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42 - Canada- The Empire of the North by Agnes C. Laut · Canada- The Empire of the North

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  Speaker 1: Section forty one of Canada The Empire of the North.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lyndamree Nielsen, Vancouver, b C.
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  Speaker 1: Canada The Empire of the North by Agnes C. Lot
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  Speaker 1: from eighteen twelve to eighteen forty six, Part one. When
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  Speaker 1: Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the discoverer went home to retire on
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  Speaker 1: an estate in Scotland, he found the young nobleman and
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  Speaker 1: philanthropist Lord Selkirk, keenly interested in accounts of vast new
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  Speaker 1: unpeopled lands which lay beyond the Great Lakes. A change
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  Speaker 1: in the system of farming, which dispossessed small farmers to
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  Speaker 1: turn the tenant res into sheep runs, had caused terrible
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  Speaker 1: poverty in Scotland at this period. Here in Scotland were
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  Speaker 1: people starving for want of land. There in America were
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  Speaker 1: lands idle for lack of people. Selkirk had already sent
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  Speaker 1: out some colonists to the Lake of Saint Clair region
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  Speaker 1: of Ontario and to Prince Edward Island. But what he
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  Speaker 1: heard from Mackenzie turned his attention to the new Empire
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  Speaker 1: of the Prairie. Then in Montreal, where he had been
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  Speaker 1: dined and wined by the Northwest Company's Beaver Club. He
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  Speaker 1: had heard still more of this vast new land, of
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  Speaker 1: its wealth of firs, of its untimbered fields, where man
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  Speaker 1: had but to put in the plowshare to sow his crop.
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  Speaker 1: The one great obstruction to settlement there would be the
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  Speaker 1: claims of the Hudson's Bay Company to exclusive monopoly of
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  Speaker 1: the country. But as Selkirk listened to the descriptions of
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  Speaker 1: the Red River Valley given by Colin Robertson, who had
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  Speaker 1: been dismissed by the Northwesters, he thought he saw a
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  Speaker 1: way of overcoming all difficulties which the fur traders could
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  Speaker 1: put in the way of settlement. Owing to competition, Hudson's
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  Speaker 1: Bay stock had fallen from two hundred and fifty to
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  Speaker 1: fifty pounds sterling a share. On returning to Scotland, Lord
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  Speaker 1: Selkirk had begun buying up Hudson's Bay stock in the
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  Speaker 1: market along with Sir Alexander Mackenzie. But when Mackenzie learned
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  Speaker 1: that Selkirk's object was colonization, first profit. Second, he broke
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  Speaker 1: in violent anger from the partnership in speculation, and besought
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  Speaker 1: William mc gillcovey to go on the open market and
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  Speaker 1: buy against Selkirk to defeat the plans for settlement. What
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  Speaker 1: with shares owned by his wife's family of Colville Wedderburn's
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  Speaker 1: and those he had himself purchased, Selkirk now owned a
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  Speaker 1: controlling interest in the Hudson's Bay Company. Early in eighteen eleven,
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  Speaker 1: the company deeds to Lord Selkirk the country of Red
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  Speaker 1: River Valley, exceeding in area the British Isles and extending,
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  Speaker 1: though the ignorance of its donors, far south into American territory.
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  Speaker 1: Colin Robertson, the former Norwester who first interested Selkirk in
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  Speaker 1: Red River, has meanwhile been gathering together a party of colonists.
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  Speaker 1: Myles mac donnell, retired from the Glengarry Regiment, has been
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  Speaker 1: appointed by Selkirk governor of the new colony. What of
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  Speaker 1: the Northwesters while these projects went forward, writes mcgillicury from London,
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  Speaker 1: where he has been stirring up enemity to Selkirk's project.
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  Speaker 1: Selkirk must be driven to abandon his project. At any cost,
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  Speaker 1: for his colony would prove utterly destructive of our fur trade.
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  Speaker 1: How he purposed doing this will be seen, write Selkirk
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  Speaker 1: to the governor of his colony, Miles mac donnell. The
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  Speaker 1: Northwest Company must be compelled to quit my lands. If
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  Speaker 1: they refuse, they must be treated as poachers. Selkirk believed
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  Speaker 1: that the Hudson's Bay Company charter to the Great Northwest
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  Speaker 1: was legal and valid. He believed that the vast territory
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  Speaker 1: granted to him was legally his own, as much as
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  Speaker 1: his parks in Scotland. He believed that he possessed the
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  Speaker 1: same right to expel intruders on this territory as to
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  Speaker 1: drive poachers from his own Scotch parks. It was the
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  Speaker 1: spirit of feudalism. As for the Northwesters, let us look
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  Speaker 1: at their rights. They disputed that the charter of the
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  Speaker 1: Hudson's Bay Company applied beyond the bounds of Hudson's Bay,
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  Speaker 1: even if it did so aptly. They pointed out that
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  Speaker 1: by the terms of the charter, it applied only to
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  Speaker 1: lands not possessed by any other Christian power. And who
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  Speaker 1: would dispute that French fur traders and Northwesters, as their
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  Speaker 1: successors had ascended the streams of the interior long before
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  Speaker 1: the Hudson's Bay Men. It was the spirit of democracy.
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  Speaker 1: It needed no profit to foresee when these two sets
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  Speaker 1: of claims came together, there would be a violent clash.
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  Speaker 1: It is evening in the little harbor of Stornoway, off
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  Speaker 1: the Hebreeds north of Scotland, July twenty fifth, eighteen eleven.
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  Speaker 1: Waning midsummer has begun to shortened the long days, and
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  Speaker 1: lying at anchor in the twilight a few yards off
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  Speaker 1: shore are the three Hudson's Bay Company boats outward bound
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  Speaker 1: For a week, the quiet little fishing hamlet has been
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  Speaker 1: in turmoil for Governor Miles MacDonnell and Colin Robertson have
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  Speaker 1: ordered the Selkirk settlers here one hundred and twenty nine
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  Speaker 1: of them seventy farmers fifty nine clerks, to join the
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  Speaker 1: Hudson's Bay boats as they swing out westward on their
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  Speaker 1: far cruise to the north. And the atmosphere has literally
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  Speaker 1: been on fire with vexations created by spies of the
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  Speaker 1: Northwest Company in the first place, as the settlers wait
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  Speaker 1: for the ships coming up from London, trouble makers pass
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  Speaker 1: from group to group, scattering a miserable little sheet called
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  Speaker 1: the Highlander, warning the deluded people against going to a
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  Speaker 1: pole land of Indian hostels. Besides, dark hints are uttered
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  Speaker 1: that the settlers are not wanted for calmness at all,
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  Speaker 1: but for armed battalions to fight the Northwesters for the
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  Speaker 1: Hudson's Bay Company in Proof, whereof the profits of evil
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  Speaker 1: point ominously to the cannon and munitions of war on
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  Speaker 1: board the three old fur boats, then there is too
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  Speaker 1: much whisky afloat in Stornaway. That week settlers are taken
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  Speaker 1: ashore and farewelled, and farewelled and farewelled till unable to
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  Speaker 1: find their way down to the row boats. And then
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  Speaker 1: they are easily frightened into abandoning the risky venture altogether.
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  Speaker 1: On the settlers, who have come as clerks to the
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  Speaker 1: company Governor mc donnell can keep a strong hand, for
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  Speaker 1: they have been paid their wages in advance, and are
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  Speaker 1: seized if they attempt to desert. Then the excise officer
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  Speaker 1: here is a friend of the Northwesters, and he creates
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  Speaker 1: endless trouble, rowing round and round the boats, bawling, bawling
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  Speaker 1: out to know if all who are barking are going
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  Speaker 1: of their own free will, till the ship's hands looking
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  Speaker 1: over decks, becomes so exasperated they heave a cannonball over rails,
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  Speaker 1: which goes splashed through the bottom of the harbor officer's
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  Speaker 1: row boat and sends him cursing ashore to dispatch a
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  Speaker 1: challenge for a duel to Governor mc donald. Mc donald
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  Speaker 1: sees plainly that if he is to have any calmness left,
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  Speaker 1: he must sail at once, anchors up and sails out
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  Speaker 1: at eleven that night, the ships glide from shore so
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  Speaker 1: unexpectedly that one faint heart desperately resolved on flight, has
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  Speaker 1: to jump overboard and swim ashore, while two other settlers,
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  Speaker 1: who have been lingering over farewells, must be rowed across
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  Speaker 1: harbor by Colin Robertson to catch the departing ships. Then
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  Speaker 1: Robertson is back on the wharf, trumpeting a last cheer
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  Speaker 1: through his funneled hands. The Highlanders on decks lean over
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  Speaker 1: the vessel railings, waving their bonnets. The Glasgow and Dublin lads,
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  Speaker 1: indentured as clerks, give a last husa, and the Selkirk
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  Speaker 1: settlers are off for their promised land as long ago,
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  Speaker 1: Carsier's first Calmness to the Saint Lawrence had their medal
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  Speaker 1: tested by temptuous weather and pioneer hardships. So now the
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  Speaker 1: first Calmness to the Great Northwest must meet the challenge
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  Speaker 1: that fate throws down to all who leave the beaten path.
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  Speaker 1: Though the season was late, the weather was extraordinarily stormy
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  Speaker 1: sixty one days. The passage lasted the tubby old fur ships,
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  Speaker 1: lying water logged, rolling to the angry sea. Mc donald
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  Speaker 1: was furious that the colonists had been wrists on such
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  Speaker 1: unseaworthy craft, But those old fur ship captains, with fifty
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  Speaker 1: years ice battling to their credit, probably knew their business
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  Speaker 1: better than mc donald. The fur ships had not been
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  Speaker 1: built for speed and comfort, but for cargoes and safety,
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  Speaker 1: and when storms came they simply lowered sails, turned tails
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  Speaker 1: to the wind, and rolled till the gale had passed
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  Speaker 1: to the prolonged row of the highland landsmen for for
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  Speaker 1: the first time suffered seasick pains. Then, when Governor mc
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  Speaker 1: donald attempted drills to pass the time, he made the
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  Speaker 1: discovery that the Settius talk had gone the rounds of
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  Speaker 1: the deck. The Hudsons Bay had no right to this country.
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  Speaker 1: The Northwesters owned that country. The Hudson's Bay couldn't compel
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  Speaker 1: any man to drill and fight. Selkirk could not give
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  Speaker 1: clear deed to their lands. And much more to that
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  Speaker 1: same effect, all of which proved that some Norwestern agent
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  Speaker 1: in the skuise had been busy on board. September twenty fourth,
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  Speaker 1: amid falling snow and biting frost, the ships anchored at
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  Speaker 1: five fathoms whole off York Factory Port Nelson, the Selkirk
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  Speaker 1: settlers had been sixty one days on board, and they
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  Speaker 1: were still a year away from their promised land. Champlain's
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  Speaker 1: calmness of Acadia and Quebec had come to Anchorage on
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  Speaker 1: a land set like a jewel among silver waters and
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  Speaker 1: gray hills. But the Selkirk settlers have as yet seen
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  Speaker 1: only rocks barren of verdure as a billiard ball vales
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  Speaker 1: amidst the doomed hills of Hudson Straits, dank with muskeg
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  Speaker 1: and silent as the very realms of death itself. But
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  Speaker 1: for the flacker of wild fowl, the roaring of the
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  Speaker 1: floundering walrus herds, or the lonely tinkling of mountain streams
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  Speaker 1: running from the ice fields to the mossy valleys bordering
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Sea. It needed a robust hope, or the
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  Speaker 1: blind faith of an almost religious zeal, to penetrate the
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  Speaker 1: future and see beyond the sterile shores of the promised land,
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  Speaker 1: where homes were to be built and plenty to abound.
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  Speaker 1: If pioneer struggles leave as something in the blood of
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  Speaker 1: the race that makes for national strength and permanency. The
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  Speaker 1: difference between the home finding of the West and the
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  Speaker 1: home finding of the East is worth noting. There were,
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  Speaker 1: of course no preparations for the calmness at York Fort,
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  Speaker 1: for the factor could not know they were coming or
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  Speaker 1: anything of Selkirk's plans till the annual ships arrived. On
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  Speaker 1: the chance of finding better hunting farthered from the fort,
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  Speaker 1: mc donald withdrew his people from the Hayes River north
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  Speaker 1: across the marsh to a sheltered bank on the River Nelson.
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  Speaker 1: Winter had set in early a wopping blizzard met the
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  Speaker 1: pilgrims as they marched along an Indian trail through the bushwood.
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  Speaker 1: There is a legend a Miles mac donnell, the governor
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  Speaker 1: becoming benighted between York Fort and Nelson River and losing
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  Speaker 1: his way in the storm. According to the story, he
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  Speaker 1: beat about the brushwood for twenty four hours before he
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  Speaker 1: regained his bearings. Rude huts of rough timber and thatched
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  Speaker 1: roof with logs extemporized for berths and benches were knocked
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  Speaker 1: up for wintering quarters on Nelson River, and the next
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  Speaker 1: nine months were past hunting deer for store of provisions
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  Speaker 1: and building flat boats to ascend the interior. All winter,
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  Speaker 1: a mutinous spirit was at work among the young clerks,
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  Speaker 1: which mac donnell no doubt ascribed to the machinations of Norwesters.
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  Speaker 1: But the chief factor quickly quelled mutiny by cutting off supplies,
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  Speaker 1: and all hands were ready to proceed when the fur
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  Speaker 1: brigades set out for the interior on the twenty first
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  Speaker 1: of June eighteen twelve up Hayes River, up the whole
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  Speaker 1: length of Winnipeg Lake. Then in August, the flat boats
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  Speaker 1: are ascending the muddy current of Red River through what
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  Speaker 1: is now Manitoba, and for the first time the people
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  Speaker 1: see their promised land. High banks fringed with maple and
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  Speaker 1: oak lined the river at what is now Selkirk. Then
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  Speaker 1: the cliffs lower and through the woods are broken gleams
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  Speaker 1: of the rolling prairie, intersected by ravines stretching far as
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  Speaker 1: an eye can see where sky and earth meet. From
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  Speaker 1: the lateness of the season, one can guess that the
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  Speaker 1: river was low at the boulder reach known as Saint
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  Speaker 1: Andrew's Wapids, and that while the boats were tracked up stream,
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  Speaker 1: the people would disembark and walk along the Indian trails
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  Speaker 1: of the west bank. There was no fort garry near
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  Speaker 1: the rapids, as a few years later buffalo skin Teepeas
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  Speaker 1: alone broke the endless sweep of russet prairie and sky clear,
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  Speaker 1: swimming blue as the purest Lake. Then the people are
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  Speaker 1: back aboard, laboring hard as the ore now, for they
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  Speaker 1: know they are nearing the end of their long pilgrimage.
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  Speaker 1: The river banks rise higher, then they drop gradually to
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  Speaker 1: the flats now known as Point Douglas. Another bend in
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  Speaker 1: the sinuous red current, looping and curving and circling fantastically
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  Speaker 1: through the prairie, and the Selkirk settlers are in full
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  Speaker 1: view of the Old Cree graveyard. Bodies swathed in skins
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  Speaker 1: on scaffolding. Down at the junction of the Assinaboine hard By,
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  Speaker 1: they see the towered bastions of the Northwest Company's post,
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  Speaker 1: Fort Gibraltar. Somewhere between what are known to day as
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  Speaker 1: Broadway Bridge and Point Douglas. The Selkirk settlers land on
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  Speaker 1: the west side. Chief Peguis and his Cree warrior ride
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  Speaker 1: wonderly among the white faced newcomers, marveling at men who
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  Speaker 1: have crossed the great waters to dig gardens and work land.
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  Speaker 1: The barracks, knocked up hissly is known after Selkirk's family name,
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  Speaker 1: as Fort Douglas. But the store of deer meat has
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  Speaker 1: been exhausted, and the calmness are on the verge of
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  Speaker 1: a second winter. They at once joined the plain Rangers
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  Speaker 1: or boy brulaise Bert wood runners, half breed descendants of
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  Speaker 1: French and Northwest fur traders, who have been retainers of
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  Speaker 1: the Montreal Company. With them, the Selkirk settlers proceed south
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  Speaker 1: to Pembina and the boundary to hunt buffalo. No instructions
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  Speaker 1: had yet come to Red River of the Northwest Company's
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  Speaker 1: hostility to the colony, and the lonely Scotch clerks of
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  Speaker 1: Fort Gibraltar were glad to welcome men who spoke their
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  Speaker 1: own highland tongue. Volumes might be written of this The
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  Speaker 1: calumnists first year in the Promised Land. How the rude
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  Speaker 1: plain rangers conveyed them to the buffalo hunt in their
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  Speaker 1: creaking Red River carts, carts made entirely of wood, hub, tire, axle,
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  Speaker 1: and all or else on loaned ponies. How when storm came,
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  Speaker 1: the white settlers were welcomed to the huts and skin
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  Speaker 1: tents of the French half breeds, given food and buffalo blankets.
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  Speaker 1: How many a young Highlander came to grief in the
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  Speaker 1: wild stampede of the first buffalo hunt. How when the
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  Speaker 1: hunters returned to Fort Gibraltar Winnipeg on Red River, was
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  Speaker 1: stor enough of pemmican for all the furred posts of
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  Speaker 1: the Nor'Westers. Many a weld happy winter night was past dance,
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  Speaker 1: mad Indian jigs, to the piping of the Highland piper,
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  Speaker 1: and the crazy scraping of some frenchman's fiddle. How when
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  Speaker 1: morning came in a gray dawn of smoking frost mist,
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  Speaker 1: a long line of the calumnists could be seen winding
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  Speaker 1: along the ice of Red River home to Fort Douglas,
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  Speaker 1: Piper Green or Hector mc lane leading the way, still
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  Speaker 1: prancing and blowing a proud national air. How when the
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  Speaker 1: spring opened, ten acre plots were assigned to each settler
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  Speaker 1: close to the fort at what were known as the
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  Speaker 1: Colony buildings, and one hundred acre farms farther down the river.
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  Speaker 1: All this and more are part of the story of
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  Speaker 1: the coming of the first calmness to the Great Northwest.
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  Speaker 1: The very autumn that the first settlers had reached Red
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  Speaker 1: River in eighteen twenty twe more calmness had arrived on
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  Speaker 1: the boats at Hudson Bay. These did not reach Red
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  Speaker 1: River till October eighteen twelve, and in the spring of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen. By eighteen thirteen and on till eighteen seventeen,
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  Speaker 1: more calmness. Yearly came. The story of each year, with
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  Speaker 1: its plot and counterplot I have told elsewhere. Spite of
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  Speaker 1: Norwester's threats, spite of the fact there would be no
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  Speaker 1: market for the calmness when they had succeeded in transforming
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  Speaker 1: wilderness prairie into farms, Selkirk's mad dream of empire seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be succeeding the cardinal mistake in The contest between
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Hudson's Bay Company and Northwesters, between feudalism and democracy, was
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  Speaker 1: now committed by the governor of the colony, Miles MacDonnell.
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  Speaker 1: The year eighteen thirteen had proved poor for the buffalo hunters.
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  Speaker 1: Large numbers of calmness were coming and provisions were likely
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  Speaker 1: to be scarce. Also note it well, while the war
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  Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve did not cut off supplies through Hudson
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  Speaker 1: Bay to the English Company, it did threaten access to
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  Speaker 1: the west by the Great Lakes and cut off all
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  Speaker 1: supplies by way of Detroit and Lake Huron for the Norwesters.
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  Speaker 1: Was McDonald scoring a point against the Northwesters when they
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  Speaker 1: were at a disadvantage. Who can answer? Selkirk had ordered
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: him to expel the Norwesters from his lands, and if
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  Speaker 1: the violent contest had not begun in this way, it
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  Speaker 1: was bound to come in another. What mc donald did
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: was issued a proclamation in January of eighteen fourteen forbidding
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  Speaker 1: taking provisions from Selkirk's time territory of Acinaboia. It practically
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  Speaker 1: meant that the Plain Rangers must not hunt buffalo in
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  Speaker 1: the limits of modern Manitoba, and must not sell supplies
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  Speaker 1: to the Northwesters. It also meant that all the upper
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  Speaker 1: posts of the Northwesters, the fur posts of Athabasca and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: British Columbia, which depended on Premiican for food, would be
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  Speaker 1: without adequate provisions. The Plain Rangers were enraged beyond words
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  Speaker 1: and doubly arraged when some Hudson's baymen be began seizing
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  Speaker 1: buffalo meat at Pembina River, which was beyond the limits
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  Speaker 1: of Selkirk's territory. Writes Peter Fiddler, one of the Hudson's
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  Speaker 1: Bay factors. If McDonell only perseveres, he will starve the
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  Speaker 1: Northwesters out. One can guess the anger. In the annual
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  Speaker 1: meeting of the Northwesters at Fort William in July of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen, like generals on field of war, they laid
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  Speaker 1: out their campaign. Duncan Cameron, a United Empire loyalist officer
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  Speaker 1: of the eighteen twelve War, is to don his red
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  Speaker 1: regimentals and proceed to Red River, where his knowledge of
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  Speaker 1: the Gaelic tongue may be trusted to win over Selkik settlers.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy,
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  Speaker 1: some wrote one of the fiery Norwesters to a brother officer.
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  Speaker 1: Such was the mood of the Northwesters when they came
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  Speaker 1: back from their annual meeting on Lake Superior to Red River,
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  Speaker 1: and MacDonnell fanned this mood to dangerous furry by threatening
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  Speaker 1: to burn the Norwester's forts to the ground unless they
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  Speaker 1: moved from Selkirk's territory for the present. Duncan Cameron contends
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  Speaker 1: himself with a striking up a warm friendship with the
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  Speaker 1: Highlanders of the settlement and offering to transport two hundred
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  Speaker 1: of them free of cost to Eastern Canada. Mc donnell
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  Speaker 1: seizes still more provisions from Northwest forts. Cameron, the Northwester,
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  Speaker 1: comes back from the annual meeting of eighteen fifteen, still
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  Speaker 1: more belicose. He carries the warrant to arrest Governor Miles
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  Speaker 1: mac dowell for the seizure of those provisions. Mc dowell,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: safe behind the palisades of Fort Douglas, laughs the warrant
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to scorn. But it is another matter when the Plain
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Rangers ride across the prairie from Fort Gibraltar armed and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: pour such hot shot into Fort Douglas that the colonists
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: frenzied with fear huddled to the fort for shelter. To
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: insure the safety of the Calmness, McDonnell surrenders to the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: northwesters and is sent to Eastern Canada for a trial
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: which never takes place. No sooner has Governor mc dowell
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: been expelled than Cuthbert Grant, warden of the Plain Rangers,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: rides over to the colony and warns the Calmness to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: flee for their lives from Indians, enraged at these land
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: workers spoiling the hunting fields. What the Indians thought of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: this defense of their rights is not stated. They were
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: silent and unacting witnesses of the unedifying spectacle of white
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: men ready to fly at each other's throats. It was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: too late for the Calmness to reach Hudson Bay in
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: time for the annual ships of eighteen fifteen, so the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: houseless people dispersed amid the forests of Lake Winnipeg, where
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: they could be certain of at least fish for food.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: End of section forty one. Recording by Lynda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, BC,