OLD FUR TRADERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 50, 28 February 1934, Page 7

OLD FUR TRADERS

EARLY DAYS IN CANADA

ADVENTUROUS LIFE

Fur trading in tho wilderness of northern Canada has gained in efficiency what it has lost in rugged romance. With an export trade, o£ some 12j000,000 ■ dollars worth .of furs a year,-the business "rung without the violence and injustice of the. old days, without the selling of rum to the natives. A peaceful" and hospitable welcome' awaits the stranger who .ven- | tures out to trading posts and trappers' cabins anywhere in the'"lndian Country" from Lake of the Woods in lower Ontario to the Arctic Circle,.says the '' Christian Science Monitor.'' '

Back iii the late eighteenth century, fur trading was an adyentuie indeed.' Setting forth bravely froni Montreal in their little birch^bark ' capoes, traders would join their fellow, clerks, voyageu'rs,. guides, and ■ interpreters \at Lachine above the rapids,.then transfer to huge freighter canoes, 35 feet long by 6 feet broad, and, 100 strong, start their, long arduous journey for' the interior, ■ ■ ~ ; :•'

The start was perhaps all .'the youth« ful imagination had pictured it., Bagpipes skirling, bugles .blowing,;, the French-Canadian ' rivermen ' swinging their blades to the lilt of their own plaintive '.'chansons," flags, sashes, and kerchiefs fluttering in the breeze, sun flashing on silver-mounted pistols and dirks—the' spring ; brigade ■was a gay and thrilling experience. But presently' ' the smaller, swifter canoes of the "bourgeois." or.partners drew ahead, the freighters strung':but in a letog line, the dull:Toar of'rapids filled the- air, and exuberance settled down to the' interminable 1 grind that lay 2000 miles ahead, '-. ' The fur route was by way xf thai Grand or Ottawa Kiver to • Mattawa, by many portages in -to Lake Nipissing, down the French. Eiver into Lake Huron and around to Sault Ste. Maria —the last military post-—and along the edge of boisterous Superior to Grand Portage (Fort William.), the winter headquarters and clearing house for .tlia Nor'-West Company;1 . TWO MONTHS' TREK. •' Two strenupus months ffonv Montreal and the real work has not begun! ,;A few days are ■ allotted; to resting •up and a grand "regale" and thsn. .by, numerous small brigades the new clerks' and the old " wolves of. the . north*.'' scatter over the Indian country, frqrn. Lake Nipigon to the Rocky Mountains, along* the Saskatchewan, the Athabasca and the Mackenzie. ' ' Conditions.. under which many'V of these adventurous traders set out may, be judged from ond.entry in the diary of John Macdonell,"one of the many Scotsmen whojoinod the trek:— ■-' '• ' "1793. May lOthi Signed my engagement with the North West Company;fbr five years to winter in. the Indian, Country as a clerk. The terms are'£loo at the expiration, and found in necessaries." ." ... ' ... :,. . There were other, even' more, laborious, ways of: penetrating the Indian Country. In 1772.Peter Pond. des6ribes how he transferred his goods from New York to Mackinac: "In the first Blase thay were Shipt at New York .for all-baney—from-th ens thay ware 'taken fourteen Miles by Land •to Sconaeaday in wagons—then Shipt on Bord Battoes & taken up the Mohawk Eiver to Port Stanwix—thare Carread a Mile By Land with the Boates and Put in' to Woodcrick &'' from thens . threw.the .Onida Laker#,Down those waters ,;"tb Lake Ontarey is Coasted along the South Side of that Lake till they came v to Nagarey &from the Landing Plase',a few Miles South of that-1 fort' thay, ware with the Battoes Caread a Cross that Caring' Place about Nine Milesthen Put in :to the Waters that Cpm out of Lake Erey into Lake ,Ontarey at a Plase Cald Fort Slosser . . ." and so forth by many.more devious ways until they reached- Detroit,' and at last. Lake Huron where, after "Coasting a Long the West, Sid of it about five Hundred Miles thay Cam to'Mishlamacknack that Lay on that." ■ BALL.'AND BLANKETS. : ' Once; the fur trader wasaniong:.M» customers his days settled into'a-mono-tonous round of petty details,.: as he bartered' powder and ' ball, blankets, trinkets for skins, bullied and bribed Indians to pay their. debts, built, and repaired camps and canoes, waged continuous struggle against famine and the elements. Most of the innumerable diaries of factors and clerks are dull reading, although the reader's patience now and then is rewarded with incidents of stirring adventures and heroism. Colin Eobertson of the Hudson Bay Company, after being captured by the Nor'-Westers, writes: "Iwas embarked with Simon McGillivray '.■•. . At Isle; a la Cross ... seeing the' strong rapids before us,' I threwoff my cloak as was my custom when running rapids., . What was my horror when I perceived oiir canoe swept out of its track into a shute over the rocks. . . . Our steersman shouted, 'My God, we are all lost' . . . the canoe upset , . .1 attempted to swim, ashore but the strong eddies drew -mo,under the falls where I found Mr. Simon McGillivray and two or three others clinging tt> the gunels of the canoe. . . . The canoe swept On down tho current and Mr. Shaw, one of the partners, caught us below. 1'