LORD STRATHCONA'S ROMANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

LORD STRATHCONA'S ROMANCE.

Thirty-five years ago two; strong men met in conflict for control over the river traffic through the State;,- of .- Minnesota. .; One of the men was a';,■ small-'trader of : St. Paul, jmo'tyn^tp. ; his ~f r iend^;As>" Jim".Sill. The other' was-'"Donald "Alexaiffler "Smith" (now' Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal), commissioner of Hudson's Bay Company, at Winnipeg ? (says a/writer in The World's Work). In this conflict began the building of two mighty empires. It had,not gone far when the - two men met. From the hour of tftat meeting hostilities ceased. They were two kindred spirits. In all the history of finance and railroad building there is no other friendship such as this that: has existed since that day between James J. Hill, the splendid Canadian, who made ; our own . North-West, and !; Lord Strathcona, the' splendid -Scotsman, who made possible the North-West of the Canadians.';,'".,'"!.!-..!- " • ;;; : ;;; ~;;■■;• The, story of Lord Strathcona reads like a romance/ In 1838, when" Van Buren was President of the United States, when Victoria of England had held the Throne but a. year,' he came into the life of : Canada! At that time he was eighteen, years of .age. He was born in Scotland, of Highland parents," and he came to the new country to seek the fortune his own land had denied him. • For nearly thirty years he-laboured in the hardest service of the continent, the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. In the early days, as a trader, he tramped the mighty North from * end >to end, bargaining, planning, bartering. For month on. month he travelled the ■ dreadful wastes where the great Mackenzie River tumbles across the Arctic Circle. It was a terrible country in those days, this outlaw! of the Empire. Men in those regions learn the silence of the '■■Indian, the dogged, desperate courage of the half-breed. There is no room for fear, no chance .for him who hesitates. The code of the North is hard and cold, and all uncompromising. The heart must be strong, or the man must die. Winter comes early, and stays late —and such a winter!, A few short hours of frozen day, then night— long, uncanny night.! ; Sometimes the snow falls through weeks on weeks, and no man dares to move beyond the circle of the little settlement. When . the snow ceases comes the bard frost, and the White North grows fierce. Wolves, in those days, would sweep the icy paths, truculent,; hungry, seeking their sustenance. At night,; about the little camp, their hordes would sweep, howling in mournful' unison. By day men went their ways, but cautiously watching the hard, grey sky above, and the hard white snow below. Truly, it is an iron land, this wonderful North of Canada. Donald Smith learned all. ; No dream of the future found its way through the cold' world of fact. to give him heart for the great fight. He struggled, as hundreds of others struggled, merely to do his duty, to turn in at the end of the year a better and better account to the governor of the company. Conventions of civilisation fade, and are as nothing to the men who live this life. The agents of the Hudson's Bay Company married, often as not, the daughters of, the Indian traders,: married them by the rites of the iron land in which they lived. Daughter of such a union was Isabella Sophia Hardisty, whose father was one of the ; trusted agents of the company,. in, Rupert6land, and whose mother was of the tribes. She came into the life of Donald Smith when he was twenty-nine, up on the coast of Labrador. She hod been a wife before, and brought with her a little son. Donald Smith, the agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, married; her by the rites of Labrador. There was no priest or church within a thousand miles. It was a simple contract between a .man, a woman, and their God. To-day she is Lady Strathcona. When the title came, only ten years ago, the strict requirements of the British peerage required a, re-marriage, and it was solemnised in the full ritual of the Church of England. The civil bond of t*he Labrador marriage ,was ratified by special Act of Parliament. V. Lady Strathcona -has never been associated with her' husband in his public relations, and is but slightly known to any but the intimates of-nis domestic circle*. Lord Stratheona's favourite residence at the present time is Knebworth,- the ancestral estate ..of the : . Lytton family, the descendants of the famous writer, Lord Lytton. * '