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Chapter II - The
Young Trader
WHY so many Scottish
men of education, spirit, and daring found their way, after the
conquest, to Canada, and especially to Montreal, is somewhat
difficult to ascertain. Scotland is a rugged country, with a climate
fitted to make a hardy race; it is very far from being a fertile
country in the main; a large portion of its people—larger than at
the present time—were mountaineers, loving adventure and accustomed
to the hardships of the heath and wood. It is thus possible that
young and adventurous Scotsmen found in Canada a home in a
northland, suited to their thought and liking.
Highland soldiers had
clambered up the heights of Quebec, and the land seemed theirs by
right of conquest. Some of the soldiers remained in Canada along the
great St. Lawrence, while those who returned to their native
valleys, as they told the tale of daring on the Plains of Abraham,
and made "Evan's, Donald's fame ring in each clansman's ears,"
inspired the young and ambitious to seek out the land of the hunt
and fur trade, and make it theirs.
Among those of better
parts and respectability there came to the New World Alexander
Mackenzie. According to the statement of his own family, lie was a
native of Stornoway, in the island of Lewis on the west coast of
Scotland, and not, as stated in the Encyclopwdia Britannica, of
Inverness. He is said to have been a scion of the old Mackenzies of
Seaforth, from whom Stornoway, with the whole island, of which it is
the capital, passed years ago to its present proprietors, the
Mathesons, of Achany and Ardross. According to the Dictionary of
National Biography, young Mackenzie was born in the year 1755, but
his grandson writes to the author that his grandfather was born in
1763. The future explorer had received a fair education, and being
familiar with she sea, and finding the boatman's life attractive,
was well fitted for the work of the fur trade, towards which he was
drawn on his arrival in Montreal at the age of sixteen.
In 1779, on his arrival in Canada, the
leaders of the fur trade were Simon McTavish and the brothers
Frobisher. The two companies under these leaders represented the
greater part of the capital and influence of the fur trade. There
were, however, restless spirits among the traders who did not
acknowledge the prevailing domination. Two Americans, Peter Pond and
Peter Panglnan, the latter known as Bastonnais (i.e., the American),
though possessed of little capital, were plotters of the first
water. They succeeded in inducing the Montreal merchants, John
Gregory, an Englishman, and Alexander Norman McLeod, a proud and
aggressive Highlander, to unite in company and fight the strong
monopolists led by McTavish.
With this nest of oppositionists
Alexander Mackenzie allied himself. His keenness and daring at once
attracted the attention of his employers, and his selection, after a
very short experience, to lead a trading expedition to Detroit, on
the lower lakes, was a remarkable example of confidence. It was no
easy thing to conduct a trading party from Montreal to Detroit in
those early days. The rapids of the St. Lawrence had to be faced and
overcome, while the watercourses were the highways for the bands of
Indians from the far west, who were rendered the more treacherous by
the success of the American revolutionists.
Upper Canada, through which Mackenzie
wended his way to the west, was still an uninhabited forest, for the
United Empire Loyalist was only finding his way to his asylum of
rest north of the lakes. Crossing the Niagara peninsula along the
Niagara River, or leaving Lake Ontario at Fond du Lac, where the
city of Hamilton now stands, portaging to the Grand River, and
descending it to Lake Erie, the adventurous voyageurs then coasted
the shallow lake and found their way to Detroit, their destination.
Detroit had been a favourite resort of
the traders under the old French regime. It is said that at the time
of the conquest there were some two thousand French-Canadians or
their descendants living on the banks of the Detroit River. Some
have questioned this statement inasmuch as within twenty-five years
from that date, when young Mackenzie betook himself to Detroit,
there were only seventy of these old French families. Either the
former statement was incorrect, or else the migration of these
borderers farther west to Michilimackinac and the shores of. Lake
Michigan had been very large. The latter is the more likely
explanation.
The counting-house experience of five years in Montreal, and a
year's responsibility at Detroit fitted the young Scottish trader
for undertaking what was the joy of every Nor'-Wrester, the journey
to the far North_Wrest. Mackenzie was visited at Detroit by McLeod,
the junior member of his house, and induced to leave quieter scenes
behind and adventure himself in a land yet largely unknown to him.
Now raised to the dignity of a bourgois,
[A partner or shareholder in the company.] (1785) Mackenzie set out
for the land that was to make him famous. Passing Mackinaw and Sault
Ste. Marie, the new leader entered the great Lake Superior, and
coasting its northern shore, reached Grand Portage, of which he
speaks with some interest.
Grand Portage was the cynosure of every
fur trader, whether he were coming from the interior to the stormy
Lake Superior, or going westward through the tipper lakes. To the
imagination of the young fur trader Grand Portage made a strong
appeal, just as it does even now to those acquainted with the old
days of the fur trade.
It lies on a most unfrequented part of
the north shore of Lake Superior, some forty miles southwest of Fort
William, of which it was the predecessor. A few years ago the writer
paid the lonely spot a visit. After being roved in a small boat by
the keeper of a neighbouring lighthouse, in a dismal and dangerous
night voyage, he reached this famous rendezvous of the old traders.
The name of the place was taken from a nine-mile portage to avoid
the rapids of the Pigeon River. Over the portage a wagon road was
constructed, which may still be seen. A few sunken timbers only are
left in the water to represent the warehouses and wharves of this
once thronged and important place. These formerly faced a pretty bay
made by a rocky islet standing out into the lake as a protection and
shelter to it. On this island is now the dwelling of a solitary
French fisherman, looking like a robber's keep. Besides the
fisherman there is not a white man to be found for twenty miles. An
Indian village occupies the site of Grand Portage. The village has a
multitude of dogs, but neither wagon nor horse is known to be within
many miles. Grand Portage was found, after the Treaty of Paris, to
be on the American side of the Pigeon River, but was not given up
for nearly twenty years after Mackenzie's first visit.
When Alexander Mackenzie arrived at
Grand Portage it was in its glory. Five hundred men in the employ of
the fur traders assembled there, those from the east who met no
Indians lived on cured rations, and were called viangeurs de lard,
or pork-eaters ; while the independent westerners were known as
coureurs de Bois or wood-runners. Into this stronghold of the old
company Mackenzie and his associates had now come, representing the
Gregory interests, and with the fixed determination of winning a
foothold in the heart of the great fur country which extended far to
the north and west.
The vigorous, if not violent, member of
the company, A. N. McLeod, remained in Montreal to manage the
headquarters. The members of the determined little band divided up
the great territory among them. The Red River district was
apportioned to Duncan Pollock, a veteran trader, the far-off
Athabaska was given to John Ross, the rich Saskatchewan to
Bustonnais .Pangman, and the Churchill or English River to the young
bourgeois, Alexander Mackenzie, who already showed evidences of a
domninancy and influence by and by to become supreme. With the
younger company were also associated James Finlay, son of the
pioneer trader to the fur country, and Alexander Mackenzie's cousin,
Roderick McKenzie, who became a well-known trader, and was the
historiographer of the fur traders.
The practical talent and influence of
the Mackenzies showed itself in the new organization. They laid it
down as a principle that the best results from the fur trade were
not to be gained by the two companies, even though they were rivals,
being in a state of friction and conflict. Accordingly Alexander
Mackenzie and his neighbouring bourgeois of the other company, P.
Small, completed their successful winter's work by carrying their
furs in company to Ile a la Crosse, making the river banks resound
with their joyous songs. Roderick McKenzie had as his rival in the
English River district one of the greatest men of the old company,
William McGillivray, and they, too, after a good winter's trade
carried in company their superabundant catches to the place of
rendezvous.
Unfortunately this harmony did not prevail everywhere. Trader Ross
had found as his rival Peter Pond, who had basely deserted Pangman,
and returned to his old masters. Pond was a man of enormous energy.
He had been the pioneer of the Athabaska district, but while the
successful upholder of his own company, he was the terror of his
rivals and the scourge of the peace-loving Indians of the Athabaska
district. Five years before this time the desperate trader had, it
was believed, been the cause of the death in the Athabaska country
of a popular Swiss trader, M. Wadin, the agent of a rival company,
and now Ross found a constant irritation being kept up between
Pond's subordinates and his own. During the whole winter matters
went from bad to worse, until in one of the actual quarrels of the
two parties, Ross was unfortunately killed.
The brigades of the year, led by
Alexander Mackenzie and others, had just left Ile h la Crosse to
carry their cargoes to Grand Portage, when the sad news of the death
of John Ross reached Roderick McKenzie, who had been left in charge
of Ile a la Crosse, in the absence of the party en route for Lake
Superior. McKenzie considered that the matter of Pond's violence,
since it was the second occasion on which he had been charged with
murder, was so serious that it was absolutely necessary that the
partners at Grand Portage should know of it. Accordingly, in a light
canoe manned by five voyageurs, he hastened unguided to the
rendezvous` and made the painful journey in a month's time.
The news of the bloodshed in Athabaska
filled the minds of the members of both companies In Grand Portage
with dismay. All felt the words of the wise man to be true, that the
" beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water," and this
being Pond's second offence no one knew to what it alight grow,
especially in the remote Indian territories. The matter was fully
debated and canvassed among the traders, and it was decided that the
union of the two companies was imperative. Accordingly the
North-Wrest Company was established (1787) with a larger membership,
and the three firms, headed by McTavish, Frobisher, and Gregory
respectively, became the agents for the joint administration of
affairs at Grand Portage and Montreal.
All eyes were turned upon the rising
young trader, Alexander Mackenzie, as the man to meet the emergency
in Athabaska. He alone was fitted "to bell the cat." While he was,
under the united company, to act ostensibly in concert with the
bloodthirsty Pond, yet the understanding was that he should take the
supervision, as Pond's extravagant ideas had lost for him the
confidence of the traders. Masson states that Mackenzie on going to
the Athabaska district, had determined to follow the course of the
Hudson's Bay Company, viz., to withdraw all posts from beyond Lake
Athabaska, and compel the northern Indians to trade within the
precincts of a well-organized fort built upon the lake. His fear of
the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, however, led him, on
fuller consideration, to change his plans, and to push out agents
even farther to the north than had yet been done.
In his administration of this northern
district Alexander Mackenzie at once showed his surpassing ability.
His surrender of preconceived opinion, and his adoption of the
policy of expansion, showed him to be a man of observation and
decision. The fact that he was a very young man was all in his
favour in his new work. At twenty-four he had the energy of maturity
and the adventurous instincts of youth. In a service such as that of
the fur companies in a new country, overcaution, prejudice, and
slavery to routine are deadly sins. When Simpson, a young man who
had only spent a winter in the country, was chosen as governor of
Rupert's Land, he succeeded because he had ability and had nothing
to unlearn; so young Alexander Mackenzie proved his adaptability and
his fitness for leadership.
Another mark of his foresight and good
judgment was revealed in his selection of the localities which
should serve as centres for future expansion. Thus early the thought
of the explorer was directed to the two oceans, one to the north and
the other to the west, as opening up a field for the largest
speculation and enterprise.
Having decided to adopt the new policy
of "advance," he selected Leroux and his party, who had been brought
from Great Slave Lake, to return thither and to push the trade with
vigour. Leroux not only did this, taking up a post on Great Slave
Lake, but, finding the Indians indolent and careless about trade, he
despatched a well-known Chipewyan leader known as the "English
chief," to induce the northern Indians to come to his fort with
their furs. Leroux also sent a sturdy Highland trader named
Sutherland to visit distant tribes of Indians and win their
good-will by a liberal distribution of presents. The good news
spread far among the solitudes of the remote region beyond, so that
in the following spring a large number of Indians from a lake far to
the west, hitherto unknown to the traders, came to search out the
lavish monarch of the north—Leroux. The policy, open spirit, and
attractive manner of Mackenzie were all found reflected in the whole
body of his subordinates.
Another stroke of genius, also looking
to the future, was his choice of a commanding position on Peace
River, the great waterway flowing to Lake Athabaska from the west, a
position which dominated even the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains. To this point he despatched Boyer to found a fort and
open trade on the route to the western sea. This he did at a spot
where the Little Red River, a tributary from the south, flows into
the Peace River.
It was the custom of the trading
companies to give positions of trust only to men of ripe years and
experience. Seldom was a man known to be promoted to a commissioned
office while under forty years of age. That Alexander Mackenzie
should be placed in charge of so difficult and important a district
as Athabaska was an unheard-of thing, but it simply showed that this
man, so Honoured at an early age, was destined to be one of the
master blinds of the fur trade, though it is well to state that his
sudden elevation did not free him from the jealousy afterwards
manifested by some of the traders. |
