was begun on June 19 until the night of September 29, when the thermometer fell to 26°, there was no frost that affected even tender vegeta- tion. On the night of August 10 the temperature fell to the freezing point, but did not get low enough to do damage, at least in the valley of Grassy River, though some of the potato vines on the summit of the high ridge north of the Pas were slightly touched. He was convinced that the district is not at all too cold for general agricultural operations. The longer daily duration of sunlight in these high latitudes must be taken into consideration, and for purposes of comparison with more southerly localities yearly averages of temperature are of no value. A region lying in a higher latitude, though showing a lower yearly average temperature, may during the growing months, owing to its longer hours of sunshine, have quite as good an average. His record showed that during July the temperature at 6 o'clock p.m. was equal to or higher than the noon temperature on fifteen days; during August on nine days, and during September on eight days, and the 6 p.m. averages for these months were lower than the noon averages by only 1°, i|° and 2°, respectively. For the purpose of comparison, Mr. M'Innes procured from the Director of the Meteorological Service at Toronto an abstract of the past summer's temperatures at Minnedosa, Ston}/ Mountain, Hillview, and Brandon, and comparing them with his record he concluded that the country along the route of the proposed railway to the bay is conspicuously warmer than the same latitude 400 miles further east." ^ The following is the summary portion of the official report of G. Halcrow, Sr., Observer at the Meteorological Station of the Pas for the year 1913, as published in the pamphlet of the Board of Trade of that town issued in the spring of 1914 : Yearly mean temperature observed at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. 28.1°; yearly mean maximum 40.9°; yearly mean minimum 20.3°; average mean for year of maximum and minimum 30.5°; mean of highest maximum for year 59.0°; mean of * M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 25. CLIMATE 179 lowest minimum for year 1.8°. Rainfall 11.33 inches; snow- fall 30.7 inches. Reckoning 10 inches of snow equal to i inch rain, total precipitation 14.40 inches. The highest maximum was attained in June with 86.0°, and the lowest minimum in January with 51.0°.^ 1 The Pas, The Gateway to Hudson Bay. p. 25. See also what Dr. William Sinclair of the Pas had to say on his return from Port Nelson in the fall of 19 14, Appendix G. i8o THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER XIX THE NATIVE POPULATION A BOOK on the Hudson Bay route and New Manitoba would hardly be complete without a word about the native population of the territory. Sir John Richardson writing on the subject in 1851 says: " From Sault Ste. Marie to the Saskatchewan, and the banks of Churchill River, the native inhabitants term themselves In-nin-yu-wTik or Ey-thinjni-wuk, and are members of a nation which formerly extended southward to the Delaware. That part of this widely spread people which occupies the north side of Lake Huron, the whole border of Lake Superior, and the country between it and the south end of Lake Winni- peg, call themselves Ochipewa, written also Ojibbeway, or Chippeway (Note — They are the Sauteurs or Saulteaux of the Canadians, and Sootoos of the fur traders) ; and the more northerly division, who name themselves Nathe-wj^thin- yu, are the Crees of the traders, and Knistenaux of French writers. In a subsequent chapter I shall speak more parti- cularly of the place which this people hold among the aboriginal nations. At present, I wish merely to point out some of the circumstances which have tended to work out a difference in the moral character of these two tribes, essentially the same people in language and manners. The Crees have now for more than twenty-six years been under the undivided control and paternal government of the Hudson's Bay Company, and are wholly dependent on them for ammunition, European clothing, and other things which have become necessaries. No spirituous hquors are distributed to them, and school- masters and missionaries are encouraged and aided by the Company to introduce among them the elements of rehgion and civilisation. One village has been established near the depot at Norway House, and another at the Pas on the THE NATIVE POPULATION i8i Saskatchewan, each having a church and school-house and a considerable space of cultivated ground. The conduct of the people is quiet and inoffensive; war is unknown in the Cree district; and the Company's officers find little difficulty in hiring the young men as occasional labourers. " The national name of this people is derived, according to the custom of the Americans, from the word ' man,' which is in different dialects Ethinyu, Ethin-u, Inin-yu, or Inine. According to Schoolcraft they do not call themselves Unis- chauba (common light — Schoolcraft) or aborigines, but, on the contrary, have a tradition current among the southern members of the nation, that the country they now hold was previously possessed by the Alligewi, of whom the name only remains in the appellation of the AUeghani Mountains. " Among this people there are to be found finer examples of the human figure, handsomer countenances, and a more manly and independent carriage, than among the Eskimos and ' Tinne '; and West's exclamation on seeing the Apollo Belvidere, that he was a young Mohawk warrior, may be adduced as evidence of the natural grace which a ranger of the woods, unfettered by artificial restraints, may possess. In fact, the attitudes of the Eythinyuwuk are occasionally, and especially when actuated by strong passion, striking, and sometimes elegant; yet the habitual gait of the Red Man is not a graceful one. The toes are turned in; the step, though elastic, has an appearance of insecurity, and is by no means majestic, nor even pleasing, to one unaccustomed to see the centre of gravity thrown so much forward." ^ The Handbook of Indians of Canada, pubUshed by the Geographic Board of Canada in 1913, gives the following description : " Cree (contracted from Kristinaux, French form of Kenis- tenoag, given as one of their names). An important Algon- quin tribe of British America whose former habitat was in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, between Red and Saskatchewan Rivers. They ranged north-eastward down Nelson River, to * Arctic Searching Expedition, by Sir John Richardson, C.B., F.R.S., New York, Harper & Bros., 1852, p. 51. 1 82 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD the vicinity of Hudson Bay, and north-westward aknost to Athabasca Lake. When they first became known to the Jesuit missionaries a part of them resided in the region of James Bay, as it is stated as early as 1640 that ' they dwell on the rivers of the north sea where Nipissings go to trade with them ' ; but the Jesuit Relations of 1661 and 1667 indicate a region farther to the north-west as the home of the larger part of the tribe. A portion of the Cree, as appears from the tradition given by Lacombe [Did. Lang. Cris), inhabited for a time the region about Red River, intermingled with the Chippewa and Maskegon, but were attracted to the plains by the buffalo, the Cree, like the Chippewa, being essentially a forest people. Many bands of Cree were virtually nomads, their movements being governed largely by the food supply. The Cree are closely related, linguistically and other- wise, to the Chippewa. Hay den regarded them as an off-shoot of the latter, and the Maskegon another division of the same ethnic group. " At some comparatively recent time the Assiniboin, a branch of the Sioux, in consequence of a quarrel, broke away from their brethren and sought alliance with the Cree. The latter received them cordially and granted them a home in their territory, thereby forming friendly relations that have continued to the present day. The united tribes attacked and drove south-westward the Sisksika and allied tribes who formerly dwelt along the Saskatchewan. The enmity be- tween these tribes and both the Sisksika and the Sioux has ever since continued. After the Cree obtained firearms they made raids into the Athapascan country, even to the Rocky Mountains and as far north as Mackenzie River. Mackenzie, speaking of the region of. Churchill River, says the original people of this area, probably slaves, were driven out by the Cree. " As the people of this tribe have been friendly from their first intercourse with both the English and the French, and until quite recently were left comparatively undisturbed in the enjoyment of their territory, there has been but little recorded in regard to their history. This consists almost THE NATIVE POPULATION 183 wholly of their contests with neighbouring tribes and their relations with the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1786, ac- cording to Hind, these Indians, as well as those of surrounding tribes, were reduced to less than half their former numbers by smallpox. The same disease again swept off at least half the prairie tribes in 1838. They were thus reduced, according to Hind, to one-sixth or one-eighth of their former population. In more recent years, since game has become scarce, they have lived chiefly in scattered bands, depending largely on trade with the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company. At present they are gathered chiefly in bands on various reserves in Manitoba, mostly with the Chippewa. " Their dispersion into bands subject to different conditions with regard to the supply and character of their food has resulted in varying physical characteristics ; hence the varying descriptions given by explorers. Mackenzie, who describes the Cree comprehensively, says they are of moderate stature, well proportioned, and of great activity. Their complexion is copper-coloured and their hair black, as is common among Indians. Their eyes are black, keen, and penetrating; their countenance open and agreeable. In regard to the women he says : ' Of all the nations which I have seen on this continent, the Knisteneaux women are the most comely. Their figure is generally well proportioned, and the regularity of their features would be acknowledged by the more civilised people of Europe. Their complexion has less of that dark tinge which is common to those savages who have less cleanly habits.' Umfreville, from whom Mackenzie appears to have copied in part what is here stated, says that they are more inclined to be lean of body than otherwise, a corpulent Indian being ' a much greater curiosity than a sober one.' Clark {Sign Language, 1885) describes the Cree seen by him as wretchedly poor, and mentally and physically inferior to the Plains Indians; and Harmon says that those of the tribe who in- habit the plains are fairer and more cleanly than the others. " Their hair was cut in various fashions, according to the tribal divisions, and by some left in its natural state. Henry says the young men shaved off the hair except a small spot 1 84 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD on the crown of the head. Their dress consisted of tight leggings, reaching nearly to the hip, a strip of cloth or leather about I foot long passing between the legs and under a belt around the waist, the ends being allowed to hang down in front and behind ; a vest or shirt reaching to the hips ; some- times a cap for the head made of a piece of fur or a small skin, and sometimes a robe thrown over the dress. These articles, with moccasins and mittens, constituted their apparel. The dress of the women consisted of the same materials, but the shirt extended to the knees, being fastened over the shoulders with cords and at the waist with a belt, and having a flap at the shoulders; the arms were covered to the wrist with detached sleeves. Umfreville says that in trading, fraud, cunning, Indian finesse, and every concomitant vice was practised by them from the boy of twelve years to the octogenarian, but where trade was not concerned they were scrupulously honest. Mackenzie says that they were natur- ally mild and affable, as well as just in their deaUngs among themselves and with strangers; that any deviation from these traits is to be attributed to the influence of the white traders. He also describes them as generous, hospitable, and exceedingly good natured, except when under the influence of spirituous liquor. Chastity was not considered a virtue among them, though infidelity of a wife was sometimes severely punished. Polygamy was common; and when a man's wife died it was considered his duty to marry her sister, if she had one. The arms and utensils used before trade articles were introduced by the whites were pots of stone, arrow-points, spearheads, hatchets, and other edged tools of flint, knives of buffalo rib, fish-hooks made out of sturgeon bones, and awls from bones of the moose. The fibrous roots of the white pine were used as twine for sewing their bark canoes, and a kind of thread from a weed for making nets. Spoons and pans were fashioned from the horns of the moose (Hayden). They sometimes made fish-hooks by inserting a piece of bone obliquely into a stick and sharpening the point. Their Hnes were either thongs fastened together or braided willow bark. Their skin tipis, Hke those of the North Athapascans, were raised on THE NATIVE POPULATION 185 poles set up in conical form, but were usually more com- modious. They occasionally erect a larger structure of lattice work, covered with birch bark, in which forty men or more can assemble for council, feasting, or religious rites. " The dead were usually buried in shallow graves, the body being covered with a pile of stones and earth to protect it from beasts of prey. The grave was Uned with branches, some of the articles belonging to the deceased being placed in it, and in some sections a sort of canopy was erected over it. Where the deceased had distinguished himself in war his body was laid, according to Mackenzie, on a kind of scaffolding, but at a later date Hayden says they did not practise tree or scaffold burial. Tattooing was almost universal among the Cree before it was abandoned through the in- fluence of the whites. The women were content with having a line or two drawn from the corners of the mouth towards the angles of the lower jaw; but some of the men covered their bodies with lines and figures. The Cree of the woods are expert canoemen, and the women lighten considerably their labours by the use of the canoe, especially where lakes and rivers abound. A double-head drum and a rattle are used in all religious ceremonies except those which take place in the sweat house. Their religious beliefs are generally similar to those of the Chippewa. " The gentile form of social organisation appears to be wanting. On account of the uncertain application of the divisional names given by the Jesuit missionaries and other early writers it is impossible to identify them with those more modernly recognised. Richardson says: ' It would, how- ever, be an endless task to attempt to determine the precise people designated by the early French writers. Every small band, naming itself from its hunting grounds, was described as a different nation.' ... So far as now known the ethnic divisions, aside from the Cree proper, are the Maskegon, and the Monsoni. Although these are treated as distinct tribes, they form, beyond doubt, integral parts of the Cree. It was to the Maskegon, according to Richardson, that the name 1 86 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Klistenaux, in its many forms, was anciently applied, a con- clusion with which Henry apparently agrees." ^ It is evident that a number of the characteristics and peculiarities given in the above description of the Cree nation do not now apply Uterally to the present members of this tribe : they, however, furnish a very fair idea of their habits before or where they are not influenced by the ways of civihsation. Of the Maskegons, the main division of the Cree tribe, and the one which inhabits that portion of Manitoba's new territory along the Hudson Bay Railway, the same blue book has the following information to give out: " Maskegon (Muskigok), ' they of the marshes or swamps.' An Algonquin tribe so closely related to the Cree that they have appropriately been called a subtribe. According to Warren the Maskegon, with the Cree and the Monsoni, form the northern division of the Chippewa group, from which they separated about eight generations before 1850. The traders knew them as Swampy Crees. From the time the Maskegon became known as a distinct tribe until they were placed on reserves by the Canadian Government they were scattered over the swampy region stretching from Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods to Hudson Bay, including the basins of Nelson, Hayes, and Severn Rivers, and extending south to the watershed of Lake Superior. They do not appear to be mentioned in the Jesuit Relations or to have been known to the early missionaries as a distinct people, though the name ' Masquikoukiaks ' in the Proces-verbal of the Prise de Possession of 1761 (Perrot, Mem. 293, 1864) may refer to the Maskegon. Tailhan, in his notes to Perrot, gives as doubtful equivalents ' Mikikoueks ou Nikikoueks,' the Otter Nation, a conclusion with which Verwyst {Missionary Labours) agrees. Nevertheless their association with the ' Christinos ' (Cree), ' Assinipouals ' (Assiniboin),2 and all of those inhabiting the countries of the * Handbook of Indiajis of Canada, 1913, published by the Geographical Board of Canada, p. iiy et seq. " The only Assiniboin village mentioned in print is Pasquayah, situated where Carrot River enters the Saskatchewan, in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Ibid. p. 382. Squaw and Papoose, Manitoba's x\e\v Tkrkiiorv Photo by The Bishop Charlebois of the Pas. THE NATIVE POPULATION 187 north and near the sea (Hudson Bay), would seem to justify identifying them with the Maskegon. If so this is their first appearance in history. " Their gentes probably differ but little from those of the Chippewa. Tanner says that the Pezhew (Besheu) or Wildcat gens is common among them. No reliable estimate can be formed of their numbers, as they have generally had no distinct official recognition. In 1889 there were 1254 Maskegon hving with Chippewa on reservations in Manitoba at Birch, Black, Fisher, Berens, and Polar Rivers, Norway House and Cross Lake. The Cumberland band of Saskatchewan and the Shoal Lake, Moose Lake, Chemawawin, and Grand Rapids bands of Manitoba, numbering 621 in 191 1, consisted of Maskegon, and they formed the majority of the Pas band, numbering 427, and part of the John Smith and James Smith bands of Duck Lake agency, numbering 392. There were also some under the Manitowpah agency and many among the 1201 Indians of St. Peter reserve in Manitoba." ^ Whatever the natives of Northern Manitoba may have been before and during the occupation of the country by the white, there is no doubt that they have since made wonderful strides towards progress, and it is with reason that one of their best friends and companions. Dr. John M'Dougall of Calgary, could say before the Canadian Club of Manitoba's metropolis, a few weeks ago : ^ " You and I are the development of countless generations. The Indian has, in one generation, in many cases, risen to the status of a white man." Speaking more particularly of the Northern Indian, he added: "Into that north country where I went as a student of humanity, I came across some of the finest people I have ever met. I remember an Indian missionary by the name of Peter Jacobs sa5dng to me: ' John, you will find at Norway House some of the best men and women you have ever seen.' I was amazed, because I, a student in the public schools, had associated the far north with wilderness and desperate lives, etc. But, sure ^ Handbook of Indians of Canada, 1 91 3, published by the Geographical Board of Canada, p. 276. ^ This chapter was -written in February 1 9 1 4. 1 88 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD enough, as Peter Jacobs had said, when I came into contact with the Indian peoples of Norway House and Oxford, I found that they were the most chivalrous, the most hospitable, and the kindest, as well as the most obedient men I ever saw." The writer of this book has himself lived for two years at the Pas, just alongside one of the most important Indian reserves of New Manitoba, the Pas band, mentioned in the passage reproduced from Sir John Richardson's book. He has found them well dressed, well behaved, intelligent, thrifty, quite capable of holding their own against the white men in business and in sport. They have business places of their own, where they trade in all sorts of merchandise, have their own police, their own churches, schools, etc. Their houses are well built, have as good an appearance as those of their white brothers, and in many a case are more tidy than those of many so-called civilised people. The 1912 report of Agent Fred. Fischer will, in a few lines, give a better idea of the habits and general behaviour of these people than I could in several pages. " Pas band. — Tribe or Nation. — These Indians are of the Swampy Cree tribe. " Reserve. — The reserve is situated on both sides of the Saskatchewan River and at the mouth of the Carrot River as well, in the North-West Territories. In addition the band has a timber berth on the Carrot River and a small fishing station on Clear Water Lake; the whole making a total of 7610 acres. Part of the reserve is covered with small-sized timber. There is also a good deal of swamp-land on which considerable hay could be cut in certain seasons. " Population.— There are 439 souls in this band. " Health and Sanitation. — ^The health of this band has been fair, the mortality being mostly in the case of young children and can be attributed in a great measure to the disregard of the Indians to advice given as to treatment and sanitary rules. Garbage and refuse is gathered up and burned in the spring. " Occupations. — Many members of this band live by hunting fur-bearing animals, others work on York boats, surveys, and as canoemen, and at general employment with the dif- THE NATIVE POPULATION 189 ferent traders, for which they are paid good wages. The fur hunt has been good and the prices paid were also good. Moose have been killed when required. Fishing has been greatly neglected for the fur hunt, but those living on the reserve have managed to catch sufficient for their needs. " Buildings. — ^The buildings on this reserve are fair; many houses are built of lumber and others of logs, and for the most part have shingle roofs. The saw-mills did but little work last summer. The stables are log buildings, small, and of poor construction. " Stock. — ^The cattle have wintered well with sufficient fodder. " Characteristics and Progress. — ^The Indians of this band are law-abiding, and have made a good living owing to the high prices paid for furs, but this is entirely dependent on success or otherwise of the fur hunt, they are so proverbially improvident that if it happens to be a bad season, their living is of a poor quality. " Temperance and Morality. — So far the Indians of this band have been temperate and their morals fair, but I am afraid that their proximity to the town will not tend to improve them." ^ What Mr. Fischer has written of the Pas Indians may be said of all the other tribes throughout the new territory of Manitoba, with very few and slight differences. S. J. Jackson, Inspector of Indian Agencies, in the same report passes the following remarks : " Nearly all the Indians of this agency are of the tribe known as Wood Crees, and there is a considerable mixture of white blood. They are of a good type and compare favour- ably with the half-breed population of Manitoba, both in morals and as workers. Nine-tenths of them belong to the Church of England, the remainder being Roman Catholics and pagan, very few of the latter. The English Church people in this agency are looked after by Bishop Newnham, of Prince Albert, and he has a clergyman or lay-reader on ^Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the year ended March 31, 1912, p. 107. I90 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD every reserve. We may expect in the near future that the Roman Catholic Church will do its full share of looking after the spiritual wants of the Indians in this agency, as during the summer that Church was preparing an establishment for a bishop in Le Pas town." ^ It may be noted here that the whole of the original townsite of the Pas has been carved out of part of the Pas band's reserve, and that the members draw from this source yearly a sub- stantial revenue represented by the interest on the capital invested. A very substantial boarding-school costing $75,000 has been erected recently at Big Eddy, a few miles up the river from the Pas. A feature of the public meeting held on February 16, 1912, at the Pas, to hear Premier Roblin, was the address which had been prepared in the Cree language by Chief Antoine Constant, and read from the English translation. It was as follows : " Honourable Sir, — It is gratifying for me to have the distinguished honour of extending to you and your party the hearty welcome of my tribe, along with that of the residents of Le Pas. I trust this visit may be one to be followed by many other such visits. I trust that the after-visits may be titled : Our Premier's visits. There shall be many important questions, no doubt, which shall be brought to your notice, questions affecting the laws and ordinances of the North- West Territories. We are aware that you wish to meet the demands and needs of the Indian hunter and traveller, and the voyageur, with which class chiefly this northern country is inhabited. One question which is of vital importance to the Indian is the law governing the game and Nature's products of the country. I, therefore, as chief, come forward and lay before your house ^Annual Report of The Department of Indian Affairs for the year ended March 31, 191 2, p. r 17. To whoever wishes to familiarise himself with what the Roman Catholic Church has accomplished in the Hudson Bay country I recommend the reading of Mgr. Ovide Charlebois's booklet telling of his first pastoral visits to the Indian missions. It will be sent post paid to persons who will send 25 cents to the Bishop's palace at the Pas. It has been published for the benefit of the Roman Catholic missions in Keewatin. THE NATIVE POPULATION 191 a plea of leniency, even as was seen necessary by the Dominion Government, so that the Indian may be able to continue to live independent of government gratuities." The result of this business-like letter, as Premier Roblin was pleased to call it, was the exception which was made in favour of the new territory in the Game Act, for the periods to shoot certain game which the Indian is accustomed to hunt to supply himself with food. 192 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD CHAPTER XX THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS ^ " It is my opinion that in a very short time the tide of emigration will flow towards those parts when a Province will probably be formed with Pas Mission for its capital." — Six Years in Canadian North-West, by Joan d'Artigue, Toronto, 1882, p. 166. Because of its position as south terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway, the Pas, the largest centre of population in New Manitoba, has, in less than four years, attained a world-wide fame, and much speculation is entertained as to its future. Before dealing with the features which, in the opinion of many, are destined to make of this point one of the chief western cities, it will no doubt interest the reader to know something of its past history. In a preceding chapter it has been related how Chevaher de Laverendrye, in the fall of 1741, had ascended the River Saskatchewan to the Forks. By these Forks some authors have understood the junction of the two Saskatchewans : this is undoubtedly an error, as it is further learned that at these Forks the Chevalier established a fort which he named " Fort Poskoyac." By referring to a map of Canada and the north part of Louisiana published in 1762 by Thomas Jefferys in London, near Charing Cross, at the end of his book. Voyages from Asia to America, Poskoyac (Indian village) appears at the present location of the Pas, at the junction point of the Saskatchewan and Pas Rivers. On a map of 1776, Bonne calls the place Poscoyac (Indian Village), and in 1778 Thos. Bo wen shows it as Indian Village. Laverendrye himself, on a map dating as far back as 1750, gives the name of Poskaiao 1 A visitor to the Pas in July 1912, Robert Shields, the well-known author of My Travels, gave to one of the town's citizens the following bit of advice: " Do not let your opportunity pass. Follow the example set you by other western cities : know the right moment when to profit by the chance which is offered you of taking your place among the world's centres. You have that chance now — grasp it. It should be easy for you to surpass anything which has been done in city building in the past, being given the natural advantages you have which are lacking to other points." George Philip & Son, L ' The London Geographical Institute. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 193 to the Saskatchewan River, while on another, a few years later, he calls it Bascoia. When Hendry made his trip from York Factory to Southern Alberta in 1754-55, he spoke of Basquia as a French fort on the Saskatchewan Rivei, and he stated that the Indians called it also Baqua. There can be no doubt that all these names, which are so much similar, varying only in form on accoimt of the native pronunciation, stand for one and the same place, the Pas of to-day, at the forks of the Saskatchewan River and the Pas or Pasquia River. This is further confirmed by Alexander Henry the elder, who writes: " On the first October (1775) we gained the mouth of the river de Bourbon, Pasquayah or Saskatchewaine, (the lower part of the Saskatchewaine was once called the river de Bourbon, Pasquayah is the name of an upper portion of the Saskatchewaine) and proceeded to ascend its stream." Then a little farther down: "At 80 leagues above Fort de Bourbon (Cedar Lake) at the head of a stream which falls into the Saskatchewaine, and into which we had turned, we found the Pasquayah village." ^ In Pierre Margry's short memorandum of the map which represents the establishments and discoveries made by * Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, between the years 1760 and 1776, by Alexander Henry, Fur Trader, edited by James Bain, chief librarian, Toronto Public Library, George N. Morang & Co., Ltd., Toronto, 1901, p. 255. In a note to the passage quoted above I find the following opinion on the etymology of the name of the Saskatchewan River, which, I may say, is also the one generally given by those persons familiar with the Cree language: " The name is derived from Kis-is-kat-ji-wan, the Cree word for ' swift flowing,' and has been tortured into many forms by early travellers." The same note refers to the etymology of Pasquayah, but there I find Mr. Bain at variance with the native linguists: " Pasquayah is derived from Paskquaw, a prairie or desert, as its course is through the great plain, to the east of the Rocky Mountains. The Cree name was long confined to the upper portion of the river (this part is no doubt historically correct), but is now transferred, though altered in spelling to Pasquia, to a tributary which enters the Saskatchewan from the right near the Pas Mission, 85 miles from Lake Winnipeg." Pasquia, that many want to give as the root of Pas, is probably a contraction of part of WapusKCowatchi [wapus, strait; ke-ow, woods; watchi, hill: a pass through woods on a hill), the name by which Sir John Richardson in 1848 heard the natives call the Pas Mountains, near which the Pas River is found flowing northward. N 194 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Laverendrye and his sons, we read: "From Fort Bourbon to the river Poskoyak is thirty leagues. There is a fort at the head of this river which is abandoned because of lack of supplies for the winter." This should be more than sufficient to show that the Pas is the Fort Poskoyac of Laverendrye and therefore dates as far back as 1741. During the whole of the French regime it was the main fort of Laverendrye's western posts: in 1750 Joseph Claude Boucher de Niverville, ninth son of Pierre Boucher de Grosbois, ex-Governor of Three Rivers, was stationed at " Riviere Poskoyac," and from there on May 29, 175 1, sent ten men to establish Fort la Jonquiere (Calgary). It is believed that he died at the Pas. In 1754 the Chevalier St. Luc de la Come was also at the Pas, and it was during his stay there that he explored the Carrot River Valley and cultivated the first field of grain in Western Canada, thereby deserving to be called its first agriculturist. After the cession of Canada to England the French naturally withdrew from their establishments in the west, and for almost half a century only the Assiniboine Indians continued to live at their little village. Of one of their chiefs, Chatique, a somewhat humorous story is related by Alexander Henry the elder at the time of his passage at the Pas on October i, 1775.^ With these Indians " Louis Primo," " Old Fran9ois " and a number of French-Canadian traders continued to transact business on their trips up and down the Saskatchewan, inter- fering to such an extent with the " rights " of the Hudson's Bay Company, in partnership with or independent altogether of " the Pedlars," as the English would call the vanguard of the future North-West Company, that Samuel Hearne was sent in 1772 from Fort Churchill to build a competing fort at " Basquia." This he erected instead at Cumberland House, leaving the Indian village site to the " Nor '-Westers," who made it their base of supplies in common with their fort on Cedar Lake, as the French had done from the time of the dis- covery of the Saskatchewan. 1 This episode will be found in Henry's own words in Appendix H. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 195 The whole of the traffic entering from the east, the immense fur field extending to the Pacific in the west, the Arctic Ocean in the north, and Hudson Bay in the north-east, in those days passed through the Pas. The geographical position of the little place in this respect struck one of the French- Canadian guides of the Montreal Scotch Merchants: about 1800, Joseph Constant, who, it is believed, in common with the greater number of the voyageurs in those days, originated from Three Rivers and had married a Sauteux woman in his peregrinations throughout the land, made up his mind to settle with the Assiniboines at the junction of the Saskatchewan and Pas Rivers and try his hand at grain growing and cattle raising. for the purpose, no doubt, of supplying flour and meat to the fur traders of the immense country, at the entrance of which he found himself. That he met with considerable success there is little doubt, for when, twenty years later, the unfortunate Captain Sir John Franklin went through the Pas, to which he gives the name of Basquiau River, he noticed cultivation in progress, and this was still being kept up in 1833 at the time that Sir John Richardson, Dr. Richard King, and Lieutenant- Colonel John Henry Lefroy visited the district. In all probability, in those days, Joseph Constant was being helped in his worthy attempt by the two sons and four daughters that his Sauteux wife had given him, and their children. That the Hudson's Bay Company, which by that time had become all-powerful, encouraged very little the efforts of Constant and his offspring, in its desire that it should retain the country solely for fur trade purposes, is evidenced by the facts which will now be placed before the reader.^ * It may be added here that Sir George Simpson, while occupying the position of Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, was strongly reprimanded for having written a report favourable to the settlement of the country in which he made mention of the untold wealth along agricultural, timber, mineral, and other lines of natural resources. He was ordered to either retract the statements he had so made, or to resign. Hence we find him testifying before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1857 in the following manner: " I do not think that any part of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories is well adapted for settlement." (Questions 716 and 719.) Let those who may wonder at this evident desire of the Hudson's Bay Company to withhold all knowledge of the resources of the country from the public 196 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Lieutenant-Colonel Lefroy, Sir John Richardson, and Dr. King were extensively questioned as to these facts by the Select Committee of the British House of Commons in 1857, with the Right Honourable Henry Labouchere in the chair. The committee had been appointed to consider the state of British possessions in North America, and ascertain whether certain portions were susceptible of being cultivated. With the Red River settlement, strange as it may seem, the Pas and Cumberland House appear to have been the only points where attempts at agriculture worth mentioning had been noticed by the persons examined. Now that Western Canada has become the recognised granary of the world, with Winnipeg the largest grain market of the American continent, it is rather interesting to note the conclusions arrived at by the different witnesses.^ Lieutenant - Colonel Lefroy was examined February 23, 1857. He had resided eleven years in North America and passed nearly two years in the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, making magnetical observations for the Royal Society. He had visited almost the entire region ; every place of any consequence on the east side of the Rocky Mountains. In his opinion, agricultural settlement could make but very slender progress in any portion of that region; although the Red River settlement was pretty well adapted for agricultural purposes, it did not bear comparison with the best parts of the British American colonies, and at all events, formed but a try to find another explanation for the following which I have obtained from an ex-missionary on Hudson Bay: " Not many years ago, since the advent of the railway in the west, and the establishment of flour mills at Lake of the Woods and other western points, possibly to this day flour would be shipped from Winnipeg to England via Montreal, re-shipped from England to Hudson Bay, and hauled and portaged on rivers and over cataracts to points only a short distance from where it had been originally procured, and where it could have been easily transported by lake and river. And for what reason? No doubt to prevent the people depending on the Company for the supply of food- stuff in return for their furs to discover that there was somewhere near them a country where they could deal with competitors of the Company. " * What follows is quoted almost verbatim from the Hudson's Bay Papers, Select Committee. For opinion of the press, etc. , on this inquiry, see Appendix E. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 197 small proportion of the whole region. He beUeved the best agricultural country he had seen was between Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods. The nature of the soil on a very large portion of the region was primitive in geological formation, being almost denuded of soil. The frosts were so intense, that over a very large portion the soil was permanently frozen. The seasons were so short and so uncertain, that crops were liable to be cut off by unseasonable frosts at periods that made it almost impossible for the husbandmen to reckon with any certainty on a return.^ He had been once up and once down the Saskatchewan River. There was undoubtedly land in that district susceptible of cultivation and fit for settlement ; in fact it was along that district a little to the north and south of it that the agricultural land was to be found. Cultivation had actually been tried with some success at Fort Cumberland; wheat had grown there, with uncertainty however, from the causes alluded to, but still sufficiently to add greatly to the comforts of the residents of the district. Although the settlement at Fort Cumberland was not made for any purpose of colonisation, but simply as a tradmg post, there was a small attempt at settlement on a spot immediately adjoining called on the maps the Basquiau River, but commonly called in the country the Pas ; a country of civilised or Christianised Indians had been formed for the last ten or twelve years, and they had succeeded, in some degree, in cultivating the ground. They grew wheat, barley, potatoes, and various vegetables. They did not grow Indian corn:- he did not believe it would ripen, except by matter of accident, in that region. He was inclined to think ' Another gentleman who was examined, the Rt. Hon. E. Ellice, M.P., had the following to say: " I have heard that evidence has been given to this committee that the Saskatchewan is a country capable of settlement : that may be when a second generation from this are in their graves, but it will only be because the population of America becomes so dense that they are forced into situations less fit for settle- ment than those which they occupy now." (Question 5847.) ' As a matter of fact Indian corn matures very well at the Pas. A year after this testimony was given Henrj- Youle Hind wrote about Rev. Mr. Budd's garden: " Indian corn, from seed grown on the spot last year, in silk." (See supra, page 177.) 198 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD that wheat was not a crop that could be depended upon, but wished it understood that he was not speaking with much confidence. Potatoes could be depended upon. He never heard that they had any disease. In all instances in which these crops grew the returns were exceedingly small.^ They would ripen, but the crop would not be in the same proportion as in more genial countries. He had never heard of oats being grown, but they would no doubt grow. The winter would last between October and April, both inclusive, and he had not noticed any amelioration of climate. There was always a class of adventurers who would push to the most remote region wherever it was, but if they were acquainted with the relative advantages of the country between the Rainy Lake and the Lake of the Woods, which he thought was the most favourable part for cultivation, and the unsettled lands of Canada then open, he did not think they would choose the former. He believed it was a remarkable fact that wherever limestone existed, cultivation was possible. ^ Sir John Richardson was examined on March 9, 1857. O^ all the lower part of the Saskatchewan River below Cumber- land House, in his opinion, there were only two or three points which would maintain a family of farmers ; there was no place which he saw that would maintain a colony of any size. Three or four farmers might occupy the whole of the points that were productive. Mr. Leith,' who had left a sum of £10,000 for the benefit of the natives of that district, and who wished to collect them into a village, found only one spot which was available for 1 Compare this with the evidence of William M'lnnes, M.A., of the Geographical Survey, before the Select Committee of the Canadian Senate, 1906-7: " Witness saw potatoes that were grown about 50 miles north of the Pas. There were quite showy potatoes, great large fellows like those you see exhibited in fairs — tremendously large, grown on practically new land, and they had a very large crop of them." The New North-West, p. 67. * Limestone abounds in New Manitoba along the Hudson Bay Railway. ^ Chief factor James Leith. According to Rev. Geo. Bryce, Alac- Kenzie, Selkirk, Simpson, page 224, the amount left by Mr. Leith was £12,000. His relatives opposed the bequest but the courts upheld it. To this day the Bishopric of Rupert's Land receives an annuity of ;^400 from this source. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 199 that purpose. It was at the Pas, some distance below Fort Cumberland, but the whole of that country about the Pas was intersected by lakes, and in the spring and a great part of the summer it was under water; it was very level, although the limestone came near the surface, the country was easily flooded. You might travel almost in any direction, as far as your view extended, with canoes, the spring floods leaving only a few elevated alluvial points, upon which the Indians had built their huts. Here, it might be noted that the conditions of which Sir John Richardson speaks are far from being frequent, although it is true to say that the water is very abundant in the Pas district.^ Dr. Richard King, whose examination we are on the point to read, a few years before had written: " So great a deposit of mud and sand has taken place within the last few years (at Cumberland House) that the fort is not only unapproach- able for nearly a mile in boats and canoes, but a small river which formerly discharged itself into the lake has been filled up. The various changes which are taking place in the relative proportions of land and water are here so rapid and constant that they may be observed at almost every step as a proof of the gaining of the land. In addition to Cumber- land House, there is the Cedar Lake, the whole of which, from the immense quantity of detritus or alluvion annually brought down by the Saskatchewan, must in process of time be converted into a forest." ' Dr. Richard King, M.D., was examined on June 15, 1857. In going through the Hudson's Bay Territory, his position had been that of a naturalist; he had come away certainly with the impression that it was a very magnificent country in many parts of it; of course there were barren portions, 1 At what was to be Winnipeg, in 1826, such a flood occurred that the settlers had to flee to the nearest hills. The water in the Red River and the Assiniboine River rose 40 feet above its normal summer level. Cf. Histoire de V Quest Canadien de 1822 4 1869, par I'abbe G. Dugas, p. 44. ^Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean in 1833, 1834 and 1835 under the command of Captain Back, R.N., by Richard King, M.R.C.S., etc., surgeon and naturalist to the expedition, p. 53 et seq. 200 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD but upon the whole, up to the Athabasca Lake, it had appeared to him to be capable of any extent of cultivation. Governor Williams had opened Cumberland House; he (King) had found implements in the field and capacious barns; it evi- dently had been placed under culture ; and he had been told at the time that Governor Williams had been ordered away for his partiality in this respect. He had never heard that the agricultural operations had failed, and that the barns had been built in anticipation and consequently had not been used. On approaching Cumberland House, he had found a little colony established of about thirty persons : a Canadian, an Englishman, and half-breeds ; they had their fields divided out into farms, and other things. It had been described to him by his men that there was a little colony there. He had bought a calf of them ; he had given 7s. for it ; a fat bullock would sell for 12s. It had appeared to him in going over their farms that they were very highly cultivated ; there were corn, wheat, and barley growing. They had told him at the time that they were ordered off, that the Company would not allow them to go on cultivating; that it was against the Company, and that therefore the thing was to be broken up. He did not know whether it had been broken or not. He did not return by that route, ^ otherwise he should have ascer- tained that fact. Then he had gone to Cumberland House, and there had found that they were really borne out in what they had stated, for he had found that the barns and the implements were in the field, and that the cows and the oxen and the horses and ev^er^^thing had gone wild. He had inquired the reason of it ; they had told him that Governor Williams had a penchant for farming, and that the Company had ordered him off somewhere else; that was what he had been told. He had always understood that Governor Williams had done this farming and that it had been very much against the approbation of the Company; that he had got hauled 1 The witness gets evidently confused. According to his own book he returned by the same route, and it was then that the members of the little colony complained about the threat of the order to move away. King, op. cit. p. 219. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 201 over the coals and had been ordered off; that was what he had been told at the time. It had appeared to him to be the truth. The person in charge of Cumberland House had told him ; the whole of his party of seventeen men had heard the same thing. At that time Mr. Leith was in Canada : his bequest for the maintenance of cultivation at Cumberland had been after the witness's time. He (King) had found that the cultivation had been abandoned at that time, and on inquiry he had found that it had been by order of the Company that it had been abandoned. He did not know whether the cultivation had been on the part of the Company. He had always understood that Governor Williams had done it himself. He (Williams) had been there in Sir John Franklin's time. There were a trading post and a settlement there at that time. He had been told that it was not because it was not profitable that the cultivation had been given up by those who had been undertaking it. One of these httle colonists had come to him, and thought that he was a government officer, and could interfere, and he (King) had said that he had no power to prevent the Company from driving them away from their farms, which they had been cultivating for some years. There were about thirty of these farms in number; he should say there were 1500 or 2000 acres under cultivation on the approach to Cumberland House. He had been a sportsman from a boy of about four or five years of age ; he had been over a good many acres ; he would not bind himself down to the quantity : it might have been looo, 1500, or 2000 acres; they were small fields; they were not large parcels of fields; they extended perhaps to from three to four acres in each field. He could not tell whether the cultivation was continuous; he had merely landed there for the purpose of getting some provision and had bought a calf, for which he had paid ys. : that was all he knew; they had come and pleaded with him. So far from his being informed that the cultivation had been prosecuted by the Company and become profitless, and had been consequently abandoned, he had understood that 202 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD it was private enterprise, and that it had been prosecuted with very great success to his own positive knowledge, from having seen the crop growing, and that a complaint was made on the part of those persons who were so engaged in agricul- ture, that they had orders to quit, and to cease to cultivate the land. They had also said : " When you get to Cumberland House you will have the evidence there that Governor Williams was ordered to withdraw." Everything had the sign of it, as these colonists had told him : there was the evidence that a sudden termination had taken place to the agricultural pursuits there. Cultivation did exist there to a very con- siderable extent. He had concluded that it was entirely owing to an objection to colonisation of the country that it had been abandoned. There were a Canadian, an Englishman, and half-breeds at the little colony. He could not tell the names, as he could not recollect them. If they would allow him to refer to his book he dared say he could give them to them. They would find the entire account there, which had been pubhshed in 1836. (At this point Dr. King handed the first volume of his book to one of the members of the committee.)^ ' As a matter of fact, King's narrative in his book does not contain much new information and no names. At page 52 one reads: " From scenes connected with such melancholy events (Frobisher's Point) our attention was soon after diverted by the cheerful prospect of houses surrounded by a quantity of land in a highly-cultivated state, divided into fields of growing corn and rich meadows. Several horses and oxen were grazing round about, and pigs and fowls were distributed in every direction. The settlement consisted of two farms belonging to a Canadian and an Englishman, who were endeavouring to gain a sub- sistence by bartering for furs with the Indians and selling their cattle, flour and butter to any of the company's men who might be disposed to become purchasers. A fat bullock sold for twelve or fourteen shillings, and flour and butter for a mere trifle. June 30th we left the little colony, for, including wives and children, many of whom had married to Indians or half-breeds, they were in number about thirty; and on the following day we arrived at Cumberland House." Then at page 54: " The horses were becoming wild, the oxen occasional truants, the cows, although they went ' to the milk-pail ' twice a day, gave by no means a very clean quantity of that sober and nutritious bever- age; and a solitary hog stood every chance of dying without issue." In volume ii. page 219 (on the return trip): " The inhabitants of the little colony on the banks of the Saskatchewan River were also affected with a mild form of the disease (influenza) which, however, was not the THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 203 He was quite satisfied that there had been at least 1000 acres under cultivation. The cultivation was quite successful, the wheat was looking luxuriant. There were also potatoes, barley, pigs, cows, and horses. He did not know in what latitude it was : he had always restricted himself to climate. He would suppose that it was a degree and a half north of Montreal: about 90° {sic) of north latitude. This new colony was within 30 or 40 miles in a direct line from Cumberland House. At this point a member of the committee read to the witness the following passage from his book: " The ground about the house is not only excellent, but fit for immediate culture. The house (it is in the singular number) a few years ago was in most excellent repair and exhibited a very productive farm, the effect of the continued care and attention of Governor Williams, who had a great partiality for agricultural pursuits. A vast change, however, had taken place at the time of their arrival. The house was all but falling to pieces; the imple- ments of tillage and the capacious barns were silent monu- ments of waste." He could not say whose property those implements of tillage and the capacious barns had been: he had never asked that; they were not the property of the small colonists, who, he would ask the committee, should be cut off entirely from the house. It was attributed by the parties there to Governor Williams in the representation which was made to him, that he had done it of his own will, but with what resources he could not say. The same state was not exhibited in the little colony when he came to it : it was only in the beginning; that was a most flourishing affair. The little colonists had complained of agriculture having been ordained to cease, on the spot; they had appealed to him as a government officer, thinking that he could relieve them, on only source of trouble to them : they had been threatened by the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company with an order for their imrnediate removal, supposing the traffic they carried on with the Indians injurious to the trade at Cumberland House; I am, however, unwilling to believe the report; or if such an act of injustice should be put in practice, I do hope it will not be countenanced by the leading members of that company." 204 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD their own little colony. He could not explain how it was that the little colony was in a most flourishing state, although they had been ordered off. He could only say that he had found this little colony of fields in the highest possible state of cultivation; that he had bought a calf of them; and, when he was going away, that they had said : " Cannot you help us ? You are a government officer; the Company have ordered us to quit, and we shall be ruined." He did not know whether they did quit. The whole farm of Governor Williams, which was the most extensive affair, he believed, was about a day's march. The looo acres were all together, they were divided into separate fields, and each man had his particular allot- ment in the little colony, which at the time he was there was unquestionably flourishing. He had not the slightest idea that that colony had been ruined. To preserve to the statement of Dr. King all its piquancy, it has been reported here verbatim, the only change being from the form by questions and answers to that of a narrative.^ That the httle colony was at the Pas is verified by the pre- vious depositions of Lieutenant-Colonel Lefroy and Sir John Richardson, as well as by the following item from John M'Lean's notes: "We arrived on the 5th of August (1833) ^ To those who may marvel at the complete diflEerence of opinion evidently expressed in the deposition of Dr. King from those of Colonel Lefroy and Sir John Richardson, it may be pointed out that the all- powerful Hudson's Bay Company had no doubt circumvented the other witnesses in some manner, while Dr. King had resisted. This witness remembered that when he had attempted to organise an expedition to search for the unfortunate Captain Franklin, on his return in 1835, he had met with strenuous opposition on the part of both the British Government and the Hudson's Bay Company. He was therefore no friend of the latter. The years which have gone by since he so courage- ously gave his evidence all in favour of the adaptability of the North- West Territory to settlement have proved that he was speaking the truth. This does not prevent the impudent autocratic Company from audaciously publishing such things as the following in our days, referring to their own employees: " A story too lengthy to print here would be that in which we might recount the virile deeds ashore and amain of these picturesquely costumed, indomitable spirits, in their efforts to abet the footsteps of progress and civilisation, in primeval Canada — then a ' collection of huts,' — and to build an empire for the sovereiga power across the sea." — The Panama Canal, p. 7. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 205 at Riviere du Pas, where an old Canadian, M. Constant, had fixed his abode, who appeared to have an abundance of the necessaries of hfe and a large family of half-Indians, who seemed to claim him as their sire." ^ This at the same time confirms the fact that the Canadian mentioned by Dr. King was, if not Joseph Constant, who had settled on the point at the Pas about 1800, probably his son Antoine, the father of the present chief of the Pas Indians, Antoine Constant, from whom I obtained this information, as also that the first Antoine married a Cree woman, of whom he had five boys and four daughters, while he himself married a Cree woman, who bore him three sons and six daughters. Apparently the orders of the Company that the little colonists should remove were not, entirely at least, carried out, as on August 17, 1858, Professor Henry Youle Hind, on his arrival at the Pas "situate at the confluence of the Sas- katchewan and Basquia River," speaks of the impression of " getting back to civilisation after all our wayfaring, when, on rounding one of the majestic sweeps of the river, the pretty white church " (to which he has previously referred as Christ Church, a neat and rather imposing edifice), " surrounded by farmhouses and fields of waving grain, burst unexpectedly upon our view." ^ Very little, if any, grain cultivation is done now at the Pas, except by a few white farmers on a rather experimental basis along the Pas River. It seems reasonable to surmise that the 1000 to 2000 acres of cultivated land in the days of Dr. King were across the Pas River in the beautiful plain extending between this river and the Carrot River along the Saskatchewan, where natural hay is now cut year after year on the lands belonging partly to the Hudson's Bay Company, the Church of England, and the Pas Indians. Christ Church, which has just been mentioned in the quotation of Dr. Hind, was erected in the winter of 1847-48 by Rev. J. Hunter, who had arrived at the Pas in 1844 to ^ Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson Bay Territory, by John M'Lean (London, Richard Bentley, 1849). * Hind, op. cit. p. 75. 2o6 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD succeed Rev, Henry Budd, the native catechist of the C.M.S., who had estabhshed the first Anghcan Mission in 1840. While to the modern visitor the present Church of England is often shown as containing relics of the unfortunate Franklin expedition, it must be said that these relics have a rather remote bearing on the sad fate of the illustrious navigator, except correlatively. On March 16, 1848, instructions were issued by the Admir- alty to Sir John Richardson, M.D., to proceed on an overland expedition in search of the ships Erebus and Terror by which Sir John Franklin had sailed from England on May 19, 1845, not to be seen again, except on July 26, 1846, in latitude 74° 48' N., longitude 66° 13' W., moored to an iceberg, and waiting for an opportunity of crossing to Lancaster Sound, 220 miles away. From the port of landing, New York, Sir John Richardson was to follow the usual canoe route by Montreal, Fort William, Rainy Lake, the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, and the Saskatchewan River, and to overtake the boats, under charge of Mr. John Bell, chief trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, in view of the proposed expedi- tion, had been sent from Norway House with provisions in the fall of 1847. It is here that the Christ Church incident took place. Mr. Bell's party was overtaken by winter in Cedar Lake: the boats were housed, a store-room was con- structed, and a number of the men and such women and children as were unable to travel over the snow were left in charge. The bulk of the stranded party set out for Cumberland House, from which a fishery was established at Beaver Lake to keep up the stock of supplies as much as possible. '^ ■ Among Mr. Bell's men at Cumberland House was a car- penter named Mackay ^ who, while his companions busied themselves with " the several winter employments of cutting firewood, driving sledges with meat or fish, and such like occupations," ^ volunteered to help Rev. Mr. Hunter, who for some time had been making preparations to erect a church on a site that he had chosen for it, " on the bank of the river * Richardson, op. cit. p. 280. * Richardson, op. cit. p. 38. O >. o a ►5 =^ THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 207 opposite to his own house." ^ " The Indians had been wilHng to help, and contributed labour and materials to a considerable amount; but, although they had learnt enough of carpenter's work to build their own log-houses, there was no one com- petent to undertake the erection of so large a building as a church. Mr. Hunter devoted much thought and time and labour to the subject, but all would have been of no avail had it not been for one of those providential circumstances, which so often occur, but which we are so slow to acknowledge. " Some of the English sailors attached to Sir John Richard- son's last and, alas! fruitless expedition, had been sent forward to be in readiness to start with him, and were, during the winter of 1847-48, located at Cumberland Fort, a day and a half's distance from the Pas. One of the men was a carpenter, and he readily and kindly gave Mr. Hunter all the assistance in his power while he remained in the neighbour- hood. The church progressed considerably under his direc- tions, and when he went away, Mr. Hunter was able to procure another carpenter from Norway House. " At last the church was completed. It stands in a neatly- fenced burying-ground, and is surrounded by several Indian dwellings; the parsonage stands among cottages on the opposite bank, and the whole is striking and picturesque." ^ Christ Church was consecrated by Bishop Anderson, first Bishop of Rupert's Land, in the course of his first pastoral visit to the Pas in June 1850. ' The Rainbow in the North, by S. Tucker (London, Nisbet, 1851), p. 191. Those of my readers who are familiar with the natural features at the Pas will possibly imagine from this that Mr. Hunter's house was across the Saskatchewan River, where the Indian village is to be found to-day, on the north bank. It was not so, however. Until a relatively recent period. Mission Island was connected with the mainland above the mouth of the Pas River, and the ' ' slough ' ' between the island and the English and Roman Catholic Missions of our days was the channel of that little river, which, however, little by little, cut another channel for itself west of the present " island " and gradually abandoned the old one. Until two or three decades ago the " slough " was full of the water of the Pas River flowing into the Saskatchewan by two channels. Christ Church was therefore " on the bank of the (Pas) river opposite " to the missionary's house on Mission Island. * Tucker, op. cit. p. 191. 2o8 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD That Mackay and his successor ^ were very good carpenters is evidenced to this day by the pews, font, pulpit, reading- desk, and other furniture still in existence in the new Christ's Church erected in 1895 by Rev. John Hines, and in the presbytery on Mission Island, where the sundial given to the mission by Colonel Lefroy may also be seen. The same year as Rev. Mr. Budd established the first Anglican mission at the Pas, known successively as Cumber- land-Pas, Devon, and Pas Mission, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany established a branch of their Cimiberland House post on the point between the Saskatchewan and Pas Rivers, which they had previously bought from Chief Constant. About 1895 a Post Office was established which was called The Pas. With the advent of the Canadian Northern Railway in 1908, who named their station Le Pas, the Postmaster-General also decided in the spring of 1911 to adopt this form: the two names are now official. The town has received its incorpora- tion under the name of The Pas. Both forms are used in official documents : the Geographical Board of Canada employs the form Pas. It seems impossible to state in a certain manner how and when the name originated. All sorts of fanciful explanations have been given, none of which, outside of the French etymology, have the least appearance of genuineness. In my mind, the best explanation ^ which has been given for the adoption of the name " The Pas " is that, being composed of an English word and a French word, both containing the same number of letters, it represents the Entente cordiale existing between the governments of Great Britain and France ^ which has culminated in the holy and powerful alliance destined to destroy militarism a outrance in Europe. ^ Some call him James M'Laren, while they give to Mackay the Chris- tian name of Robert. Strange enough, Sir John Richardson says nothing of the building of ChristChurch, although he mentions the Pas Mountains, which he says the Indians call Wapuskeowatchi and the Canadians Bas- quiau {op. cit. p. 50). Mackay is mentionedat page 280 among the sappers and miners as a carpenter by trade who was employed with another carpenter, named Brodie, to make tables and chairs at Fort Confidence. ^ Given by Rex. G. White, staff correspondent to the Minneapolis Daily News, fall of 191 2. ^ For article on name of town published in the Manitoba Free Press in the summer of 191 3, see Appendix F. THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 209 CHAPTER XXI THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS — continued It is pretty generally admitted that if the Hudson Bay route is a success, the Pas should become a very large city, because of its geographical position at the entrance from the north to the immense territory comprised in that portion of Western Canada, spreading out from it in fan-hke shape. It is pointed out that for a hundred miles or so, east and west, it is the only spot where the Saskatchewan River can be crossed at a relatively small expense or at all; it is argued that it is in the same position to Fort Churchill and Port Nelson on Hudson Bay as Winnipeg is to Fort William and Port Arthur on the Great Lakes. While the country between the Pas and the bay is replete with natural resources of every kind, which sooner or later will require development, it is explained that the Hudson Bay Railway, with possibly a few feeders branch- ing out into the interior, will long suffice to take care of the traffic which will offer, and that in case the new territory develops beyond present expectations, the Pas will still be the pivotal point about which all interest will continue to gather. Prettily located on the south shore of the Main Saskatchewan River, at the point where this beautiful stream, after receiving the waters of the Carrot River which have made it expand to the size of a majestic lake about three miles long and a mile wide, suddenly contracts itself to a strait ^ over which the 1 In French a " pas." Otto Klotz's report of 1885 at page 17 fif. of Tyrrell's and Bowling's reports op. cit. says: " The action of the water in the course of time is well illustrated here. Forty years ago a lad could throw a stone from the banks of the parsonage across the river where it is now 14 chains wide. Within a few years an island upon which the Hudson's Bay Company's powder magazine was kept, has disappeared. The banks where formerly houses of the company stood (in front of the present post) have been washed away. The same fate is rapidly approaching the parsonage close by." If Mr. Klotz were to come back, he would find not only that it has been found necessary O 210 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD 850 feet bridge of the Hudson Bay Railway has been con- structed, the Pas occupies no doubt one of the best townsites that may be imagined. The evergreen, the poplar, the Cottonwood abound, giving the surroundings an aspect of freshness which is nowhere else equalled. The ground is uniformly level, sloping gently towards the River Saskatchewan on the north side, Pasquia Lake and River on the west side, and Regina Lake on the east side. The soil, being still in a primitive stage, is covered with a heavy carpet of moss, varying in depth from a few inches to several feet. Centuries of decayed vegetation have accumulated, retaining the wet of the snows and the rains which cannot drain away, but perco- lates with considerable difficulty through to the heavy clay subsoil often covered with extensive beds of limestone. The least ditch, however, causes the moss to dry and disappear. It takes little labour and expense to lay out streets and boulevards. The inhabitants of the Pas have an unbounded confideace in the future of their town, and are preparing for the great things which they believe the future has in store for them. Both the Town Council ^ and Board of Trade ^ are composed of progressive men who spare neither time nor money to make known to the world advantageous features of their place, either by the building of permanent public improvements of the first order or sane publicity from which exaggeration is jealously banished. They say that once the Hudson Bay route is fully in opera- tion, the grain of Western Canada will all, or almost all, pass to move the parsonage, but that the trees, which no doubt had been -planted at the time it had been erected, are fast falling into the waters of the River Saskatchewan. Chas. R. Tuttle in Our North Land, 1885, also writes: " Forty years ago a lad could throw a stone across the river at the Pas, now it is 900 feet wide." * The first Municipal Council of the town of the Pas was elected on June 20, 1912, and consisted of H. Finger (Mayor), W. Carriere, J. E. Rusk, J. F. Hogan, C. E. Senkler, W. H. Bunting, and J. Fleming. 'The Pas Board of Trade was formed on February 5, 191 3, with A. H. deTremaudan (President), J. H. Gordon (Vice-President), H. H. Elliott (Secretary-Treasurer), G. Halcrow, sen., G. N. Taylor, J. E. Rusk, S. V. Davies, J. P. Jacobsen, T. S. Leitch, J. Fleming, and Captain H. H. Ross (Councillors). THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 211 through their town because a saving of about 1000 miles will be available to the farmers, who will be prompt to understand what that will mean to their bank-book. Taking Saskatoon as an example, they show the following figures : Land Water Total Route by the Great Lakes miles miles miles Saskatoon to Winnipeg .... 467 Winnipeg to Port Arthur .... 427 Port Arthur to Sault Ste. Marie Sault Ste. Marie to Sarnia Sarnia to Montreal (estimated) Montreal to Liverpool, 2760 miles by Belle Isle, 3007 miles by south route, average distance Total land mileage .... Total water mileage 595 237 234 2888 1489 Total mileage . Hudson Bay Route Saskatoon to the Pas Pas to Port Nelson Port Nelson to Liverpool Total land mileage . Total water mileage . Total mileage . 287 410 697 3359 1489 2966 2966 697 4848 3663 Difference ..... 1185 Even if the route by the strait is to be considered imprac- ticable, the people of the Pas say that their town is on the only route which may be used alternately with that of the Great Lakes, and as proof their figures are the following: Route by the Great Lakes Saskatoon to Winnipeg Winnipeg to Port Arthur Port Arthur to Sault Ste. Marie Sault Ste. Marie to Sarnia Sarnia to Montreal (estimated) Land miles 467 427 595 1489 Water Total miles miles 237 234 471 1489 i960 Land miles Water miles Total miles ) . 287 410 500 635 i960 1 197 63s 1197 1832 128 212 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Route by the Great Lakes {from previous page Saskatoon to the Pas .... Pas to Port Nelson .... Port Nelson to Port Nottaway Port Nottaway to Montreal (estimated) . A saving of miles over the lake route They go further: they smile when they are at times told that the Hudson Bay Railway is still in the experimental stage, and that it is not at all sure that it will ever be com- pleted, or, if completed, whether it will ever be of any utility as a grain-carrying route: for they say they have forests and mines; they have lakes and rivers full of fish and handy for going from place to place and distributing the goods of the older provinces and the old world to the remote posts of the north. They show the visitors with pride over the magnificent sawmill of the Finger Lumber Company, about which the reader of these pages has read something in another chapter ; they take them to the primitive docks and wharves on the Pas River and let them examine the four steamboats of the Ross Navigation Company ; they introduce them to the managers of the different stores of their fast-growing town and obtain for them the opportunity of sizing up the wealth contained in the immense packs of valuable furs piled in the warehouses; they show them, at a distance of a few hundred yards, the beautiful plains which extend south-westerly and assure them that at the Pas begins a mixed farming territory which is not dupli- cated in the Dominion and in which settlers are only com- mencing to settle from the Melfort end. And they add : " We are not at all depending on the Hudson Bay Railway to make a city of the Pas. The natural resources of the country are numerous and big enough to take care of this. Under ordinary circumstances, and independently of the Hudson Bay Railway (in which, by the way, we believe because we know, being on the spot), we have here the making of a city THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 213 and we are getting ready for it." And to see the large number of substantial buildings of all kinds which are everywhere erected, it is evident, even to the casual observer, that the people of the Pas are building with the idea that their town will soon be a city, and a large city at that. They have the spirit that does things, that moves mountains, if need be. Invigorated by the hardy climate of the north, they laugh at cold winter blisters and scorching summer burns, and keep on going ahead doing things, in the behef that they have struck the one spot on earth where there is a future for the fellow with a determined will: being strong believers, they will make what they desire perforce come true. At least they have fully decided to give the project a good manly trial. And why should they fail? Why should they fail, when in days that knew not the many things that this age is simply playing with a man did not hesitate to establish a Petrograd in the last spot in his king- dom where any one else with less vim would have dreamt of throwing the foundations of an empire's capital? Petro- grad, built on a marsh, is exactly 3° further north than Port Nelson, and 3° further south than the northerly part of Hudson Strait. Its average temperature is 40° above; yet it is the capital of all the Russias. It has a population of almost 2,000,000 inhabitants, and a commerce of almost 100,000,000 rubles in grain and other natural products. Thir- teen thousand boats, large and small, enter its port, Cron- stadt, 16 miles distant, laden with produce of field and forest, although the navigation of the northern portion of the Baltic Sea, on which it is situated, is obstructed by ice four months in the year and descending ice from Lake Ladoga forces the authorities of the city to remove most of the bridges twice a year. Of course it was built by Peter the Great, a man who was not to be stopped by marshy bogs, ice, and climate, when he saw his opportunity to create one of the cities of the world! Why should they fail when they have the examples of the farms of HoUand conquered from the sea, of a Chicago firmly built on marsh and lake, of part of a Boston also built on a 214 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD marsh, of a Venice, once queen of the commercial world, erected on piles in the sea? All they have to do is to look around them, and they will find that their task is indeed easy, chiefly because they have behind them, to help them reach the aim they have set themselves to attain, a host of friends in the rest of the province of which their vigorous little youngster of a town is quite naturally the pet child, being the first-born of the union between the old province and the new territory. Nothing is being spared to lead the fast-growing offspring in the right path and remove from its way the tumbling-stones which might impede its progress. True to its promise of generous assistance expressed through its First Minister on February i6, 1912, the provincial govern- ment as soon as the town has been organised municipally, has made a cash grant of $100,000, and the citizens have added to this, besides their taxes, $250,000 secured by thirty years' debentures. A system of waterworks and sewers is being constructed and electric light is installed; telephones will also soon be in operation. The town is fast passing from the stage of a small village in which it was in 191 1 to that of the city it will be a few years hence; all federal and provincial offices are being located at the Pas, including customs. Dominion land office, court and jail. Royal North- western Mounted Police headquarters, etc. The population, including the Indians across the river, is close to 2000, 1453 of whom, according to the census taken by the Board of Trade in August 1913, are of the Caucasian race. Prior to 1909 the present Pas was an Indian reservation, used by the natives from the earliest known times, as has been seen in the preceding chapter. In the days of Laverendrye it was "the rendezvous, every spring, of the Crees from the mountains, prairies, and rivers, to debate what they shall do, either to go to the French or the English.^ There he (Laverendrye) 1 These terms, in a footnote to the report of the trials of Charles de Reinhard and Archibald M'Lellan for murder, at a court of " Oyer and Terminer " held at Quebec, May 18 18, are explained to have the following meanings: " English, applied exclusively to the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, whether English, French, or half-breeds, in contradistinction to the fur traders from Canada, who are called THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 215 happened to be at the meeting of all the Crees in the spring of 1850." ^ In 1909 the Dominion Government, having pre- viously obtained a surrender from the Indians and removed them to the north bank of the river, laid out the townsite of the Pas and placed it upon the market. The whole white population did not then exceed six families.^ From nothing in 1909 the assessment has passed to $2,012,125.00 in 1913.^ Being in its infancy, it cannot be reasonably expected to find the Pas, in spite of the efforts in that direction of the town fathers, as modern and thoroughly up-to-date as the long- estabhshed city of to-day; but it is getting to that enviable stage as speedily as it is humanly possible to make it so; sidewalks are being laid, streets are being graded, modern improvements are being installed as rapidly as time and money render it possible. In a few years, nay a few months, all the advantages and commodities of modern cities will be found in the Pas. Add to these the numerous opportunities of summer excursions, on the numberless lakes and rivers sur- rounding the town in every direction, to the delightful groves of trees and bushes on islands or at other special spots of interest adjacent; imagine the hunting or fishing trips in which all kinds of game and fish, large or small, can be secured, almost without attention, in a wonderfully short time, and you will soon have come to the conclusion that the Pas holds one of those unique positions which are very seldom found. Ever since the question of the Hudson Bay Railway has been on the tapis, in a practical way, the different railway companies operating in Western Canada have pushed steadily northward and secured charters with a view to connect their systems with this great national route of the future. Besides the Canadian Pacific, Canadian Northern, and Grand Trunk Pacific, the Great Northern, with its Brandon extension built Francois, of whatever country or language they may be." There also I find that the French term " Metis," primitively " Metif," is derived from the Spanish " Mestice," and was introduced in the northern part of the continent by the early plain riders in their travels between Mexico and Canada. 1 Pierre Margry, op. cit. * The Pas, the Gateway to Hudson Bay, p. i8. ' Ibid., p. 19. 2i6 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD as early as 1906 under the charter of the Brandon, Saskatche- wan and Hudson Bay Railway, as well as several companies in the incubation state, have had the Pas as an objective point : the announcements of projected lines during the last few years have been so numerous that the drawing of them all would resemble a cat-o'-nine-tails, with the tails spread out in all directions from the Pas, and the Hudson Bay Railway as the handle, the latter lowered to the right at an angle of about 40°. Quite naturally, real estate men have been prompt to recognise the important position of the Pas; following the admission of the town and territory into Manitoba, sales have been numerous at steadily advancing prices, until at present centrally located lots which were bought originally for $100 or $200 in 1909 are fetching as high as $10,000, while a number of acres outside the original townsite have been subdivided, placed on the market, and sold at prices varying between $50 and $1000 a lot. In view of the fact, however, that the limits of the incorporated town contain only about 750 acres and that a large population will undoubtedly settle at the south terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway with the opening of the road to traffic, and the connecting of the line with other rail- ways, the real estate situation may be considered consider- ably more favourable than at many western points which have not the prospects of development that the Pas possesses. The authorities, however, will be well advised, for some time to come, to discourage the placing on the market of further subdivisions, so as to keep away from the exaggerated and unhealthy position of boom towns, unfortunately so common once in Western Canada. I shall conclude with the following quotation from the pamphlet recently published by the Board of Trade of the Pas, under the able supervision of Dr. H. H. Elliott, its enthu- siastic yet evidently all-conservative secretary : "The Kernel of the Nut " The Pas has the location. It is the ' gateway ' to the Northland. It is at the junction of railway and waterway THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 217 communication. It is the terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway, and will be the terminus of other railways, which must build to the Pas to reach the Hudson Bay route. It is the coming railway and commercial centre of the west. " The Dominion Government chose the townsite and placed it on the market and is bound to see that the Pas ' makes good.' The government is keeping faith, as is evidenced by the location of Hudson Bay Railway terminals, the gift of lands for pubhc purposes, and the appropriation of $30,000 for a wharf. " The Provincial Government is determined that New Manitoba shall live up to the prophecies made by those who fought for its addition to the province. The government has faith in the Pas, and is demonstrating its faith by good works, e.g. a cash grant of $100,000.00, bonds to be guaranteed for $150,000.00,^ and the construction of a court house and jail, site and building to cost $75,000.00. " Financial experts recognise the strategic position of the Pas, and are investing in real estate and building up the town. A company of English capitalists own twenty lots in the Pas and have erected the Royal North- West Mounted Police barracks, a laundry, a business block of four stores, four apartment blocks (comprising sixteen stores and sixty -three rooms), and fifteen residences. This company purpose erect- ing a large brick hotel, one hundred feet square, to contain eighty rooms, besides rotunda, offices, bar-room, sample rooms, dining-room, and kitchen. The estimated cost is $75,000.00. " The citizens of the Pas know that they have a ' good thing ' and are ' pushing it along,' as is evidenced by the con- struction of public works and by private enterprise. " The outside world is beginning to see the Pas as it is. Inquiries are coming in from all parts of Canada, from the United States and from Great Britain — and what is more to the point — the people are coming. " To those who are interested we extend a hearty welcome. Come to the Pas and confirm our statements. ^ These bonds have since been guaranteed for $250,000.00. 2i8 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD "Brief and to the Point " I. Regular lots in the original townsite are 66 feet by 132 feet ; in Pas Centre, 30 to 25 feet by varying depths ; in Pas Annex, 33 feet by 132 feet. Note the size of lots and compare with other towns. "2. The Pas has only two subdivisions — Pas Centre and Pas Annex — and both are within the corporation, touching the original townsite. With the exception of a small portion of one corner of Pas Annex, the whole corporation is within a one-mile circle. It will be seen that the town is compact and that there are no subdivisions in the country. " 3. Lots sold at first sales in 1910 for $50.00 to $275.00. These lots have since sold for $4,000.00 to $10,000.00. " 4. During 1913, the year of financial stringency, the Pas failed to ' take notice,' but kept on in the even tenor of its ways — ^building, building, building! A visitor during the summer remarked : ' I thought the Pas was out of the world ; now I know it is, since there is no evidence of the financial stringency, which has caused other towns to call a halt.' "5. Carpenters work all winter. Workmen on the steel railway bridge worked throughout the winter of 1912-13, with the exception of about ten days. The electric light poles were set during the last week of November and the early part of December. The power house was completed in December. " 6. The Pas is a judicial district and is the seat of the county court. The town has its own poUce and the Royal North- West Mounted Police are always on duty. Law and order are good. If you come to the Pas, you will have to be as good as we are. " 7. The farming district of the Pas is the largest in the world, being the wheatfields and ranches of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, whose products will come direct to the Pas as soon as railway connections are made with the 'farmers' railway' (Hudson Bay Railway). " 8. Lay a straight edge on the map, from any part of the wheat belt to Port Nelson, and note how close the line comes to the Pas. Note, also, that where the line is slightly distant THE NORTHERN METROPOLIS 219 from the Pas, natural obstacles must force railways to come to the Pas to reach Port Nelson, whether the Hudson Bay Railway be used or not. " 9, The Hudson Bay Railway is analogous to the Canadian Pacific Railway in every particular, except in length and difficulty of construction. The Hudson Bay Railway is much shorter and construction is comparatively easy. The Hudson Bay Railway, like the Canadian Pacific Railway, is essentially the ' farmers' railway,' intended primarily to carry grain and cattle. Like the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Hudson Bay Railway has its detractors and will triumph in spite of every opinion to the contrary. The Canadian Pacific Railway made Winnipeg; the Hudson Bay Rail- way will make the Pas a second and, perhaps, greater Winnipeg. " 10. The ' boosters ' of the Hudson Bay route do not belong to existing railway corporations ^ who have reason to fear a direct and shorter route, quicker delivery, lower rates and better results in every way. Every ' knock ' from such an enemy is a ' boost.' "11. Don't condemn the Hudson Bay route because some one, whose pocket will be pinched, says it is no good. Investigate for yourself. Don't come to the Pas because we say so. Investigate. In other words the Hudson Bay route and the Pas will bear investigation. "12. Observe the advertisements in this booklet. Each advertisement is that of a bona fide business enterprise and has been admitted to illustrate that the Pas has up-to-date ^ " It is a matter of common historical knowledge that Sir Donald Smith always raised the most strenuous opposition to such an ' impos- sible ' proposal. And Sir Donald carried some weight. He was the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Bank of Montreal combined — in short, the financial king of Canada for many years. . . . The Canadian Pacific Railway did not want the Hudson Bay route, because it did not want to lose its long-haul freight charges, upon which it has amassed millions to its treasury. Simple, is it not ? That is why the Canadian Pacific Railway is opposed to the Hudson Bay route to-day. The other transcontinental roads are also sorry to see the Hudson Bay route rapidly becoming a certainty. They, too, fear missing a large per- centage of long-haul profits.' — Chevalier de la Come and the Carrot River Valley of Saskatchewan, by Arthur S. Bennett, p. 15. 220 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD business men who are operating business enterprises such as exist only in a progressive town. " 13. The Pas will be a city of great buildings — elevators, warehouses, and great commercial houses. Its position as the distributing point of Anglo-Canadian commerce will make it a ' wholesale centre.' "14. The Pas was incorporated in May 1 91 2. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars have been voted for waterworks, sewers and electric lights, and the work of installation has been started. How is that for progress? " 15. The Board of Trade has issued this booklet. The Board of Trade is composed of the reputable business men of the Pas and is not a real estate agency. The Board of Trade is interested in the general welfare of the town and not particularly in the sale of town lots. If you desire authentic information write ' The Secretary of the Board of Trade.' He is paid to answer questions." ^ ^ The Pas, the Gateway to Hudson Bay, p. 30 et seq. APPENDIX A 221 APPENDIX A HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY'S POSTS AND MODES OF TRADE (From Cornhill Magazine, August 1870) ^ A TYPICAL fort of the Hudson Bay Company was not a very lively sort of affair at best. Though sometimes built on a commanding situation at the head of some beautiful river, and backed by wave of dark pine forest, it was not unpictur- esque in appearance. Fancy a parallelogram enclosed by a picket 25 or 30 feet in height, composed of upright trunks of trees, placed in a trench, and fastened along the top by a rail, and you have the enclosure. At each corner was a strong bastion built of squared logs, and pierced for guns that could sweep every side of the fort. Inside this picket was a gallery running right around the enclosure, just high enough for a man's head to be level with the top of the fence. At intervals, all along the side of the picket, were loopholes for musketry, and over the gateway was another bastion from which shot could be poured on any party attempting to carry the gate. Altogether, though incapable of withstanding a ten-pounder for two hours, it was strong enough to resist almost any attack the Indians could bring against it. Inside this enclosure were the store-houses, the residences of the employes, wells, and sometimes a good garden. All night long a voyageur would, watch by watch, pace around this gallery, crying out at intervals, with a quid of tobacco in his cheek, the hours and the state of the weather. This was a precaution in case of fire, and the hour-calling was to prevent him falling asleep for any length of time. Some of the less important and more distant outposts were only rough little log cabins in the snow, ^ Quoted by G. Mercer Adams, The Canadian Novth-West, its History and its Troubles. 222 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD without picket or other enclosure, where a " postmaster " resided to superintend the affairs of the Company. The mode of trading was peculiar. It was a system of barter, a " made " or " typical " beaver-skin being the standard of trade. This was, in fact, the currency of the country. Thus an Indian arriving at one of the Company's establishments with a bundle of furs which he intends to sell, proceeds, in the first instance, to the trading room: there the trader separates the furs into lots, and, after adding up the amount, delivers to the Indian little pieces of wood, indicating the number of " made-beavers " to which his " hunt " amounts. He is next taken to the store-room, where he finds himself surrounded by bales of blankets, slop-coats, guns, scalping knives, tomahawks (all made in Birmingham), powder-horns, flints, axes, etc. Each article has a recognised value in " made-beavers " ; a slop-coat, for example, may be worth five " made-beavers," for which the Indian delivers up twelve of his pieces of wood ; for a gun he gives twenty ; for a knife two; and so on, until his stock of wooden cash is expended. After finishing he is presented with a trifle besides the payment for his furs, and makes room for some one else.^ ^ Alexander Henry the Elder, op. cit. p. 320, gives the following schedule of prices as being in use in 1776 at Fort de Prairies, immedi- ately below the Grand Forks of the Saslcatchewan River: — A gun ..... . 20 beaver skins A Stroud blanket 10 do. A white blanket 8 do. An axe, of one pound weight 3 do. Half a pint of gunpowder I do. Ten balls .... I do. APPENDIX B 223 APPENDIX B DESCRIPTION OF HUDSON STRAIT BY A. P. LOW, F.R.G.S.^ Hudson Strait has a length of nearly 500 miles from Cape Chidley, on the south side of its eastern end, to Cape Wolstenholme, on the same side of the western end. The general trend of the strait is a httle north of west, so that the western cape is about a degree and a half to the north- ward of the eastern one, and is in 62° 30' N. latitude. At its eastern entrance the strait has a practical channel nearly 35 miles wide between the outermost Button Islands off Cape Chidley, and the shores of Resolution Island on the north side. Gray Strait is a narrower channel between the Button Islands and the southern mainland. Immediately to the westward of Cape Chidley the southern shore falls away to the south- ward to form the great bay of Ungava, which is 140 miles wide, and somewhat more than that distance in length. The large island of Akpatock lies in this bay, but as its north end is to the southward of a hne drawn across the mouth of the bay, it does not seriously interfere with navigation in the strait. From Cape Hopes Advance, the western point of Ungava Bay, the southern shore of the strait has a north-west direction to Cape Weggs, situated 150 miles beyond. The northern shore opposite has the same general trend, and the strait for this distance averages 60 miles across. Big Island, situated on the north side in the western half of this portion, extends southward, so as to reduce the width to 30 miles. To the westward of Cape Weggs the general trend of the south coast is nearly due west, while the opposite side continues north-west to form Gordon Bay, after which it bends to the west and south, so that at its western end the strait is about 100 miles from mainland to mainland, but of this distance the practical channel is limited to that portion between the south 1 M'Kenna, op. cit. p. 15 e/ seq. 224 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD coast and the large island of Nottingham, a distance of 35 miles. In the western half of the strait, Charles Island, which lies about 25 miles beyond Cape Weggs, is the only obstruction to navigation. This island is 25 miles long, and hes nearly due east and west, some twenty miles from the south shore of the strait. The ship channel passes to the northward of the island, although there is a good channel on its south side. The depth of water in the ship track through the strait varies from 50 to 200 fathoms. There are no shoals, and with ordinary precautions, there is little danger from stranding on the bold shores of either side of the strait, or on the few islands that bound the channel. A number of safe harbours easy of approach have been explored on the southern side of the strait, and others equally good and safe are known to be located on the north side, although they are at present unsurveyed. The passage from the western entrance of the strait to the port of Churchill, on the western side of Hudson Bay, is 500 miles. From the mouth of the strait the course is due west for 70 miles to the eastern end of the wide channel between Coats and Mansfield Islands. This channel is practically 100 miles long, and varies in width from 50 miles at the eastern end to over 100 miles at the other. The general course of the ship track from the eastern end of this channel to Churchill is nearly south-west, and there are nowhere any dangerous shoals or other obstructions to navigation. In the track across Hudson Bay the depth of water varies from 50 to 200 fathoms, while the approach to the low shores of Coats and Mansfield and those of the western mainland is signalled by the gradual lessening of the depth of water, which gives ample warning to ships approaching the land. It will be seen from the above description that there is no natural difficulty in the navigation of the bay and strait so far as the depth of water, presence of obstructions, and width of channel are concerned, and if situated in a more southern region, the route would be an ideal one for the navigator. APPENDIX C 225 APPENDIX C LAND RECLAIMABLE FROM SASKATCHEWAN RIVER (From Hudson's Bay Herald, October 9, 1913) O. W. W. Charlton and T. H. Dun, who have been busy on the Saskatchewan River with a party of eighteen men, com- mencing at Grand Rapids and working westwards, making soundings to enable the hydrographical department at Ottawa to judge whether the level of the river could be lowered in order to reclaim the immense stretches of land in the extended delta of the river, have reached town, having completed the first part of their mission. At the Demi-Charge Rapids, situated between Cross and Cedar Lakes, they found a sub- merged wall of rock about i mile long with deep water on both sides. By blasting this waU and digging a canal around the Grand Rapids at the mouth of the river, it will be possible to lower the level of the river about 19 feet. It is calculated that by this means about 4,000,000 acres of the best agricultural land to be found anywhere would be reclaimed. The cost would be about Sio,ooo,ooo, or §2.50 per acre. The whole of Cedar Lake would then disappear and become an immense stretch of arable land, while the low places around Moose Lake and the Pas, which are either flooded or in danger of being flooded at high-water periods, would no longer suffer from these causes. It is believed that the lowering of the level of the river would not in the least interfere wdth the possibilities of navigation, as the same volume of water would continue to pass in a much narrower channel which it would naturally considerably deepen. As it is now in many places, but chiefly about Cedar Lake, na\agation is somewhat im- peded by the fact that it is sometimes very difficult to judge safely where the passable channel exists. ' The water in the Saskatchewan is getting very low and the submerged bank of the river, at the mouth of the Pas River, which at ordinary level is a danger to boats entering the Pas, is now quite visible. Were the reclaiming work done, this danger would no longer exist. p 226 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD APPENDIX D (From Hudson's Bay Herald, September i8, 1913) A WEEK ago Wednesday, September 10, the Hudson Bay Construction Company inaugurated a passenger service on its construction train, at a rate of about five cents a mile, H. S. M'Cuaig, of this town, boasts having bought the first passenger ticket over the Hudson Bay Railway. He paid $2.75 for a trip to Scott, a distance of 55 miles. The names of eighteen stations and the distances between same appear on the ticket, as follows: The Pas . Lewiston . Jefferson . Parker Cormorant Georgetown Scott M'Laren . Limestone It further reads : " Hudson's Bay Railway Train Ticket — Not transferable. Good for one continuous passage only on the train issued and between stations cancelled by punch marks. Conductor must leave this ticket in hands of passenger. No responsibility is undertaken by the contractor to forward passenger holding this ticket over any part of the route, such transportation being at the sole convenience of the contractor and subject to delays. The person holding this ticket accepts such con- ditions, and agrees to release the contractor from any claim for damage, delay in transit, or injury to person or property. The Hudson's Bay Construction Company, Limited, con- tractors." The people of the Pas, who are familiar with what is going on on the road to the Bay, will recognise the different station Miles Miles M'Naughton . . -77 . 8 Woody Lake 85 . 22 Malcolm . 92 • 30 Colin 100 • 37 M'Millan . 108 • 45 Kusko River 117 • 55 Setting Lake I2S . 62 Moffat 132 • 72 Boyd 140 APPENDIX D 227 names. For the information of outsiders, however, it may be well to state that Lewiston, Jefferson, Parker, Scott, M'Laren, M'Naughton, Moffat, have been named after engineers or other employees of the Hudson Bay road ; Malcolm and Colin are the two Christian names of the M'Millan Brothers, the grading contractors whose family name will also be perpetu- ated ; Georgetown reminds one of our old friend George Cowan, the first settler of the Cormorant Lake district; Boyd is named after N. K. Boyd, ex-M.P. for Portage la Prairie, one of the chief partners of the Hudson Bay Construction Company. The other names are geographical. Between Lewiston and Jefferson there seems to be room for another station, the site of which will probably be decided later, possibly simultaneously with developments expected to take place about Clearwater Lake. It remains to say that the steel is only laid to mile 56.^ * The names of stations given here have since been changed. 228 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD APPENDIX E THE SELECT COMMITTEE'S INQUIRY, 1857 At a meeting of the Red River Settlements held in December 1856, as a result of Ballentyne having been escorted back to the Red River by officers of the Hudson's Bay Company at Norw'ay House where he had ventured to go to trade, one William Fair had exclaimed: " Let the world answer, let England, let Canada answer : if the company offer the native one blanket for a skin or fur, and another man, a native European, passes by and offers two blankets for that same skin, has not the native a right to take the two blankets of the latter, and refuse the one from the company? " Whether this episode had any bearing on the inquiry which was started the following year, evidently it was feared in many quarters that the appointees would probably be guided by the wishes and influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, and, on the announcement of the formation of the committee, the Colonial Intelligencer said: "We regret to state that undue partiality to the company was manifested by Mr. Labouchere in selecting the members of the House of Commons who should sit upon the committee." The paper then points out that Mr. Matheson, for example, is a large stock- holder in the company. Hearing that the equitable prin- ciples of the company are to form the basis of settlement, it adds: "The Hudson's Bay Company's monopoly is, for- sooth, to be maintained for the benefit of the Indians ! That monopoly which gives a body of traders, and their agents, irresponsible and absolute power throughout the vast regions of Rupert's Land and the adjacent territories is, after all, a blessing, and not the curse we have so often represented it to be! The people of England, however, know better." The Toronto Globe of April 17, 1857, seemed also to fear the fact that Mr. Labouchere was mixed up in this inquiry. It APPENDIX E 229 said: " The same Mr. Labouchere has shown himself ready to surrender for ever the vast territories in the north-west to the thraldom of the Hudson's Bay Company." The committee, however, rendered a verdict quite favourable to the settlement of the country: its 12th resolution read as follows: "Your committee believe that the districts in the Red River, Saskatchewan, and the Mackenzie hold out induce- ments to enterprising individuals from Canada and from this country, for their early occupation, which ought, by every legitimate means, to be encouraged." ^ This finding, which looked so promising to Canada, was not heralded by all with the same enthusiasm. The Montreal Gazette of September 16, 1857, said: " Festina lente is an excellent maxim with respect to the annexation or absorption of territory as in other affairs of life." The New York Tribune thought very favourably of the result of the inquiry: "Congress having provided the means, by a bountiful grant of lands, for a speedy railroad communication with the valley of the Red River, many years will not probably elapse before this region, till now the favourite haunt of the savage, will be dotted all over with farms, and villages, and embryo cities." » Report of Select Committee to consider state of British Possessions in North America, July 31, 1857. 230 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD APPENDIX F " THE " OR " LE " — WHICH? {Manitoba Free Press) The following communication has reached the Free Press in regard to the name of the new town which is the centre of the lately acquired extension of the territory of Manitoba : "Having noticed lately that some despatches from the southern terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway were headed The Pas (pronounced Paw), the reappearance of this hybrid name has set me wondering why this form, which I thought had been finally abandoned, should again find people wilhng to employ it. I have taken the trouble of studying most fully documents, historical and traditional, bearing on the subject, and I now take the liberty of asking j^ou, Mr. Editor, to kindly open the columns of your valuable journal to the few facts and remarks which I have gathered on the subject, as well as the only natural conclusion which, in my opinion, can reasonably be arrived at. " When, last January, the inhabitants of the new northern metropolis, Le Pas, were asked to vote on a money by-law providing for the expenditure of $120,000 on sewers and water- works, there was not one single vote registered against the proposition. This estabhshed a new record in such matters in Western Canada, and showed how well united the people of that town are. There is only one point, apparently, on which opinions differ, and which causes a Uttle friction between the two camps in which the population is on this account divided. That is whether ' Le Pas ' or * The Pas ' should be the name of the south terminus of the Hudson Bay Railway. " In view of the considerable attention which this town has APPENDIX F 251 attracted for the past eighteen months, a short and impartial study of the subject should not be amiss. " As far as modern history goes, Le Pas dates back to 1840. In that year. Rev. Henry Budd, an Indian catechist from York Factory, founded there a Church of England mission, which was known successively as Devon Mission, Ciunberland Mission and Pas Mission. On his arrival he had found the place called ' Le Pas de la Riviere ' and evidently found it ultimately necessary to preserve this name, although with the help of the Hudson's Bay Company it was AngUcized into the form The Pas. The tombstone of the Indian preacher is still to be seen in the old cemetery by Christ Church, at the northern end of Fischer Avenue. The inscription on it reads as follows : ' Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Henry Budd, who died April 2, 1875, aged 61 years. Named after one of the founders of the C.M.S. The first Indian convert and clergyman in Rupert's Land. An earnest and faithful minister of the gospel for 25 years. Beloved by the flock over which he was pastor.' " From that time to about 1895, the place continued to be known as The Pas and Pas Mission among the EngHsh-speaking element of the population, and Le Pas among the French- speaking people. In that year a post-office was established to which the name The Pas was given. " In 1908, the Canadian Northern Railway named its station Le Pas, and in 1911 the post-office department followed suit and changed the name from The Pas into Le Pas. The same fall the local newspaper, the Hudson's Bay Herald, was established, which naturally adopted the name used by both the railway and the post-office department. In the spring of 1912 a deputation went down to Winnipeg to obtain the incorporation of the town under the name of The Pas, which was granted, although the new electoral district formed of Manitoba's new territory had been previously called Le Pas. Those who are in favour of the French form say that in doing this the members of the deputation overrode their instructions, as the mandate they had received did not authorise them to unnecessarily change established conditions. 232 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD " Two etymologies are offered as to the word ' Pas.' Those who are in favour of the form ' The Pas ' say that it is a contraction of the Indian word ' opasquiaow,' which, they explain, means ' water converging to a narrows, with high land and spruce trees on either side.' Those who stand for ' Le Pas ' rejoin that, if it be so, it should be pronounced ' The Pass,' since in the Indian word the ' s ' is sounded, and they offer the counter explanation that ' pas ' is a French word which means ' narrow passage,' as employed in the well-known geographical terms, Pas de Calais, Pas de Roland, Pas du Loup, etc. In fact, the Indian and French meanings do not differ materially, both are perfectly descriptive of the aspect which is characteristic of the Saskatchewan River at Mission Island, where the Hudson Bay Railway bridge has been erected. It must be admitted, at any rate, that if the word ' pas ' is a contraction of the Indian word ' opas- quiaow,' it is at least pronounced after the French fashion. In Enghsh, even if understood in the sense of dance step, as used by Chaucer, the correct pronunciation should be ' pass.' " But the history of that place goes much further back than 1840, and it is there that the French etymologist finds his most weighty material. I beheve that your readers will find the facts that I am going to rapidly enumerate, interesting and given in an impartial manner, although, favouring the French form and beheving that it is better known by the public at large than the English form, I shall continue to use Le Pas in my narrative. "To Chevalier Pierre and his brother Francois, sons of the now famous western discoverer, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Verendrye, is generally ascribed the honour of having discovered the Saskatchewan River, which they ascended as far as the forks in the fall of 1741. Before them Henry Kellsey had taken a trip south-west of Port Nelson as early as 1691, but it is not probable that he went as far south as the Saskatchewan River, and in 1739 a French half-breed by the name of Joseph La France, a native of Michili Makinak, on Lake Huron, had set out for Hudson Bay, and finally spent the winter of 1740-41 near Le Pas, on Saskaram Lake. It APPENDIX F 233 seems, however, impossible to verify the stories of Robson and Dobbs, and for this reason most historians do not mention them. " Leaving their father at Fort de la Reine (Portage la Prairie) , the two younger la Verendryes had started northward, dis- covered Lake Manitoba, on the west side of which they had founded Fort Dauphin, subsequently reached the Saskatchewan River, established Fort Bourbon on the west end of Cedar Lake and Fort Poskoiac, where Le Pas is to-day. "According to most reliable historians such as Rev. E. Petitot, laureate of the Geographical Society of London, and Rev. A. G. Morice, member of the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba and British Columbia, and who is ad- mitted an authority on western history by Catholics and Protestants aUke, the two younger la Verendryes named that part of the Saskatchewan River flowing between the Junction point of the north and south branches above Fort a la Come and Le Pas, Riviere du Pas, out of devotion to their mother, Marie Anne Dandonneau du Sabl6 de I'lsle du Pas, daughter of the marquis of that name. In support of this version. Rev. E. Petitot states that during his trip up the river in 1862, on arriving at Le Pas, his French half-breed guides exclaimed on sighting the wide expanse of the Saskatchewan River: ' La Riviere du Pas ! ' ' And the Saskatchewan ? ' ' There is no river of that name. This is the Riviere du Pas; we know of no other.' This opinion is confirmed by John M'Lean, who in his notes of a 25 years' service in the Hudson Bay territory, published in 1849, wrote : ' We arrived on the 5th of August (1833) at Riviere du Pas, where an old Canadian, M. Constant, had fixed his abode, who appeared to have an abundance of the necessaries of fife, and a large family of half-Indians, who seemed to claim him as their sire.' " Dr. Bryce says that la Verendrye's sons shortened the name of the river, which was ' Paskoyac,' to ' Pas.' James Settee, a minister of the gospel at Cumberland House, says that the French-Canadian half-breeds called the Saskatche- wan River ' Riviere du Pas.' He has lived in the country for years, and before him his father and mother lived in it. 234 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD " In my opinion, however, it seems strange that if this name were given to the Saskatchewan River by the two younger la Verendryes, it should not be mentioned on the map which was on their return prepared by their father, and on which it seems evident that the Saskatchewan River from Le Pas is named Baskoia. On the other hand the map may have been prepared in the absence of the two j^oung men, and on their data, while they were away on further discoveries. This would not have prevented the name ' Riviere du Pas ' being preserved among the French half-breeds, who had heard it employed by the two la Verendryes and the men in their party. " In 1763, when Canada was ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, of the French traders and missionaries who had accompanied or followed the la Verendryes on their trip up the Saskatchewan, there were hardly any left, they having returned to Quebec to take part in the fight which culminated in England getting possession of almost half a continent. The result was that the French language ahnost disappeared from the land, being retained only by the Metis and some of their Indian allies. Later, however, about 1783, the Scotch mer- chants who had commenced hieing away to the Far West as early as 1760 again employed the ' Coureurs des Bois ' and ' Voyageurs ' in their expeditions, and as all their men spoke French among themselves, the French expressions as well as names of places were retained, for some time, at least. In some cases, however, they were unable to account for the meaning of some of them, and so Riviere du Pas degenerated into Le Pas de la Riviere, these men, no doubt, imagining that the name had been given on account of the narrow passage at Mission Island. " No one will try to deny that French was very much in use among the Scotch merchants, who, as soon as they were able to get them, used none but French-speaking employees, on account of their being better adapted, by years of residence in the country and contact with its Indian population, to the hardships of the fur trade. This is evidenced by the terms used even in the reports of these merchants, M'Tavish, of the APPENDIX F 235 X. Y. Company, in 1779, was nicknamed ' Le Premier ' or ' Le Marquis,' while such appellations as * Les Petits,' ' La Petite Compagnie,' ' Pot au Beurre,' ' Cantine Salope,' ' Mangeurs de Lard,' ' Le Rouge,' ' Le Blanc,' ' Le Borgne,' ' Le Picote,' ' Les Vachers,' etc., were quite common. " It would, therefore, be quite unreasonable to deny that Le Pas is undoubtedly much older than the hybrid form. The Pas. " Another feature favouring the form Le Pas is the fact that about 1800 a French-Canadian and native of Three Rivers, named Constant, settled on the point where the town is now located, cleared the ground of the trees that were there, and started farming. According to his grandson, Antoine Con- stant, the present chief of the Indians of the Pas reserve, from whose lips this information has been obtained. Constant married a Sauteaux woman, who gave him two boys and four daughters. The present chief's father, whose name was also Antoine, married a Cree woman, who bore him five boys and four daughters. Now, to any unprejudiced person, the question is asked: Is it likely that the first Constant, who was probably one of these coureurs des bois or voyageurs, above mentioned, would have called Le Pas anything but Le Pas? Is it reasonable to imagine that he may have called it The Pas ? " The remark has been made that The Pas has been in use by the government on its maps and in its reports, principally those emanating from the Indian Department. This is not denied, but the same may be said of Le Pas. For example, Le Pas is to be seen on the official plan of township 56, range 26. W. ist M, In his booklet, The Hudson Bay Route, published in 1908 by direction of the Department of the Interior, J. A. M'Kenna uses the form Le Pas. In the 1912 report of Indian Inspector Jackson and Indian Agent Fischer, Le Pas can be read. As a matter of fact, both terms have been employed, chiefly recently. " The object of this article is to give the facts just as they are found and without partiality. In conclusion, the writer might be permitted to make the following remark: We British should be satisfied with having conquered this part of the world. In this, imitating our cousins of the United States, 236 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD we should be willing to let the places which remind one of the early history of the country retain the names which are so characteristic of its early settlement by the European nations, and not grudge to a nation with whose people we are now allied the satisfaction of bringing back some of its ancient history, when this satisfaction does not extend beyond the naming of a place. Let us be generous, and so long as tradition does not conflict with common sense, let us permit the right to our French co-citizens to retain even so little a share in the building up of our great western country. They have been at the battle: why refuse them their place at the triumph? The victor is worthy of the spoils. — Yours truly, "Fair Play. "Winnipeg, May 15, 191 3." APPENDIX G 237 APPENDIX G (From The Winnipeg Telegram, Saturday, November 28, 1914) Doctor W. Sinclair, of the Pas, who has recently completed a trip along the line of the Hudson Bay Railway to Port Nelson, was in Winnipeg this week. He talked most entertainingly about the north country and disclosed scores of splendid photographs he made on his trip. The country traversed by the Hudson Bay Railway, between the Pas and Hudson's Bay, is all, more or less, wooded, and for the first 150 miles beyond the Pas it is but slightly elevated above the local waterworks. Consequently, in most places, it will require draining before it can be used for agricultural or grazing pur- poses. Beyond that point the land gradually rises above the local streams and lakes, until it reaches a height of 200 feet, about 60 miles from Port Nelson. From there to the harbour the banks of the river and the tributary lakes gradually lower until they are not more than 50 feet high. The doctor said: "Beyond Thicket portage the rock is covered by clay varying from a few feet to several hundred feet, but deep enough in all places for agricultural purposes. " The surface for the most part is composed of alluvial deposit, containing a large percentage of decayed vegetable matter, with a heavy clay subsoil, and for miles, in many places, repeated fires had destroyed the forest, with which the land has been covered, and only fallen and decaying spruce is to be seen on ground thickly grown with fireweed, peavine, and small fruit, with an occasional birch or poplar grove. " One cannot help seeing, in imagination, prosperous farms and villages inhabited, not by farmers drawn from the prairies, as their ideas of farming are on too large a scale, but by a popu- lation from across the ocean, who will be glad to farm fertile soil so near the European market. " I need hardly mention the lakes, teeming with the greatest 238 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD variety of fish, because all reports have mentioned these, as well as the mineral prospects, which are already beginning to attract attention. " Beginning about lOO miles north-east of the Pas, and continuing parallel to the Hudson Bay Railway for a distance of nearly 200 miles, until it joins the Nelson River, in Split Lake, is a series of lakes linked together by a river of consider- able size, known as Grass River. The shores and islands of these are thickly wooded with good-sized spruce, and each lake in succession tumbles into the Grass River over a fall, ranging from 15 to 50 feet. I have visited the Niagara; I have gone as far as Switzerland, to admire nature's handiwork, but I was fascinated by a canoe trip on the Grass River, and gazed with awe on the mighty torrent and ice-scarred rocks of the Lower Nelson.^ " I had a good opportunity to study the climatic conditions at a season when such conditions are important from an agricultural standpoint, as from August 11 to September 21 I slept in a tent, rising at daylight every morning. There were no signs of frost on grass or pool until September 7, when there was a heavy white frost, where I camped at Kettle Rapids, 150 miles from Port Nelson. On September 8 there was again white frost, but not quite as heavy, and it did not freeze again until my trip was completed. " On September 12, in company with Rev. Mr. Fox, I visited his garden at SpUt Lake. It was still absolutely un- touched by frost. Three weeks previous to this (August 22) I had the pleasure of dining with the gentleman and his wife, at which time they served new potatoes from this garden. He informed me it had been planted on June 12, and that the seed was in bad shape, having been brought all the way from Winnipeg by boat ; but what grew had grown luxuriantly, and I must say I never tasted better. "On a ' tote ' road near Setting Lake, on August 13 I ' One reads in the Pas Herald and Mining News of April 9, 1915: " J. B. Challis, superintendent of the water power branch, writes that a reconnaissance of Grass River will be undertaken this summer, to determine the water power available. The information will then be given to the Board of Trade." APPENDIX G 239 plucked several heads of well-matured ripe barley, which had grown from seed, dropped from transport loads the previous winter. On September 3 at Standing Rock portage, near the Manitou crossing of the Nelson, I found perfectly matured oats, barley, and timothy, which had been planted the same way. " The Hudson Bay Railway has no sharp curves and no difficult grades. It follows a natural valley, which slopes gradually from 820 at the Pas to 28 feet at Port Nelson or 800 feet in 400 miles. Eighty-pound steel is being used, and a siding nearly a mile long being placed every 7 miles, all of which will facilitate the rapid handhng of heavy loads. " One hundred and seventy- four miles have been completed and the grade is ahnost ready for 70 miles more. Track- laying, which has been held up since September 22, owing, in the first place, to some unfinished cuts, but lately to the heavy rain, softening the grade, will be resumed as soon as the grade freezes, and pushed with all speed to Manitou, Mile 240, where the bridge builders will hold it up for a time. " Beyond Manitou the grade is almost finished for 50 miles, and provisions will be distributed from that point to the sea this winter. " When my canoe rounded Flamborough Head on Sep- tember I, at II a.m., I got my first view of the great bay, which is certain to revolutionise the transportation problems of Western Canada and a large part of the United States. Along the left-hand shore, as we sped down with the ebbing tide, I could see the piers and wireless station becoming more distinct every minute. Out i^ miles off the end of pier No. i, lay the steamer Sheha, a steel tramp of 4000 tons; near her lay the fisheries department schooner, in which Captain Coma was exploring the west shore of the bay. Farther out lay two other steamers, waiting their turn to come in and unload. " On a nearer view the harbour was a whirl of activity. Seven hundred and twenty-eight men were at work, and each man seemed to have work to do. Some were building bunk- houses and dining-halls for the men, and store-houses for the supphes. Some were unloading the ships, using for this 240 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD purpose two fine steam lighters, and working night and day, whenever the tides were favourable, as the piers are not yet far enough out to allow even the lighter to come in at low tide. By others, a tremendous pile of material was being assembled and riveted into pipe, which, when finished, will be six or seven miles long. " More similar material is being made into huge barrel-like structures, which will be placed in pairs, and used to float this pipe from the dredge, which when ready will operate out in the channel, widening and deepening where necessary, while the silt sucked up from the bottom will be sent with tremendous force through these miles of pipes and deposited into cribs, being prepared to receive it. Thus the piers which are now dry at low tide will be extended out to the river channel in which the Sheba lay anchored. So the long sloping beach will be reclaimed for terminal purposes and the harbour widened and deepened. "Up on the hillside a steam shovel slowly cut its way to the higher land, a small terminal engine puffed majestically along, followed by trains of loaded cars. A locomotive crane came up the pier, groaning under the load of some heavy piece of machinery. Wireless messages flashed back and forth from steamers on the bay — and again overland to the Pas. " It was with difficulty that I realised that I was really wide awake, and that this was indeed Hudson Bay." APPENDIX H 241 APPENDIX H ALEXANDER HENRY AND CHATIQUE AT THE PAS Alexander Henry, the elder, was at Fort Bourbon on Cedar Lake on October 7, 1775: on October 26 he was at Cumberland House: his adventure at the Pas, in which Chatique, the Indian chief, was the hero, took place between these two dates. His own narrative follows : " At eighty leagues above Fort de Bourbon, at the head of a stream which falls into the Sascatchiwaine, and into which we had turned, we found the Pasquayah village. It consisted of thirty families, lodged in tents of a circular form, and com- posed of dressed ox-skins, stretched upon poles twelve feet in length, and leaning against a stake driven into the ground in the centre. " On our arrival, the chief, named Chatique, or the Pelican, came down upon the beach, attended by thirty followers, all armed with the bows and arrows, and with spears. Chatique was a man of more than six feet in height, somewhat corpulent, and ©f a very doubtful physiognomy. He invited us to his tent, and we observed that he was particularly anxious to bestow his hospitalities on those who were the owners of the goods. We suspected an evil design; but judged it better to lend ourselves to the treachery, than to discover fear. We entered the lodge accordingly, and soon perceived that we were surrounded by armed men.^ " Chatique presently rose up, and told us that he was glad to see us arrive; that the young men of the village, as well as himself, had long been in want of many things of which we were possessed in abundance ; that we must be well aware of his power to prevent our going further; that if we passed now, he could put us all to death on our return ; and that under these circumstances, he expected us to be exceedingly liberal 1 " With Henry in the lodge were the Frobishers, Peter Pond, a trader named Cadotte, and one or two others." — Burpee, op. cit. p. 311. Q 242 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD in our presents: adding, that to avoid misunderstanding, he would inform us of what it was that he must have. It consisted in three casks of gunpowder ; four bags of shot and ball ; two bales of tobacco, three kegs of rum, and three guns ; together with knives, flints and some smaller articles. He went on to say, that he had before now been acquainted with white men, and knew that they promised more than they performed; that with the number of men which he had, he could take the whole of our property, without our consent; and that therefore his demands ought to be regarded as very reasonable; that he was a peaceable man, and one that contented himself with moderate views, in order to avoid quarrels; finally, that he desired us to signify our assent to his proposition, before we quitted our places. " The men in the canoes exceeded the Indians in number; but they were unarmed, and without a leader. Our consulta- tion was therefore short, and we promised to comply. This done, the pipe was handed round as usual; and the omission of this ceremony, on our entrance, had sufficiently marked the intentions of Chatique. The pipe dismissed, we obtained permission to depart, for the purpose of assorting the presents ; and, these bestowed, or rather yielded up, we hastened away from the plunderers. " We had supposed the affair finished; but, before we had proceeded two miles, we saw a canoe behind us. On this, we dropped astern, to give the canoes that were following us an opportunity of joining, lest, being alone, they should be insulted. Presently, however, Chatique, in a solitary canoe, rushed into the midst of our squadron, and boarded one of our canoes, spear in hand, demanding a keg of rum, and threaten- ing to put to death the first that opposed him. We saw that our only alternative was, to kill this daring robber, or to submit to his exaction. The former part would have been attended with very mischievous consequences; and we therefore curbed our indignation, and chose the latter. On receiving the rum, he saluted us with the Indian cry, and departed."^ * Henry, op. cit. p. 259 et seq. APPENDIX I 243 APPENDIX I " THE UNEXPLOITED WEST " Under this title, a most interesting compilation of all avail- able information as to the resources of Northern Canada has just been published by Ernest J. Chambers, Major, Corps of Guides, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, under the direc- tion of F. C. C. Lynch, Superintendent of the Railway Lands Branch of the Department of the Interior. Those of our readers more specially interested in this feature of our subject will find the perusal of this pubhcation extremely helpful. The first five chapters of Major Chambers' work deal with the Keewatin area which, in 1912, was taken out of the North- West Territories and divided between Manitoba and Ontario. Starting with an opinion that the term " Fertile Belt," de- scribed in the agreement of 1867 between the Dominion of Canada and the Hudson's Bay Company as being bounded " on the South by the United States boundary; on the West by Rocky Mountains; on the North by the northern branch of the Saskatchewan; on the East by Lake Winnipeg, Lake of the Woods, and the waters connecting them," is only a " catchy expression " which creates the impression that the territory beyond the Saskatchewan River is nothing more than a desert, the author shows, by references to the reports of explorers, that Northern Canada is still a Terra Incognita, containing in fact valuable resources of all sorts. He points out that the study of the early explorations, official and unofficial, of the men about whom we have ourselves written in the first part of this book, and the parliamentary investiga- tions, British and Canadian, from 1749 to our days, show that the Hudson's Bay Company was the main factor responsible for the ignorance in which the world has so long and so con- stantly been kept about the great advantages offered by 244 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Northern Canada. Early agricultural experiments and their successes, disclosed by the evidence given before the Parlia- mentary Committee of 1749, are carefully dealt with. Many areas fit for agriculture are described, wild fruits are shown to grow in profusion, successful gardens are mentioned. In what is called the clay belt, it is shown that much country capable of improvements by drainage and many natural hay meadows exist, favoured with a climate much warmer than further east. Considerable areas of good timber are spoken of ; the range of the most important trees is given and special reference is made to the banksian pine, the marketable value of which is well known. Forests of trees in many places that would make good logs and much pulp wood, occasional beautiful forests of aspen poplar and magnificent coniferous species north-west of Lake Winnipeg are described. It is shown how, unfortunately, much destruction is wrought by forest fires, which, however, offer the advantage of an ample supply of timber for fuel. Water power on the Nelson is briefly dealt with. Coming to the subject of economic minerals. Major Chambers shows how the rocks in many cases are highly magnetic, and that norite rock similar to that at Sudbury is found about Trout Lake. He deals with the peat north of Lake Winnipeg, and speaks of the " large possibih- ties " in existence in the extensive district underlaid by Keewatin and Huronian rocks. Gypsum, building granites, quartz veins on the Grassy River below Reed Lake, possi- bilities of nickel occurrences, are among the minerals also touched upon. As to the game, fur-bearing animals and fish, the author shows flocks of wild fowl obscuring the sky, describes six species of seal in Hudson Bay, presents the country stocked with a multitude of animals of various kinds, and depicts white fish of all description abounding in the myriads of lakes and rivers. The commercial value of the sturgeon fisheries is particularly treated. In fine, thanks to its highly picturesque scenery and hunting and fishing and other sporting opportunities. Northern Canada is said to be destined to become in the near future the playground of the Dominion. APPENDIX I 245 Even the " Barren Lands," of which, however, there is only a small portion within the limits of New Manitoba, are, in the opinion of Major Chambers, a comparatively fertile country. The explorers have declared the term a misnomer. Some notes are given about the chief rivers and lakes of the immense region known by that name. The Thelon River offers an inland waterway for steamers via Chesterfield Inlet, a distance of five hundred and fifty miles into the interior. The country is similar to the tundra of Siberia, with the seasons progressing unevenly but rapidly. In the natural prairies of the Thelon valley, a limited amount of agriculture may be possible in places. There are phenomenal extensions of tree growth within the " Arctic Prairie " along the valley of the Thelon River, about the east end of Great Slave Lake and between Great Bear Lake and the Coppermine River; black spruce, larch, white spruce, banksian pine and birch are found in abundance. Deposits of native copper are found in the " Barren Lands " region, where a vast probable minerals bearing country in the interior can be reached via Chesterfield Inlet and the Thelon River, Iron, gold, silver, lignite and soft coal are known to exist. Millions of caribou roam at large, taking fourteen days to pass at a given point, in such a mass that in the words of an eye-witness in 1877 " daylight could not be seen through the column." The actual value of these immense herds should be very great, whether they be domesticated or replaced by the Lapland reindeer. The " Arctic Prairie " is also the home of the musk- ox and of innumerable other fur-bearing animals, including the polar bear; there the wild geese nest. Lakes, rivers and sea coasts are teeming with fish, among which are found the arctic salmon, the trout, several kinds of white fish and gray- ling. Can the " Barren Lands " be inhabited by the white? asks the author, and he mentions Yakutsk, a town of about five thousand people in Siberia, which has a mean winter tem- perature of —40.4° Fahr., and many other places in Northern Asia where a still lower mean temperature is common, one place having a mean winter temperature of —50.2° Fahr. At Fort Churchill the mean winter temperature is —20.5'' 246 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Fahr., and it is not likely that any part of the " Arctic Prairie " has a mean winter temperature of 30° Fahr. The lure of the " Barren Lands " is superbly described in the words of Warburton Pike, the author of The Barren Lands of Northern Canada : "To the man who is not a lover of nature in all her moods the Barren Grounds must always be a howling, desolate wilderness, but for my part, I can understand the feeling that prompted Salatha's answer to the worthy priest, who was explaining to him the beauties of Heaven. 'My father, you have spoken well; you have told me that heaven is very beautiful ; tell me one thing more. Is it more beautiful than the country of the musk-ox in summer, when sometimes the mist blows over the lakes, and sometimes the water is blue, and the loons cry very often? That is beautiful, and if Heaven is still more beautiful, my heart will be glad, and I shall be content to rest there till I am very old.' " ^ 1 The matter of this Appendix, for the most part, is merely a somewhat arranged reproduction of Chapters I.-V. and XIX. -XXII. of Major Chambers' book. 101 30 BIBLIOGRAPHY 247 BIBLIOGRAPHY The following is a partial list of the books that I have con- sulted on the subject of the Hudson Bay route. To this should be added the many newspapers, magazines and re- views which I have also read. History of the Catholic Church in Western Canada, by the Rev. A. G. Morice, O.M.I., 2 vols. Toronto, 1910. The Makers of Canada, Morang & Co., Ltd., 1 1 vols. Toronto, 1910. Altitudes in the Dominion of Canada, by James White, F.R.G.S. Ottawa, 1 90 1. Water-Powers of Canada, by Leo G. Denis, B.Sc, C.E., and Arthur V. White, C.E. Ottawa, 191 1. Report of the Third Annual Meeting of the Commission of Conservation held at Ottawa, January 16, 191 2. Montreal. Cruise of the " Arctic," by Captain J. E. Bernier. Ottawa, 1910. Dictionnaire Historique des Canadiens et des Metis Fraufais de I'Ouest, par le R.P. A. G. Morice, O.M.I. Quebec, 1912. The Honour of the Big Snows, by James Oliver Curwood. Toronto, 191 1. Flower of the North, by James Oliver Curwood. New York, 1912. The Romance of Commerce, by J. Macdonald Oxley. Toronto. Western Canada, by Rev. L. Norman Tucker. Toronto, 1907- The Rainbow in the North, by S. Tucker. London, 185 1. The Search for the Western Sea, by Lawrence J. Burpee. Toronto, 1908. The New North-West, The Senate Report of 1907. Ottawa, 19 10. The Hudson Bay Route, by J. A. J. M'Kenna. Ottawa, 1908. Handbooks of Indians of Canada. Ottawa, 1913. Evidence of Mr. R. E. Young, D.L.S. Ottawa, 1910. Canada's Fertile Northland. Ottawa, 1910. Summary Reports on the Operations of the Geological Surveys for 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1899. Ottawa, 1897, 1898, 1899 and 1900. The Pas, The Gateway to Hudson Bay. The Pas, 19 14. Reports on the North-eastern Portion of the District of Saskatchewan, by J. Burr Tyrrell, M.A., B.Sc, and D. B. Dowling, B.A., B.Sc. Ottawa, 1902. Chevalier de la Come and the Carrot River Valley of the Saskatchewan, by Arthur S. Bennett. Melfort, 191 3. Indian Affairs Blue Book, 1912. The Company of Adventurers, by Isaac Cowie. Quarterly Review, 18 16. Red River Settlement Papers, 18 19-1858. The Canadian Annual Review, by J. Castell Hopkins, years 1903-13. 1 1 vols. Toronto. Report of the Hudson's Bay Railway Surveys. Ottawa, 1909. Hudson Bay and Straits, by Dr. R. Bell, F.R.G.S. Ottawa, 1885. 247 248 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD First Pastoral Visit to the Indian Missions, by Mgr. O. CharleboU, O.M.I. Winnipeg, 191 2. Panama Canal, booklet published by the Hudson's Bay Company, 1914. Notes Historiques sur la Vie de P. E. Radisson, par L. A. Prudhomme. Saint Boniface, 1892. The Life of Lord Strathcona, by W. P. Richmond. London, 1914. Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental y Occidental, Nautica y Geographica. Madrid, 1629. Hudson's Bay Papers, Select Committee. I^ndon, 1857. The Canadian North-West, its History and its Troubles, in the Great Events by Famous Historians. The National Alumni. New York, 1905, vol. xix. Histoire des Canadiens-Franfais, par Benjamin Suite, 8 vols. Montreal, 1882-84. History of the Pacific States of North America, by H. H. Bancroft, 21 vols. San Francisco, 1882-90. Royal Society of Canada, Transactions. Montreal and Ottawa, 1883. Eleventh Report of the Geographical Board of Canada. Ottawa, 191 2. Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas, His Pilgrims, by Samuel Purchas, 20 vols. Glasgow, 1905-6. Henry Hudson the Navigator, by George M. Asher. London, i860. Hudson's Bay Company's Papers, 1754. Report of Committee, 1749. Relation du detroit et de la Baye d'Hudson, par Jeremie. Account of Six Years' Residence in Hudson's Bay, 17^3-^6 and 1744-47, by Joseph Robson. London, 1752. Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage, etc., 1746-47, by Henry Ellis, 2 vols. London, 1748. An Account of the Countries adjoining Hudson's Bay, etc., by Arthur Dobbs. London, 1744. Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company, by Rev. George Bryce. Toronto, 1910. Exploratory Survey to Hudson's Bay, by Otto Klotz. Ottawa, 1884. Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory, by John M'Lean, 2 vols. London, 1849. The Life of Sir William E. Logan, by B. J. Harrington. Montreal, 1883. Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean, etc., 1769-72, by Samuel Hearnc. London, 1795. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1819-22, by Sir John Franklin. London, 1823. Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1825-27. by Sir John Franklin. London, 1828. Journal of the Arctic Land Expedition, etc., 1833-4-5, by Sir George Back. London, 1836. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Arctic Ocean in 1833-4-5 tinder the Command of Captain Back, R.N., by Richard King. London, 1836. Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea, 1846-47, by John Rae. London, 1850. Arctic Searching Expedition, by Sir John Richardson. New York, 1852. Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada, by J. W. Tyrrell. Toronto, 1908. Dicouvertis et Etablisscmcnts des Franfais dans I'Ouest, etc., 1614-98, par Pierre Margry, 6 vols. Paris, 1879-88. BIBLIOGRAPHY 249 Pathfinders of the West, by Agnes C. Laut. New York, 191 1. En Route pour la Mer Glaciate, par E. Petitot. Les Bourgeois de la Campagnie du Nord-Ouest, etc., par L. R. Masson, 2 vols. Quebec, 1889-90. History of the North-West, by Alexander Begg, 3 vols. Toronto, 1895. The North-West Territory, by H. Y. Hind. Toronto, 1859. Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776, by Alexander Henry. Edited by James Bain. Toronto, 1901. John Harden, Missionary Bishop, by A. R. Buckland, M.A. Toronto. Life and Times of Lord Strathcona, by W. T. R. Preston. Toronto. Histoire de I' Quest Canadien de 1822 d 1869, par I'Abbe G. Dugas. Montreal, IQ06. Six Years in Canadian North-West, by Jean d'Artigue. Toronto, 1882. The Great Lone Land, by Sir W. F. Butler. London, 1872, etc. etc. INDEX Abraham, Plains of, 6 Adams, Captain, 63 Adams, G. Mercer, 221 n. Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay, Governor and Company of, 6, 7, 9 Agassiz, Lake, 120, 123 Akpatock, 223 Alaska, in, 113 Albany, 7 Albany, Fort, 177 Albemarle, Duke of, 6 Alberta, 22, 44, y2, 71, 75, 78, 104, 114, 140, 148, 154, 155, 156, 166, 193, 218 Alberta Central Railway, 141 Alberta, Peace River and Eastern Railway Company, 127 Alcazar, s.s., 82 Alert, S.S., 54 Alette, S.S., 82 Alexander, Fort, 14 Algonquin, 181 Alleghani Mts., 181 Alligewi, 181 America, 27, 141, 196 Amoretti, Charles, i n. Anderson, Bishop, 207 Anian, Strait of, i n. Apollo Belvidere, 181 Arctic, S.S., 49, 53, 58. 59, 60, 81 Arctic Islands, 57 Arctic Ocean, 26, a, 34, 42, iii, 195 Arctic Red River, 107 Armstrong, ex-Chief Engineer, 117, 126, 133, 136 Armstrong, Hon. Hugh, 161, 167, 168 Armstrong, John, jS, 84 and 11., 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93 Arrow Lakes, 41 Arrowsmith, 10 n. Arthur, Port, 114, 176, 209, 211 Artigue, Joan d', 192 Ashe Inlet, 53, 56, 57 Asher, Dr. G. M.. i Asia, 245 Assinae Poets (Assiniboines), 10, 21, 195 Assiniboin, 182, 186 and n. Assiniboine Indians, 194 Assiniboine River, 16, 28, 39, 87 «., 150, 199 n. Assiniboines, 10, 21, 195 Assinipouals, 186 Associated Boards of Trade of Western Canada, j^, 147 Astoria, 41 Athabasca, 10, 32, 44 Athabasca, Lake, 23, 32, n, 182, 200 Athabasca Pass, ^j Athabasca River, 39, 41 Athapapuskow Lake, 123, 124 Athapasca, 182 Athapascans, 184 Atlantic Ocean, 9 n., 50, 5 i, 61, 62, 68. 70, 100, 106, 114, 115, 116 Attickasish, 21 Augustus. Fort. 40 Aulneau de la louche, Father, 15 Aylesworth, A. B., 72 Back, Captain, 199 u. Baffin, William, 3 Baffin's Bay, 50, 62, 66 Baffin's Land, 51, 56, 61 Baillic, Edward, 132 Bain, James. 193 »;. Baldoon Settlement, 45 Ballentyne, 228 Baltic Sea. 61, 213 Bancroft-Wright party, 134 «. Banff, 140 Baptiste, Jean, Pierre and 1 r.in- 9ois, 13, 14, 15 Baqua, 193 2>I 2;2 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Barren Lands, 29 Barrieau (or B^riault). Fran9oi3, 33 Barrows, 162 Bartlett, Captain, 89 n. Baiscoia (or Baskoia), 193, 234 Basquia (or Pasquia), 21, 24, 28, 193. 194 Basquia River, 205 Basquiau, 208 «. Basquiau River, 195, 197 Bathurst, Lord, 46 Battleford, 23 Battle River, 37 Beacon Point, 97, 98, 99 Bear River, 34 Beauharnois, Governor de, 13, 14, 18 Beaver Lake, 133 n., 134 n.. 206 Beaver Lake Gold Mining Com- pany, 133 »., 134 M- Beechey Island, 58 Beland, Dr., 158 Bell, Charles N.. 10 Bell, John, 206 Bell, Dr. Robert, 53, 68, 87 n., 103, 104 Bella Coola, 35 Bellaventure, s.s., 82, 102 n. Belle Isle, 61, 64-66, 106, 114, 21 1 Belle Isle Strait, 56, 82 Bell River, 127 Bennett, Arthur S., 219 n. Beolhic, s.s., 82 B6r6nice, 172 Berens River, 187 Bernier, Captain, 49, 53, 85, 89 n. Bcrnier, Captain J. E., 60 «., 64 Besheu, 187 Big Lddy, i;., 241 Burwell, Port, 53, 57, 58, 59 Butler, M. J., 78, 84, 85. 91 Button, Sir Thomas, 2-5 Button Island, 50, 56, 57, 223 Cabinet Range, 40 Cabot, John, i Cadotte, 241 n. Cahan, C. H., 159 Calgary, 19, 112, 187, 194 Calgary News Telegram, 112 INDEX 253 Campbell, Hon. C. H., 154 Canada, 19, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 44, 45, 60. 72, 75, 100, loi n., 103, 107, 108, 113, 115, 116, 117, 123, 128 n., 137 «■. 139. 143. 148. 155. 157, 162, 165, 166, 174, i86, 192, 194, 198, 201, 202, 204 «., 214 «., 215 «., 217, 219, 228, 229, 234, 243. 244 Canada, London, England, 116 Canadian Annual Review, 159 Canadian City and Town Pro- perties Ltd., 132 Canadian Magazine, 117, 151 Canadian Northern Railway, 74, 78, 79, 80, 89, 104, 105, 1 10, 112, 141, 142, 208, 215, 231 Canadian North-Western Railway, 141. 143 Canadian North-West Transporta- tion Company, 149 Canadian Pacific Railway, 105, 108, 112, 141, 142, 147, 148, 176, 215, 219 and M. Canadian Topographical Surveys, 10 Canadian Trade Review, 72 Canoe River, 41 Canora, 141, 143 Cape Breton, 1 1 7 Carlton House, 37 Carridre, W., 210 n. Carrier Indians, 35 Carrot River, 12, 19, 22, 136, 138, 144, 186 «., 188, 205, 209 Carrot River Valley, 87 and »/., 194 Carteret, Sir George, 6 Caisgrain, J. P. B., 76 Castell Hopkins, 52 «., 83 «., 146 n., 147 n., 159 n. Catlin, 16 Cauchon, Joseph, 17 n. Cearenz, s.s., 82 Cedar Lake, 12, 17, 44, 123, 140, 149, 193, 194, 199, 206, 225, 233, 241 Challis, J. B., 238 n. Chambers, Major Ernest J., 145, 243-246 Charlebois, Bishop Ovidc, 157, 159, 172, 190 «. Charles I., 4 Charles II., 6, 7 Charles, s.s., 4 Charles Fort, 7 Charles Island, i, 57, 66, 224 Charlottetown, P.E.I., 1 10 Charlton, O. W. W., 225 Charlton Island, 7 Charly St. Cyr., 6 Chateau Bay, 59 Chatique, Chief, 194, 241, 242 Chemawawin, 187 Chesterfield Inlet, 53, 245 Chicago, III, 213 Chidley, Cape, 57, 223 Chimo River, 64 Chippewa, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187 Chippeway, 180 Chippewyan, Fort, n, 34, 36 Chippewyan Indians, 24, 25, 26 Christ Church, 2015-208, 231 Christianised Indians, 197 Christian Science Monitor, 116 Christinaux, Riviere des, 17 Christinos, 186 Churchill. 24, 25, 29, 53, 54, 55, 66, 70, 90, 94, 114, 169, 173-176, 224 Churchill, Cape, 94 Churchill, Fort, 4, 27, 29, 39, 57, 65. 81, 84, 86, 87. 88, 93, 95, 108. 113, 114, 115, 129, 141, 174, 194, 209, 245 Churchill, Port, 53, 93, 224 Churchill-Nelson, 167 n. Churchill River, 3, 17, 28, 30 «., 32, 39, 87-90, 93, 94, 95, 103, 1 19, 125, 136, 180, 182 Church of England, 189, 205, 206, 207 n.. 231, 233 Clarence. Cape, 58 Clark. J., 16, 41, 160 n., 183 Clark's Crossing. 22 Clearwater Lake, 138, 144, 188, 227 Clowey Lake, 26 Coates. Captain. 51. 63 Coats Island. 59. 224 Cochrane, Hon. Frank, 80, 89 n., loi «., 102 n., 105, 106, 107, 108, 1 10. 127, 140 Cockrill's Point, 95 Cogeal Lake. 27 Colin, 226, 227 254 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Colleton. Sir Peter, 6 Colonist, 105 Columbia River, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42 Coma, Captain, 239 Confidence, Fort, 208 n. Conservative Conventions of Sas- katchewan and Alberta, 73 Conservative Party, y^, 75, 78, 79, 80 Constant, Antoine, 190, 205, 208, 233. 235 Constant, Joseph, 195, 205 Cook, Dr. F. A., 108 Copper Indians, 26 Coppermine River, 25, 26 and «., 27. 29, 33. 43. 245 Coquart, Father du, 16 Cormorant Lake, 133, 171, 226, 227 Corne, Captain de la, 24, 136 Corne, Fort a la, 24, 135, 149, 177, 233 Corne St. Luc, Captain Louis Luc de la, 19, 21, 194 Cornhill Magazine, 221 Coues, Dr. E., 10 n. Cowan, George, 227 Cranberry Lake, 119 Cranberry portage, 119 Craven, Earl of, 6 Craven Branch (C.N.R.), 142 Cree District, 181 Crees, 12, 180, 181, 182, 185, 186, 190, 193 «., 214, 215 Crittenden and Cullity, 133 «. Cronstadt, 213 Cross Lake, 121, 123, 124, 125, 136, 149, 152 it., 187, 225 Cross Lake Rapid, 140, 149 Cross River, 124 Cumberland, 10, 30 n., 187, 231 Cumberland, Fort, 197, 199, 207 Cumberland Gulf, 57, 58 Cumberland House, 28, 37, 40, 41, 123, 133 «., 135, 144, 194. 196. 198-203, 206, 208, 233, 241 Cumberland Lake, 121 Cumberland -Pas, 208 Cumberland Strait, 64 Curry, Thomas, 28 Curwood, James Oliver, no, 130 Cyrus Field Bay, 57 Dakota, North, 152 Dandonneau du Sabl6 de I'lsle du Pas, Marie Anne, 233 Dauphin, Fort, 17, 85, 162, 233 Davies, S. V., 210 m. Davis, I Davis Strait, 51, 62, 64, 6^, 85 Decharge Falls, n Deering's Point, 10 n. Deer River, 88 Degonnor, I-'ather, 13 Delaware, River, 180 Delorme. Pierre, 33 Demi-Charge Rapids, 225 Denmark, 4, 173 Desgroseillers, Menart Chouart sieur, 6, 7 Detroit, 32 Devine, Thomas, 17 n. Devon Mission, 208, 231 Diana, s.s., 56, 57, 65 Digges, 66 Digges' Island, 51, 53, 56 Discovery, s.s., 2 Dixon, Walter, 69 Dobbs, Arthur, 11 and n., 12, 173, 233 Dog-Rib Indians, ^^ Doherty, J. C, 158 Doucette, Charles, 33 Douglas Harbour, 56, 57 Dowling, Donaldson Bogart, 1 20 n., 121 «., 122 «., 176 and «., 209 n. Drummond, Sir Gordon, 46 Dubawnt, 27 Dubawnt Lake, 25, 27 Duck Lake, 187 Dugas, Abb6 G., 199 n. Duluth, 72, III Dun, T. H., 225 Eagle, S.S., 7 Eagle Hill Creek, 22 Eastern Canada, 42 Ebb and Flow Rapid, 140 Echimamish, 12 Edinburgh, 44 Edmonds, VV. Everard, 151 v. Edmonton, 23, 40, 87, 146 and n., 147. 151 Elbow, The, 22, 148 Ellesmere, 58 INDEX 255 Ellice, Edward, 45 Ellice, Rt. Hon. E., 197 n. Elliot, H. H., 210 «., 216 Ellis, Professor R. W., 76 d'Embarnos Falls, 33 Emma Island, 56 England, 8, 19, 28, 194, 196 «., 206, 228, 234 English River, ^^ Entente Cordiale, 208 Erebus, s.s., 58, 206 Erie, Lake, 61 Erik, s.s., 58 Erik Harbour, 59 Eskimo, 25, 26, 51 Eskimos, 181 Etah, 58 Etoimami, 74 Etoimami River, 124 Europe, jt,, 85, 106, 111-116, 175, 208 European Magazine and London Review, 68 Ey-thinjTi-wuk, 180, 181 Fafard, Father F. X., 177 Fair, William, 228 Falconer, Captain, 63 Ferguson, Hon. D., 75 Finger, H., 210 «. Finger Lumber Company, Ltd., 137, 144. 212 Finlay, James, 28 Finlay River, 35 Fischer, 235 Fischer, F., 160 n., 188, 189 Fisher, Captain E. B., 64 Fisher River, 187 Flamboro Head, 97-100, 239 Fleming, J., 210 ». Flower of the North, 1 10 Foot Print Lake, 121 Forsyth, Richardson and Com- pany, 31 Fort Churchill, see Churchill, Fort Foster, Hon. G. E., 75, 76 Foster, Mr., 113 Fox, Captain Luke, 4, 5 Fox, Rev. Mr., 238 Fox Channel, 51, 66, 85 France, 6-8, 36, 208 France, Joseph La, 232 France, La, 173 Franklin, Sir John, 26, 42, 43, 58, 67, 195, 201, 204 n. Fraser, Rev. A., 160 h. Eraser, Simon, 42 Fraser River, 35 Frazer River, 149 French Revolution, The, 44 Frobisher, Benjamin, 44, 241 h. Frobisher, Joseph, 28, 31, 241 ». Frobisher, Thomas, 28, 31, 241 n. Frobisher Bay, 57, 66 Frobisher's Point, 202 n. Frobisher Straik 64 Frog River, 88, 90 Fry, R. D., 96 Fullerton Harbour, 58, 59, 60 Gaboury, Marie Anne, 46 ». Galissoni^re, Marquis de la, 18 Gard, Anson A., 117 Garry, Fort, 150 Geographical Board of Canada, 10 n., 181, 186, 187 n. Geographical Society of London, 233 George, Fort, ^y George River, 64 Georgetown, 226, 227 German, Mr., 1 14 Germany. 173 Geyer, Governor, 10 Gibbon, Captain, 3 Gillam, Captain, 6, 7 Goose Lake, 123, 172 Goose River, 1 19 Gordon, Captain, 20 Gordon, Commander A. R., 53-55, 65, 108 Gordon, J. H., 210 n. Gordon Bay, 223 Graham, Andrew, 93 n. Graham, Hon. George, 79, 80 Graham of Severn, Andrew, 21, 23 Grain Growers' Guide, 105 Grande Mer de I'Ouest, La, 36 Grand Forks, 87, 149, 150, 152, 177, 222 ». Grand Portage. 11, 14 Grand Rapids of Saskatchewan, 12, i7, 81, 129, 135, 140, 144, 147, 149-152, 167 H., 172 M., 187, 225 I'.e THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Grand River, 45 Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 112, 142, 215 Grant, Cuthbert, 31 Grass River, 119, 120, 123, 141, 238 and n. Grassy River, 178, 244 Gray Strait, 223 Great Bear Lake, 245 Great Bear River, 33 Great Britain. 81, 208, 217 Great Lakes, The, 6, 9, 61, 69, 76, 78, 85, III, 117, 126, 130, 152, 209, 211,212 • Great Northern Railway, 215 Great River, The, 87 n. Great Slave Lake, 27, 32-34, 42, 245 Greenland, 52, 58, 85 Gregory, John. 31, 32 Grey, Lord, 61 Grizzly Bear Hill, 26 Grosbois, Pierre Bouche de. 194 Groseillers. 129 Gulf Stream. 68 Gull Lake, 152 «. Gull Rapid. 140 Hackland. Captain J., 68 Halcrow, G., 68, 160 m., 161 n., 164. 178, 210 n. Halifax, 54-58, 102 «., 174 Hall, C. F.. 66 Hanbury. David T.. 26 and n. Hansard, 113 Hare Indians, 33 Harmon, 183 Haultain, Hon. F. W. G., 73, 104 Haven, Cape, 57 Hawes, Captain. 64-66 Hayden. 182, 184. 185 Hayes, 12 Hayes River, 21, 53, 96, 97, 173, 186 Hazen, H. F., 81, 102 «.. no Hearne, Samuel, 8, 25-30, 33, 194 Hendry, Anthony, 21-24, '93 Henrietta Maria. Cape. 4. 5 Henry. Alexander, 16, 17, 28, 32, 36-38, 41, 148, 183, 186, 193 and n., 194 and n., 241 and n., 242 n. Henry, Alexander, the Elder, 222 M. Herb Lake, 1 34 n. Herchmer, Mr. F. K., 30 n. Herschel, Cape, 58 High Rivcr-Saskatchewan-Hudson Bay Railway, 141 Hillview, 178 Hind, Henry Youle, 87, 148-150, 177 and n., 183, 205 and n. Hines, Rev. John, 208 Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba and British Columbia, Hogan, J. F., 210 n. Holland, 173, 213 Hopes Advance, Cape, 223 Horn, Cape, 1 12 Horn Mts., 33 Howse, Mr., 40 Howse Pass, 37, 40, 41 Hudson, Henry, 1-3, 5 Hudson Bay, 1-3, 5. 6. 8, 10-12, 17 «., 20, 21, 27, 31. 43, 49- 87, 89 M., 97, 98, 100, 102- 104, 106, 107, 109-117, 119, 122, 128, 130, 131, 136, 137 n., 141, 151, 152 and «.. 154. 166, 170, '^IZ' 176. 182, 186, 187, 190, 195, 196 n., 199, 209, 224, 232, 233, 240, 244 Hudson's Bay Company, 5, 6, 8, 9 and «., II, 19-49, 62-70, 86, 94, 96, 103, 127-129, 136, 143, 147- 149, 154, 180, 183, 194-196, 203- 209, 214 n., 221, 228-231, 243 Hudson Bay Construction Com- pany, 138, 144, 226, 227 Hudson's Bay Herald, 160, 225, 226, 231 Hudson Bay Junction, 74, 80, 89, 141-143 Hudson Bay Navigation Associa- tion, 152 Hudson Bay Navigation Company, 64 Hudson Bay, Peace River alld Pacific Railway Company, 84 «. Hudson Bay Railway, The, 1 1, 70- 84, 87, 89, 100, loi «., 103-118, 126-133, 134 «., 136-138, 147, 151, 152, 163, 165, 180, 186, INDEX 257 192, 198 n., 209-219, 226, 230, 232, 237-239 Hudson Bay Territory, 45 Hudson House, 37 Hudson Strait, i, 6, 7, 50-70, 73, 103, 106, 107, 109, 114, 213, 223 Hughes, Colonel John, 159 Hull, 4 Humboldt, 142 Hunter, Rev. J., 205-207 Hunter, R. H., 10 Hurdy, G. C, 112 Huron, 244 Huron, Lake, 11, 61, 180, 232 Iberville, D', 8 Iceland, 3 Indian Lake, 125 Indian River of the Strangers (now Churchill), 3 Indian Territories, 17 Inglis, John, 45 In-nin-yu-wuk, 180, 181 Isaac Toad, s.s., 37 Isham of York Fort, Governor James, 21 Jackson, Inspector, 235 Jackson. S. J., 189 Jackson, W. E., 49 Jacobs, Peter, 187, 188 Jacobsen, J. P., 210 n. James, Captain Thomas, 4, 5 James Bay, 2, 5,74, iio, 115, 126, 127, 177, 182 Japan, Emperor of, 4 Jaunay, Father du, 16 Jefferson, 226, 227 Jeflerys, Thomas, 192 Jeffrey, 17 m. Jemmeraye, Christophe Dufrost de la. 13-15 Jesuits, 182, 185, 186 Johnson, H. S., 160 «., 161 n. Jonqui^re, Fort la, 18, 19, 194 Kaministiquia. 14 Kasba Lake, 26 Kazan River, 25, 26, 27 Keewatin, 64, 123, 154, 157, 159, 172, 176, 177, 190 n., 243, 244 Kekerton Islands, 57 Kelsey, Henry, 10-12, 232 Kenistenoag. 181, 183 Kennedy, Captain, 64 Kerkton, 57 Kerr, K., 160 n. Kettle Rapids, loi n., 140, 238 King, Dr. Richard, 195, 196, 199- 202, 204 and n., 205 King's County, 113 Kingston, 159, 161 Klistenaux, 186 Klotz, Otto, 209 n. Knistenaux, 181, 182 Knowles, \V. E*, 75, 76 Kootenay, ly, 40 Kootenay Falls, 40 Kootenay, Fort, 40 Kootenay House, 41 Kootenay Lake, 40 Kootenay River, 39-41 Kullyspell House, 40 Kum Lake, 26 Kusko River, 226 Labouch^re, Right Hon. Henry, 196, 228, 229 Labrador, i «., 3, 50, 51, 56, 57, 61, 62, 65, 66, 85, 113 Lacombe, 182 Ladoga, Lake, 213 La France, Joseph, 1 1 Lagimodiere, Jean Baptiste, 46 Lamarche of Nicolet, P. E., 157 Lamb, T. H. P., 160 ». Lancaster Sound, 58, 206 Landry, Joseph, a Langevin, Bishop, 14 La Perouse, 8 Laperriere, 53 Lapland, 245 La Reine, Fort, 16, 17 Large Pike Lake, 27 Larose, Dr. A., 160 >;. Laurcntides, 127 Laurier, Cape Sir Wilfrid, 59 Lauricr, Sir Wilfrid, 74-78, 80, 103, 108, 146, 152, 154, 156, 158 Laurier Cabinet, The, ji Laut, Agnes C, 3 m., 4 «., 6 n., 10 n., II and n., 22 n., 23 n., 24 n., 27 «., 50 and n., 52 n., 71 n. Lavdrendrye, Chevalier de, 192 R 2;8 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Laverendrye, Francois, 232, 233, 234 Laverendrye, Louis. 17 Laverendrye, Louis Joseph de, 15 Laverendrye, Pierre, 16, 17, 232- 234 Lavtrendrye, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la V^rendrye, or, 13-21, 232 Laverendrye, Rene Gaultier, Che- valier de Varennes de, 13 Laverendryes, The, 13-20. 28. 43, 45, 147, 194, 214 Lavergne, Armancf, i 59 Lefevre, Father, 107 Lefroy, Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry, 195, 196, 204 and n., 208 Legras, Sieur, i 5 Leitch, T. S., 210 n. Leith, James, 198 and >»., 201 Lemieux, Hon. R., 157 Leopold Island, 58 Leroux, 32 Lethbridge, 141 Lewis, Captain Meriwether, 16, 41 Lewiston, 226, 227 Liberal and Provincial Rights of Saskatchewan and Alberta, 73, 74 Liberal Party, 73-75, 78-81 Limestone, 226 Limestone Portage, 144 Limestone Rapid, 140 Little Deer, 21 Liverpool, 72, 85, 1 1 1, 1 13-1 16, 21 1 Livonia, 173 Lofthouse, Bishop, 64 Long Spruce Rapid, 140 Long Trail, The, 2, 3 Longueil, 42 Louis XV., 13 Louisiana, 192 Louisiana bargain. The, 19 " Louis Primo," 194 Low, A. P., 52 and n.. 57, 72, 85 n., 223 Lynch, F. C. C, 243 M'Arthur, J. D., 80, 81 M'Connell. R. C, 34 M'Cuaig. S., 226 Macdonald, Sir John, 72 Macdonell, Captain Miles, 46 M'Dougall, Dr. John, 172, 187 M'Ciillivary, William, 31, 32 M'Grath, P. T., 72. no MTnnes, William, 175, 177, 178. 198 n. Mackay, 206, 208 and n. M'Kenna, J. A., 62-65, ^7 "•. 69 M., 85 n., 138 n., 171 n., 174 w.. 177, 178 H., 223 «., 23s Mackenzie, Alexander, 31-37, 44- 46, 182-185 Mackenzie, Roderick, 31-33 Mackenzie, Captain Thomas, 64 Mackenzie, Sir William, 105 Mackenzie Valley, 113 Mackenzie River, 31, 33, 34, 182, 229 M'Laggan, J. W., 171 M'Laren, 226, 227 M'Laren, James, 208 n. M'Lean, John, 204, 205 11., 233 M'Lellan, Archibald, 214 ». M'Leod, Alexander, 31, 32 M'Millan, 226 M'Millan Brothers, 227 M'Murray, Fort, 107 M'Naughton, 226, 227 Macoun, Professor, 174 M'Tavish, 234 M'Tavish, Donald, 37 M'Tavish, Simon, 31, 32 Malcolm, 226, 227 Maldonado, Laurent Ferrer, i m.. 49 Malplaquet, Battle of, 13 Mandans, Land of the, 16, 17 Manitoba, 43, 44, 75-81, 114, 119, 122, 129, 133, 134 w., 137. 139. 140, 142, 145 n., 147, 1 54-161, 163-169, 171, 172, 181, 186 and n., 187, 189, 216, 218, 230, 231, 243 Manitoba, Lake, 17, 36, 150, 233 Manitoba Free Press, 108, 208 «., 230 Manitou, 239 Manitou Rapids, 89, 125, 152 tt. Manitowpah, 187 Mann. Sir Donald, 105 Mansfield Island, 56, 58, 224 Marble Island, 4, 53, 87 Margry, Pierre, 14, 193, 215 m. Martin, Abraham, 6 INDEX 259 Martin, Humphrey, 8 Maryfield Branch (C.N.R.), 142 Maskegon, 182, 185-187 Masquikoukiaks, 186 Matheson, Mr., 228 Matonabbee, Chief, 25, 26 Maurepas, Fort, 14, 15 Maximilian, Prince of Wied, 16 Meaux, 6 Medicine Hat, 87, 147 " Mediterranean of the North," The, 61 Mediterranean Sea, 61 Melfort, 141, 142, 212 Melfort-Pas Railway, 142 Merry, Cape, 93 Mesaiger, Father, 13-15 Metal River, 25 Meteorological Service of Canada, 174. 178 Metis, 234 Meuron. Pointe de, 47 Meurons' Regiment, De, 47 Mexico, 215 n. Michilimakinac, 11, 15, 28, 232 Middleton, Captain, 173 Mikikoueks, 186 Milan, i «. Milton, Hersey & Company, Ltd., 133 »'• Minneapolis Daily News, 208 n. Minneapolis Tribune, 115 Minnedosa, 178 Minnesota, 14 Minto, S.S., 81 Mission Island, 207 n., 208, 232, 234 Mississippi River, 39, no, 149 Missouri, 149 Missouri River, 11, 16, 31, 39 .Mistake Bay, 4 JNIoffat, 226, 227 Mohawk, 181 Monck, General, 6 Mondou, A. A., 158 Monetary Times, The, 83, 106, 118 Monk, Mr., 157 Monmouth, Cape, 5 Monsoni, 185, 186 Montana, 17 Montreal, 11, 13-18, 21, 28, 31, 36, 45-47, 70-72, 109, III, 1 14-116, 126, 127, 133 "., 195, 196 «., 203, 206, 211, 212, 219 Montreal Gazette, 229 Montreal Herald, 76, 85 Moodie, Major, 58-60 Moose, 7 Moose Factory, 127, 173 Moose Lake, 21, 133, 144, 187, 225 Morice, Rev. A. G., 7 «., 233 Mosher, E., 174 Moulton Colony, 45 Mountain Falls, 33 Mountain River, 34 Moyie River, 40 Mulnain, 36 Munck, Jens, 2-4 Munck's Cove, 31 Muskuty Plains, 22 Nachvack Bay, 57 Napoleon L, 19, 36 Nares, Sir George, 54 Narrows, The, i^^ Nathd-wywithinyu, 180 Nation River, 35 Nechaco River, 35 Nelson House, 136, 172 Nelson, Port, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 43, 56, 69, 81, 82. 84-86, 89 and n., 95-102 »., 104, 106, 108, no, 113, 117, 125, 126, 127. 141, 145, 152 and n., 153 n.. 156, 179 «., 209, 211-213, 218, 219, 232. 217, 239 Nelson Rapids, 141 Nelson River, 12, 21, 39, 43, 46, 53, 55, 63, 87, 88, 90, 91, 96-100, 103, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 134, 136, 140, 146 M., 152 and n., 176, 181, 186, 2 38, 239 Nepigon, Lake, 13 Nepoween Mission, 148, 177 Neptune, S.S., 53, 54, 57, 58, 60 New Brunswick, 109 New Denmark, 4 Newfoundland, 1, 66 New France, 17 n. Ncwland, Captain, 7 New Manitoba. 130, 131, 138, 141, 143-145, 156, 157, 167 n., 170. 180, 188, 192, 198 «., 217, 245 Newnham, Bishop, 189 New Ontario, 144 26o THE HUDSON BAY ROAD New Wales, 4 New York, 2, 70-72, 82, 11 2-1 14, 123, 206 New York Tribi^ne, 229 Niagara, 123, 238 Niagara Falls, 76, 103 Nipawi des Prairies, 17 Nipissing, Lake, 176 Nipissings, 182 Niverville, Joseph Claude Boucher de, 19, 194 Nonsuch, S.S., 7 Norquay, Sir John, 79, 81 Norris, T. C, 79, 156 North America, 8 North Amei'ican Review, 72 North Battleford, 142 North Bay Railway Company, 127 North Devon, 58 North Pole, 2, 108 North Portal, 142 North River, 97 North Saskatchewan River, 150 North Somerset Island, 58 North-West Company, The, 9 «., 28, 31, 32, 36, 38-40. 42, 44, 45, 48, 194 North- West Passage, 2, 5, 9 n., 25, 27, 36, 42 North- West Provinces, 77 North-West Territories, 76, 78, 104, 148, 169, 177, 188, 190, 204 «., 243 North- West Territories Act, 157 Norton, Moses, 24 Norway House, 10, 121, 129, 136, 152, 180, 187, 188, 206, 207, 228 Notre Dame, Montreal, 18 Nottaway, Port, iio, 126, 127, 212 Nottingham, 66 Nottingham Island, 50, 51, 224 Nova Scotia, 56, 85, 109, 119 Nova Zembla, 3 Noyelle, Captain Charles Joseph Fleurimont de, 18 Nueltin Lake, 26 Oak Point, 15 Ochagach, 13 Ochipewa, 180 Ojibbeway, 180 " Old Francois," 194 Oliver, Hon. Frank, j'i O'Meara Co., John F.. 82 Ontario, 74, jj, 105, 108, 112, 127, 138, 154, 156, 159, 166, 243 Ontario, Lake, 61, 146 Orange Factor, The, 159 Oregon, 20 Orok, Dr., 141 Ortelius, i Ottawa, 72, 75, 114, 154, 155, 156, 161, 164 M., 225 Otter Nation. The. 186 Oxford. 188 Pachegoia, Lake, 12 Pacific Ocean, i n., 9 n.. 27, 127, 195 Pacific Railway Company, 127 Pack River, 35 Panama, 1 1 2 Panama Canal, 1 12 Paris. 6 Paris. Treaty of. 234 Parker, 226 Parsnip River. 35 Pas, Le, 10, 12, 17 and n., 21. 22. 24, 28, 37. 69. 74. 78-82, 85-90, 92 n., 1 01 n., 104, 105. Ill, 1 14. 119, 120, 125 «.. 129, 130. 132- 138, 141-147. 150-152. 157. IS9- 162. 164, 165. 167-170, 172 and »., 174-180. 187, 188, 190 and «., 192-197. 199, 204. 205, 207- 220, 225, 226, 230-235, 237, 238, 241 Pas, Le, Herald, 164 n. Pas Herald and Mining News, 134 n. Pas Indians, 189, 205 Paskoyac River, 233 Paskquaw. 193 n. Pas Mts., 193 n., 208 n. Pasquayah, 186 n., 241 Pasquayah River, 193 and n. Pasquia Hills, 22, 87 Pasquia Lake, 210 Pasquia River. 193 and n., 210 Pas River. 138, 144, 192, 193 and n., 195, 205, 208, 212, 225, 233, 234 Patriot, The, 1 10 Pau (France), 48 Peace River, 23, 31-35, 39, 112, 147. 151 Peace River Company, 127 INDEX 261 Peace River Valley, 1 1 3 Pelham, Lord, 45 Pelican, 241 Pelican Falls, ^3 Pelletier, Hon. L. P., 157 Pembina, ^7 Pembina River, 41 Pend d'Oreille Lake, 40 Pend d'Oreille River, 40 Penrose, H. E., 69 Pepin, Lake, 14 P6rouse, Admiral La, 29, 30 and »i., 63 Perrot, Fran9ois Marie, 186 Persian Gulf, 70 Peshew Lake, 26 Peterborough, 143 Peterborough, East, 104 Peter the Great, 70, 213 Petitot, Rev. E., 233 Petrograd, 213 Pezhew, 187 Piegans Indians, 41 Pigeon Lake, 28 Pigeon River, 14, 19 Pike, Warburton, 246 Pine Island Lake, 28, 123 Pipestone Lake, 124 Playgreen Lake, 21, 124 Pluie, Lac la, 14 Poland, 173 Polar River, 187 Polo, Marco, 50 Pond, Peter, 32, 44, 241 n. Ponds Inlet, 58 Portage la Prairie, 16, 227, 233 Porter, J. W., 84 n. Portland, 41 Port Nelson, see Nelson, Port Port Royal, 6 Portuguese Voyagers, i Poskaiao, 17 Poskoia or Basquia, or Poskoyac, Fort {see Pas, Le), 17 and «., 19, 192, 194, 233 Poskoyak, River, 194 Prairie Provinces, The, 76, ;fy Prairies, Fort de, 222 n. Prairies, Lac des, 17 Prefontaine Harbour, 59 Preston, \V. T. R., 128 v. Prince Albert, 37, 135, 136, 141, 142, 150, 151, 189 Prince Albert-Pas Railway. 142 Prince Edward Island, 45, 109 Prince of Wales, Cape, 175 Prince of Wales, Fort, 8, 27, 30»., 173 Prince Regent Inlet, 58 Providence, Fort, ^j Prud'homme, Judge L. A., 17 it. Pugsley, Hon. Mr., 146, 156 Qu'Appelle Valley and River, 150 Quarellers, 33 Quarterly Review, 9 w. Quebec, 6, 15, 59, 99, 112, 115. 126, 127, 138, 152, 157, 159, 214 «., 234 Quesne, Marquis du, 19 Race, Cape, 1 14 Radisson, Pierre Esprit de, 2, 6, 7, 129 Rainy Lake, 41, 197, 198, 206 Rainy Lake House, 40 Rainy River. 1 1 Rat Rivulet, 150 Red Deer River, 22, 23 Red Earth, 144 Red River, The, 16, 37, 46 and n., 47, 87 and n., 146, 150, 152, 181, 182, 196, 199 «., 228, 229 Red River Colony, 45 Red River Department, 42 Red River Valley, 45, 122, 136 Reed Lake, 123, 244 Regina, 73. 142 Regina Lake, 210 Reindeer Islands, 27 Reine, Fort de la, 233 Reinhard, Charles de, 214 n. Resolution Island, 50, 54, 66, 223 Review of Reviews, 1 10 Richardson, Sir John, 180, 181 h., 185, 188, 193 n., 195, 196, 198, 199, 204 and «., 206-208 Riel, Louis, 46 Robinson, Sir John, 6 Roblin, Premier, 154, 156, 157, 160 and n., 161, 164, 165 n., 168-170, 190, 191 Robson, Joseph, 10 and «., 11, 27, 29, 130, 136, 173, 233 " Rock by the River Side," 33 Rocky Mountain House, ^y. 39-41 262 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD Rocky Mountains, 17, 27, 33, 35. 37, 39, 42, 48. 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152, 182, 193 M., 196, 243 Roe, Sir Thomas, 4 Roe's Welcome, 4 Rogers, Hon. Robert, 79. 146 >i. Roman Catholics, 157-159, 189, 190 and n., 207 «., 233 Ronge, Lac la, 136 Ross, Captain H. H., 160 n., 161 «., 210 n. Ross, John, 32, 147 Ross Bay, 58 Ross Navigation Company, 143, 212 Rothschild, 170 Rouge, Fort, 16 Rouille, 17 n. Royal North- West Mounted Police, 58 Royal Society, 196 Rupert, 7 Rupert, Prince, 6, 7 Rupert Bay, 7 Rupert's Land, 7, 8, 32, 44, 45, 129, 198 ti., 207, 228, 231 Rusk, J. E., 160 «., 210 K. Russia, 3, 173, 213 Ruysch, I Sabine, Cape, 58 Sabush House, 40 St. Andrews Locks, 146 St. Boniface, Historical Society of, 14 St. Charles, Fort, 14, 15 St. Clair, Lake, 45 St. George, 23 St. John (N.B.), 109 St. John's (Newfoundland), 53, 54, 57 St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 56 St. Lawrence, River, 31, 62, yy, 99, 106, 1 16, 149 St. Louis, 18, 19 St. Mary's River, 40 St. Paul, 72, 149, 150 St. Petersburg, 70 St. Pierre, Le Gardeur de, 19 St. Pierre, Fort, 14 Salatha, 246 Salisbury Island, 56 Sam's Creek, 97, 99, 100 Sarnia, 21 1 Saskaram Lake, 232 Saskatchewaine, River, 193, 241. See Saskatchewan, River Saskatchewan, 19, 41, 7.2-75, 79, 81, 104, 114, 133, 140, 148, 154- 156, 166, 169, 180, 181, 187, 216, 218 Saskatchewan, River, 10, 12, 17 and »»., 19, 21-24, 28, 30 «., 31, 33. 37-40, 42. 43. 79. 82, 87 and n., 88, 90, 112, 114, 1 19, 120, 123, 135, 138, 140, 143, 144, 146-152, 164, 176, 177, 180-182, 186 »!., 188, 192-195, 197 and w., 198, 199, 202 n., 205-210, 222 n., 225, 229, 232, 233, 234, 241, 243 Saskatchewan Central Railway, 142 Saskatchewan Pass, 40 Saskatoon, 126, 141, 142, 211, 212 Saskatoon and Hudson Bay Rail- way, 141 Saskeram Lake, 12, 22 Saturday Night, 83 Saulteaux, 180 Sault Ste. Marie, 180, 211 Sauteaux, 235 Sauteurs, 180 Sauteux, 195 Savanne, River, 12 Scandinavia, 175 Schwatka, Lieutenant, 67 Scotland, 175 Scott, 226, 227 Scott, Hon. Walter, 44, 73-75, 78 Scottish Geographic Magazine, 103 Scurvy, 3 Seal Island, 98, 99 Seal River, 27 Sea River Falls, 124 Selkirk, Lady, 46 Selkirk, Lord, 9 n. Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, Earl of, 44-47 Semmens, Rev. John, 172 Semple, 46, 48 Senkler, C. E., 210 n. Sepewesk Lake, 140 Settee, James, 233 Setting Lake, 226, 238 Seven Oaks, 42, 47, 48 Severn, 7 INDEX 263 Severn River, 186 Sexsmith, J. H., 104 Shaw, Angus, 31 Sheba, s.s., 239, 240 Shields, Robert, 192 n. Shoal Lake, 87 Siberia, 126, 245 Sidney, 106 Sikamis Indians, 35 Silsby, Captain, 63 Simpson, Sir George, 48, 195 n. Sinclair, Captain Colin, 63 Sinclair, Dr. William, loi n., 145 n., 160 «., 167, 179, 237 Sinclair, Senior, Dr. Wm., 161 n. Sindbad, s.s., 82 Sioux, 15, 182 Sipiwisk Lake, 119 Sisksika, 182 Skymer's Cove, 53 Slave Indians, 33 Slave River, 33 Smith, Sir Donald, 219 n. Smith, James, 187 Smith, John, 187 Smith Sound, 58 Smoky River, 34 Snake River, 41 Snowbird Lake, 26 Sootoos, 180 Southampton, Cape, 55, 59 Southampton Island, 57 South Sea, 4, 5. 9 Spanish Succession, War of the, 1 3 Spilimichene River, 40 Split Lake, 81, 86, 90, 124, 125 «., 134, 137 «., 172, 175, 238 Spokane House, 41 Spokane River, 41 Standard, 109 Standing Rock Portage, 239 Stanley House, 136 Starnard, Captain, 7 Stony Mountain, 178 Stornoway, 32, 46 Strathcona, 171 Stuart Dynasty, The, 128 n. Stupart, R. F., 54, 174, 175 Stupart's Bay, 53 Sturgeon River, 119 Sudbury, 244 Superior, Lake, 11, 14, a> i7t 61, 77, 119, 149, 150, 17 s, 176, 180, 186 Sutherland, Hugh, J2 Swampy Cree Indians, 188 Swan River, 162 Sweden, 173 Switzerland, 238 Sydney (N.S.), 1 17 Sydney Daily Post, 1 1 7 Tailhan, 186 Tanner, 187 Taylor, G. N., 210 n. Tearing River, 149 Temiskaming, 127 Temiskaming and North Ontario Railway, 74 Terror, s.s., 58, 206 Theleaza River, 27 Thelon River, 245 Thibaudeau, W., 85 w., 114 Thicket Portage, 81, 92 «., 132 Thompson, David, 16, 32, 17, 39, 41, 148 Thorburn, William, 31 Three Rivers, 6, 13, 194, 195, 235 Times (London), 72 Tinnd, 181 Toronto, 49, ^2, 76, 83, 104, 106, 109, 116, 148, 178, 193 M. Toronto Globe, 74, 83, 228 Toronto Observatory, 54 Toronto Star, 72 Toronto World, 107, 116 Transcontinental Railway, The, 9". 127 Tr6maudan. A. H. de, 58, 160 «., 161 n., 164, 210 M. Trigg, Rev. E., 160 «. Trinity College, Toronto, 148 Trout Lake, 244 Troyes, De, 8 Tucker, S., 207 u. Tupper, Sir Charles, 78 Tuttle, Chas. R., 210 n. Tyrrell, J. Burr, 120-122, 209 n. Tyrrell, J. W.. 29, 67 and n., 68 w- 73 Umfreville, 30 «., 183, 184 Ungava, 223 Ungava Bay, 50, 51, 56, 57, 59, 223 Unischauba, 181 United States. 45, 82. iii, 113, 116, 131,217,23s, 239, 243 264 THE HUDSON BAY ROAD University Magazine, 76 Upper Canada, 45, 46 Upper Columbia Lake, 40 Upper Narrows, 50, 51, 70 Vancouver, 1 1 2 Vancouver's Cascade, 36 Vassan, De, 17 Venice, 214 Verendrye, see Lav^rendrye Vermilion, Fort, 37 Verwyst, 186 Victoria (B.C.), 105 Victoria Strait, 42 Vikings, 2 \'ladivostock, 126 Voligny, L. R., 150, 151 Wager Bay, 5 Wakeham, Commander William, 56, 57. 65 Wales, New, see New Wales Wapuskeowatchi, 193 n., 208 n. Warren, 186 Washington, 40 Waugh, R. D., 152 Wavero, s.s., 7 Webb, Captain H. E., 64 Weggs, Cape, 223, 224 Wekusko Lake, 123, 124, 134 Welland Country, The, 77, 114 West, 181 Western Canada, 6, 16, 43, 48, 62, 67. 72, 73. 75, 76, 82, 107, no, 113. 128 «., 130, 135-138. 194. 196, 209, 210, 215, 216, 230, 239 Western Provinces, 80, 87 Western Sea, 34, 35 Westminster (England), 39 Westray, 138 Weyburn, 85 Weymouth, i White, Colonel, 59 White, Rex. G., 208 n. White Earth House, 37 White Earth River Fort, 41 White Island, 59 Whitemud Falls, 141 Whitemud Rapid, 140 Whittemore, Phillip, no Wholdaia Lake, 26 Widdowson, E. W., 132 Wildcat Gens, 187 Willamette River, 41 William, Fort, 47, 206, 209 Williams, Governor, 200-204 Willis, J. L., 104 Willway, H. H., 79 Winnipeg, 12, 16, 46, 72, 73, 75, 78, 80, 81, 85, 90, 117, 141, 144, 146, 147, 152, 161, 162, 165, 167, 196 and n., 199 «., 209, 21 1, 219, 231, 237. 238 Winnipeg, Lake, 10, 12, 17, 37, 81, 82,87.90, 120, 122-125, 135, 140, 141, 146, 147, 149, 150, 152 and H., 172, 180, 186, 193 «., 206, 243. 244 Winnipeg Industrial Bureau, 30 Winnipegosis, Lake, 17 Winnipeg-Prince Albert Line, 141 Winnipeg River, 14 Winnipeg Telegram, 117, 145, 237 Wisconsin, 14 Wollstenholme, Cape, 53, 223 Wolstenholme, Sir John, 4 Wood Crees, 189 Woods, Lake of the, 11, 14, 150, 152, 186, 196-198, 206, 243 Woody Lake, 226 Wright-Bancroft party, 132 X-Y Company, 31, 235 Yakutsk, 245 Yamaska, 158 Yellow Knife Indians, 33 York, 23, 30 n., 70, 94, 188 York Factory, 8, 12, 42, 46, 53, 63, 96, 99, 129, 136, 169, 173, 193, 231 York Fort, 24 York Roads, 97 Yorkton, 142 Yorkton Enterprise, 109 Young, R. E., 174 «., 175 Yukon, 1 1 1 Yukon River, 34 teMPte pr£S5 LCTCHVORTH UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. WAR 2 9 1950 APR 2. 1950 ^Lfci 2 1951 FEB 16 1951 tt)-0«L Form L9-42m-8,'49(B5573)444 THE T.reRARY UNrV'ER:iIi Y Ol^ CALIFORNIA L03 angel::s I \r c;ni itmKI*^ M GinNAI I IRRAHY f ACIL ITY AA 001 077 097 .