Pioneers in Canada Part 17

The chief of this village had probably met Captain Cook about ten years before. He had been down in a large canoe[12] with forty of his people to the seacoast, where he saw two large vessels.

Farther down the river the natives, instead of regaling them with fish, placed before them a long, clean, and well-made trough full of berries, most of them resembling blackberries, though white in colour, and others similar to huckleberries. In this region the women were employed in beating and preparing the inner rind of the juniper bark, to which they gave the appearance of flax, and others were spinning with a distaff; again, others were weaving robes of this fibrous thread, intermixed with strips of sea-otter skin. The men were fishing on the river with drag nets between two canoes, thus intercepting the salmon coming up the river.

At last, on Sat.u.r.day, the 20th of July, 1793, they emerged from the Salmon River into an arm of the sea (probably near King Island). The tide was out, and had left a large s.p.a.ce covered with seaweed. The surrounding hills were involved in fog.... The bay appeared to be some three miles in breadth, and on the coast the travellers saw a great number of sea otters.[13] At two in the afternoon the swell was so high, and the wind, which was against them, so boisterous, that they could not proceed along the seacoast in their leaky canoe. A young chief who had come with them as one of their guides, and who had been allowed to leave when the seacoast was reached, returned bearing a large porcupine on his back. He first cut the animal open and threw its entrails into the sea, then singed the skin and boiled it in separate pieces; nor did he go to rest till, with the a.s.sistance of two others who happened to be awake, every morsel of it had been devoured. This was fortunate, because their stock of provisions was reduced to twenty pounds' weight of pemmican, sixteen pounds of rice, and six pounds of flour amongst ten men, "in a leaky vessel, and on a barbarous coast".

The rise and fall of the tide here was noted at fifteen feet in height. Mr. Mackay collected a quant.i.ty of small mussels, which were boiled and eaten by the two Scotchmen, but not by the Canadians, who were quite unacquainted with sea sh.e.l.lfish.

Near Point Menzies, which had already been reached and named by Captain VANCOUVER in the spring of 1793 on his great voyage of discovery up the North American coast,[14] Alexander Mackenzie met a party of Amerindians, amongst whom was a man of insolent aspect, who, by means of signs and exclamations, made him understand that he and his friends had been fired at by a white man named Makuba (Vancouver), and that another white man, called "Bensins", had struck him on the back with the flat of his sword. This man more or less compelled Mackenzie to accompany him in the direction of his village, and on the way explained that "Makuba" had come there with his "big boat". Indeed, Mackenzie's party perceived the remains of sheds or buildings on the sh.o.r.e where Europeans had probably made a camp, and here they established themselves, taking up a position of defence, because the att.i.tude of the natives was rather threatening.

At this camp there was a rock, and on this Alexander Mackenzie, mixing up some vermilion or red clay in melted grease, inscribed in large characters the following words: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three". He then shifted his camp to a place three miles to the north-east, below a precipice from which issued streams of fine water as cold as ice. And here he took careful observations with his astronomical and surveying instruments, in order to fix his position. Fortunately the day was one of bright sunshine. Otherwise, had there been a long persistence of cloud, he might have been obliged to leave the Pacific coast without being able to fix precisely the place where he had reached the sea.

Then he yielded to the pa.s.sionate desire of his people to withdraw inland from the possibly dangerous inhabitants of the coast, and returned with them to the encampment where the porcupine had been eaten. Here the guide made off into the woods. Mackenzie followed him, and thus reached a village from which two men issued armed with daggers and intending to attack him. While stopping to defend himself, many other people a.s.sembled, and amongst them he recognized the irritating person who incessantly repeated the names "Makuba" and "Benzins". However, this threatened danger was narrowly averted, and eventually they left the village with a supply of food; but also in a state of considerable irritation with-fleas! For some of the houses of these Pacific coast villages swarmed with fleas to such an extent that Mackenzie and his men were obliged to take to the water to rid themselves of these vermin, which swarmed also on the ground that was bare of gra.s.s.

The return journey up the Salmon River was a series of bewildering vicissitudes. Sometimes Mackenzie and his party were received in the most threatening way by persons who had been warm friends on their downward journey, then seemingly inevitable war was transformed into peace, but guides deserted, or the Amerindians from across the Rocky Mountains attempted to mutiny. However, they struggled through all their difficulties, till at last they reached the place known as the Friendly Village, and were here fortunately received with great kindness, being once more entertained "with the most respectful hospitality". "In short, the chief behaved to us with so much attention and kindness that I did not withhold anything in my power to give which might afford him satisfaction.... I presented him with two yards of blue cloth, an axe, knives, and various other articles. He gave me in return a large sh.e.l.l which resembled the under sh.e.l.l of a Guernsey oyster, but was somewhat larger. Where they procure them I could not discover, but they cut and polish them for bracelets, ear-rings, and other personal ornaments...."

The women of this place were employed in boiling sorrel and different kinds of berries in large square kettles made of cedar wood. This pottage, when it had attained a certain consistency, they took out with ladles, and poured it into frames about twelve inches square. These were then exposed to the sun, until their contents became so many dried cakes. This was their princ.i.p.al article of food, and probably of traffic. These people had also made portable chests of cedar, in which they packed these cakes, as well as their salmon, both dried and roasted. The only flesh they ate in addition to the salmon was that of the sea otter and the seal; except that one instance already mentioned of the young Indian who feasted on the flesh of the porcupine.

"Their faces are round, with high cheekbones, and their complexion between olive and copper. They have small grey eyes with a tinge of red,... their hair is of a dark-brown colour." The men wore their hair long, and either kept it well combed and hanging loose over the shoulders, or plaited it and bedaubed it with brown earth so as to make it quite impervious to the comb. Those who adopted this fashion had to carry a bone bodkin about with them to ease the frequent irritation which arose from the excessive abundance of vermin in their hair.

The women, on the other hand, usually wore their hair short. Mackenzie noticed that the infants had their heads enclosed with boards covered with leather, to press the skull into the shape of a wedge. The women wore a fringed ap.r.o.n, and over that a long robe made of skins or leather, either loose or tied round the middle with a girdle. Over these in wet weather was worn a cap in the shape of an inverted bowl or dish. The men also wore this cap, and in cold weather used the robe, but in warm weather went about in no clothing at all, except that their feet were protected with shoes made of dressed elks' skins. In wet weather, over their robe they wore a circular mat with an opening in the middle sufficiently large to admit the head. This, spreading over the shoulders, threw off the wet. As compared with the Indians of the Rocky Mountains and the great plains, the men and boys were very cleanly, being constantly in the water. The women, however, were dirty.

At the end of July, 1793, Mackenzie left what he calls the Friendly Village, and prepared to return to the east across the Rocky Mountains, having distributed to each man about twenty pounds weight of smoked salmon, flour, and pemmican. The fatigue of ascending the precipices of the mountains was past description. When they arrived at a spot where water could be obtained, and a camp made, they were in such an extremity of weariness they could hardly crawl about to gather wood for the purpose of making a fire; but two hours afterwards the Amerindians of their party arrived and came to their a.s.sistance. Then when they were sitting round a blazing fire, and some of their fatigue had lessened, they could sit and talk of past dangers, and indulge in the delightful reflection that they were thus far advanced on their homeward journey. "Nor was it possible to be in this situation without contemplating the wonders of it. Such was the depth of the precipices below, and the height of the mountains above, with the rude and wild magnificence of the scenery around, that I shall not attempt to describe such an astonishing and awful combination of objects.... Even at this place, which is only, as it were, the first step towards gaining the summit of the mountains, the climate was very sensibly changed. The air that fanned the village which we left at noon, was mild and cheering; the gra.s.s was verdant, and the wild fruits ripe around it. But here the snow was not yet dissolved, the ground was still bound by the frost, the herbage had scarce begun to spring, and the crowberry bushes were just beginning to blossom."

Eventually they found their canoe, and the property which they had left behind, in perfect safety. At this camp, where the canoe had been left behind, many natives arrived both from the upper and lower parts of the river, all of them dressed in beaver robes, which they were ready enough to sell for large knives. It struck Alexander Mackenzie as being very extraordinary that these people, who had left absolutely untouched the property stored at this place-when anyone pa.s.sing by could have stolen it and never have been detected-should now be so ready to pilfer articles and utensils from the camp. So many small things had been picked up and taken away by them, when coming to sell their beaver robes, that he was obliged to take some action. So, before all these beaver-clad Amerindians had departed on their westward journey, he told the rearguard that he had noticed the thefts, and scarcely thought their relations who were guilty of stealing realized the awful mischief that would result from this dishonesty; that they were on their way now to the sea to procure large quant.i.ties of salmon from the rivers, but the salmon, which was absolutely necessary to their existence, came from the sea which belonged to the white men, and it only needed a message from the white men to the powers of nature to prevent the fish coming up from the sea into the rivers; and if this word were spoken they and their children might starve. He consequently advised them to hurry after their friends, and see that all the stolen articles were sent back. This plan succeeded. The stolen articles were restored, and then Mackenzie purchased from these people several large salmon, and his party enjoyed a delicious meal.

Mackenzie declared that there were no bison to be found on the west side of the Rocky Mountains[15] (British Columbia), and no wolves.

Resuming their journey up the Fraser River, they pa.s.sed through the narrow gut between mountainous rocks, which on the outward journey had been a pa.s.sage of some risk. But now the state of the water was such that, they got up without difficulty, and had more time to examine these extraordinary rocks, which were as perpendicular as a wall, and gave the traveller the idea of a succession of enormous Gothic cathedrals. With little difficulty they transported their canoe across the water parting to the Peace River.

As they began to glide down this stream, homeward bound, they noticed at the entrance of a small tributary an object which proved to be four beaver skins hung up to attract their attention. These were the skins which had been given to Mackenzie as a present by a native as he travelled westwards. Not wishing to add to his loads, he had left the skins behind, saying he would call for them on his return. Mackenzie imagined, therefore, that, being under the necessity of leaving the river, this Indian had hung up the skins in the hope that they would attract the attention of the travellers on their return. "To reward his honesty, I left three times the value of the skins in trade goods in their place." As the Peace River carried them away from the great mountains, and the plains extended before their sight, they stopped to repair the canoe and to get in supplies of food from the herds of game that were visible. They began with a hearty meal of bison beef. "Every fear of future want was removed." Soon afterwards they killed an elk, the carca.s.s of which weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds. "As we had taken a very hearty meal at one o'clock, it might naturally be supposed that we should not be very voracious at supper; nevertheless, a kettleful of elk flesh was boiled and eaten, and that vessel replenished with more meat and put on the fire. All that remained of the bones, &c, were placed after the Indian fashion round the fire to roast, and at ten the next morning the whole was consumed by ten persons and a large dog, who was allowed his share of the banquet. Nor did any inconvenience result from what may be considered as an inordinate indulgence."

On the 24th of August, 1793, Mackenzie was back again at Fort Chipewayan, after an absence of eleven months, having been the first white man to cross the broad continent of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, north of Mexico.

1 See Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Travels, p. 5.

2 Peter Pond was a native of Connecticut, and in the opinion of his trading a.s.sociates rather a ruffian. He was strongly suspected of having murdered an amiable Swiss fur trader named Wadin, and at a later date he actually did kill his trading partner, Ross.

3 See p. 125.

4 Alexander Mackay long afterwards left the service of the North-west Company, and was killed by savages on the Alaska coast, near Nutka Sound.

5 For the word "elk" Mackenzie uses "moose deer". "Elk" in the Canadian Dominion is misapplied to the great Wapiti red deer.

6 See p. 281.

7 Mr. Burpee points out that this was really the southernmost source of the mighty congeries of streams which flowed northwards to form the Mackenzie River system. Having traced the Mackenzie to the sea, its discoverer now stood four years afterwards at its most remote source, 2420 miles from its mouth at which he had seen the ice floes and the whales.

8 Humming birds arrive annually in British Columbia between April and May, and stay there till the autumn. They winter in the warmer parts of California.

9 The great surveyor and map maker, David Thompson, was the first white man to reach the upper waters of the Columbia River. The Fraser River was afterwards followed to its outlet in the Straits of Georgia (opposite Vancouver Island) by Simon Fraser.

10 Apparently these were of the Sikanni tribe, and only another branch of the great Tinne (Athapaskan) stock.

11 Oreamnus.

12 Mackenzie thus describes one of the large sea-going canoes of the coast natives: "This canoe was built of cedar, forty-five feet long, four feet broad, and three and a half in depth. It was painted black and decorated with white figures of different kinds. The gunwale fore and aft was inlaid with the teeth of the sea otter." He adds that "these coast tribes (north of Vancouver Island and of Queen Charlotte Sound) had been in indirect contact with the Spaniards since the middle of the sixteenth century, and with the Russians from the middle of the eighteenth century. Therefore, from these two directions they had learnt the use of metal, and had obtained copper, bra.s.s, and iron. They may possibly have had copper earlier still from the Northern Indians on the other side of the Rocky Mountains; but bra.s.s and iron they could, of course, only have obtained from Europeans. They had already become very deft at dealing with these metals, and twisted the iron into collars which weighed upwards of twelve pounds, also beating it into plates for their daggers and knives."

13 These may have been small seals, but the sea otter (Enhydris lutris), now nearly extinct, was at one time found in numbers along the north-west American coast, from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska to Oregon. Owing to persecution it now leads an almost entirely aquatic life, resting at times on the ma.s.ses of floating seaweed.

14 GEORGE VANCOUVER (born about 1758, and probably descended from Dutch or Flemish ancestors) was one of the great pioneers of the British Empire. His name is commemorated in Vancouver's Island, an important portion of British Columbia. Vancouver entered the navy when only thirteen, sailed with Captain Cook, and eventually was appointed to command a naval expedition sent out in 1791 to survey and take over from the Spaniards the north-west American coast north of Oregon. It is remarkable that he should only have missed Mackenzie's arrival at Point Menzies by about two months. With what amazed rejoicing would these two heroic explorers have greeted one another had they met on this remote point of the Pacific coast, the one coming overland (so to speak) from Quebec and the Atlantic, and the other all the way by sea from Falmouth via the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii.

15 He was not quite accurate: there were a few "wood" bison in the north and east of British Columbia.

CHAPTER XII

Mackenzie's Successors

The Spaniards of California had been aware in the middle of the eighteenth century that there was a big river entering the sea to the north of the savage country known as Oregon. The estuary of this river was reached in May, 1792, by an American sea captain of a whaling ship-ROBERT GRAY, of Boston. He crossed the bar, and named the great stream after his own ship, the Columbia. Five months afterwards (October, 1792) Lieutenant BROUGHTON, of the Vancouver expedition, entered the Columbia from the sea, explored it upstream for a hundred miles, and formally took possession of it for the King of Great Britain. The news of this discovery reached Alexander Mackenzie (no doubt after his return from his overland journey to the Pacific coast), and he at once jumped to the conclusion that the powerful stream he had discovered in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and had partially followed on its way to the Pacific, must be the Columbia. As a matter of fact it was the river afterwards called Fraser.

If you look at the map of British North America, and then at the map of Russian Asia-Siberia-you will notice a marked difference in the arrangement of the waterways. Those of the Canadian Dominion, on the whole, flow more eastwards and westwards, or at any rate radiate in all directions, so as to const.i.tute the most wonderful system of natural ca.n.a.ls possessed by any country or continent. On the contrary, the rivers of Siberia flow usually in somewhat parallel lines from south to north. Siberia also is far less well provided than British North America with an abundance of navigable rivers, streams, and great lakes. Therefore the traveller in pre-railway days wishing to cross Siberia from west to east or east to west was obliged to have recourse to wheeled traffic, to ride, or to walk. Consequently, until the beginning of the twentieth century, the "exploitation" (or turning to useful account) of Siberia was a far more difficult process than the development of North America, once the question of British versus French or Spanish was settled. Siberia at one time was almost as rich in fur-bearing animals as British North America; yet so difficult was transport (and so severe were the rigours of the climate) that the Russians, once they reached the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific at the beginning of the eighteenth century, began to stretch out their influence to the opposite peninsula of Alaska mainly on account of the fur trade. For it was easier and less expensive to bring furs from Alaska round Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope, to Europe than to convey them overland from eastern Siberia. Then, also, the Chinese market was becoming of importance to the fur trade. Already Mackenzie, at the end of the eighteenth century, is found considering whether a sea trade between China and a British port on the North Pacific coast could not be arranged so as to develop a profitable market among the mandarins and grandees of the Celestial Empire for a good proportion of the North-west Company's skins.

[LARGER MAP]

Peter Pond, already referred to on p. 278, is said to have expressed his intention (in 1788) of going to treat with the Empress Catherine II for a Russian occupation of the Alaskan and Columbian coasts. For this reason, or the mere desire to have a proportion of this fur-producing country, the Emperor Paul, in 1799, created a Russian Chartered Company to occupy the Alaska and north Columbian coasts. Great Britain offered no objection-in spite of having acquired some rights here by an agreement with Spain-and that is why, when you look at the map of the vast Canadian Dominion, you find with surprise that it has been robbed (one might almost say) of at least half of its legitimate Pacific seaboard. The Russian Company was allowed to claim the north Columbian coast between Alaska proper and Queen Charlotte Islands.

In 1867 the Russian Government sold all Alaska and the north Columbian coast to the United States, partly to annoy Great Britain, whom it had not forgiven for the Crimean War.

You will have noticed that quite a number of United States citizens (mostly born British subjects in New England) had taken part in the north-west fur trade immediately after the British conquest of Canada disposed of French monopolies. There were Jonathan Carver and Peter Pond, for example; and a much more worthy person than the last named-Daniel W. Harmon, a New Englander, who entered the service of the North-west Company in 1800, and followed in Mackenzie's footsteps to the upper Fraser River and the vicinity of the Skeena. Simon Fraser also, whose tracing of the Fraser River from its upper waters to the Pacific coast we shall presently deal with, was a native of Vermont, though his father came from Scotland. The furs which began to penetrate into the United States by way of Detroit and Niagara, the rising scale of luxury in dress in the towns of the eastern seaboard of the United States, the voyages of American whalers up the west coast of North America (including the discovery of the Columbia River in 1792 by Captain Robert Gray), the purchase of Louisiana from the Emperor Napoleon in 1804-with the vague claim it gave to the coast line of Oregon on the Pacific: all these circ.u.mstances inspired far-sighted persons in the United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century with a wish to secure for their Government and commerce a share in the fur trade and in these wonderful new lands of the Pacific watershed. American ships (whaling ships) had already become accustomed to sail round Cape Horn and to visit the Oregon and Alaskan coasts. The American Government therefore, immediately after the Louisiana purchase, dispatched an American expedition under Captains Meriwether Lewis and Jonathan Clarke to travel up the Missouri River and so across the mountains to the coast of Oregon, a wonderful expedition, which they carried out with great success in two years (1804-6), reaching the lower Columbia River and following it down to the sea.

Consequently, with all this in the air, it is not very surprising that the far-sighted John Jacob Astor, a wealthy German merchant of New York, should have conceived the idea of founding a great American fur-trading company and of establishing it at the mouth of the Columbia River.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century he had entered into arrangements with an Anglo-Canadian Company (the Mackinaw), which worked the southernmost part of Canada, to fuse its enterprise with his, and thus founded the South-west Company, the name of which (at any rate in current speech) was afterwards changed into the Pacific Fur-trading Company. After attempting in vain to come to a working arrangement with the great North-west Company, he decided to act quite independently and to establish the headquarters of his new concern at the mouth of the Columbia River. Accordingly, the expedition was sent out in duplicate to the mouth of the Columbia River, one-half going a six-months' voyage round Cape Horn in a sailing ship, the Tonquin, and the other marching overland or canoeing on lakes and rivers in eighteen months from Montreal via the Mississippi and Missouri. These two parties together founded "Astoria", at the mouth of the Columbia. But most of Astor's employees were British subjects derived from men of the North-west and Mackinaw Companies; and when, in 1812, war broke out between the United States and Great Britain, a British war vessel came up the Pacific coast to Astoria and promptly turned it into "Fort George". Forthwith the North-west Company bought up the derelict property of Mr. Astor's Company from his not very honest British employees, and the few Americans in the concern retreated inland, and, after almost incredible sufferings from the attacks of unfriendly Indians, succeeded in reaching the Mississippi.

THE KOOTENAY OR HEAD STREAM OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER

This Columbia River had in reality been discovered at its sources, and traced down to the sea, between 1807 and 1811 by DAVID THOMPSON (once a Blue-coat boy in London; from 1784 to 1792 in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and after that one of the most famous of the Nor'-westers). The upper course of this river and its northern affluents were annexed as British by David Thompson; the lower course did not at once become the political property of the United States, but was considered vaguely to be the joint property of both nations, till the Oregon settlement of 1846. By the treaty of 1792, the southern boundary of central Canada was agreed upon as being the 49th degree of north lat.i.tude, but only between the Lake of the Woods and the Rocky Mountains. The agreement of 1846 continued the 49th degree boundary to the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific opposite Vancouver Island.

Prominent among the agents of the North-western Company who followed Sir Alexander Mackenzie as a pioneer towards the Pacific sh.o.r.es was ALEXANDER HENRY THE YOUNGER,[1] regarding whose journeys some extracts may be given.

The first entry in his diary of 1799 is not particularly romantic, but shows some of the unexpected dangers attending the life of an adventurer in the far north-west. He had been riding through the a.s.siniboin country in the autumn of 1799, probably after one of the very indigestible meals which he describes here and there in his pages. Alone, and crossing an open plain swarming with wolves, he was seized suddenly with a violent colic, the pain of which was so terrible that he could not remain in the saddle. He dismounted, hobbled his horse, and threw himself on the gra.s.s, where he lay in agony for two hours, expecting every moment would be his last, till, quite exhausted, he fell asleep. He was awakened, however, by the howling of the wolves advancing to tear him to pieces; yet he was so weak that he was scarcely able to mount his horse, and then could only proceed at a slow walk, with the wolves snapping at his horse's heels.

Near the site of the present city of Winnipeg, in the late summer of 1800, he and his expedition were much troubled by swarms of water snakes. They were harmless but not pleasant in their familiarity, for they entered the tents and took refuge in the explorers' beds; and as they apparently came from their breeding places in Amerindian graves which covered the remains of people who had died of smallpox in a recent epidemic, they were additionally loathsome.