CONTENTS
[The Beaver "A Journal of Progress"] [CONTENTS] [The "Lords of the North" in Annual Conclave] [Minutes of Council, 1878] [ENGLISH RIVER] [EDMONTON] [SASKATCHEWAN] [CUMBERLAND] [GRAND RAPIDS] [NORWAY HOUSE] [ISLAND LAKE] [YORK FACTORY] [MANITOBA] [SWAN RIVER] [LITTLE JOURNEYS TO FUR TRADE POSTS OF THE HUDSON'S BAY CO.] [Hudson's Hope Post, B.C.] [Discovery and Exploration of the Yukon (Pelly) River] [Aged Fur Trader Moves] [The Beaver "A Journal of Progress"] [A National Flag for Canada] [Carrying Water] [Arena Lust] [H.B.C. Enters Consignment Fur Business] [Impressions of the Store Managers' Conference] [Humorous Extracts from Some Official Letters] ["Some Reputation"] [Suggestion Competition—Labrador District] [FORT McMURRAY NEWS] [H.B.C. Fur Trade Post on San Francisco Bay, 1824] [H.B.C. Aided Wilderness Wanderer] [PAS MOUNTAIN POST NEWS] [STANLEY POST (SASK.) NOTES] [Buying Everything in Sight] [As They Were] [McKay Post Manager Dies] [Tried for North Pole by Balloon] [WHAT HAPPENED AT FORT SIMPSON, N.W.T. DURING WINTER, 1921?] [The Englishman and The "Grizzly"] [Pigeon Trap] [Old Fur Trader Ill] [The Vanished Buffalo Herds of North America] [FAMOUS H.B.C. CAPTAINS AND SHIPS] [F. T. C. O. Notes] [KAMLOOPS, B. C. STORE NEWS] [A True Fish Story] [Gets Wheelbarrow-full of Aluminum Pans] [MONTREAL] [WINNIPEG] [Retail Store News] [Listening-in at an H.B.C. Dance!] [Joe Scott Tends Goal Against All-Stars] [WHOLESALE DEPOT] [Modern Canoes for Northland] [LETHBRIDGE (Alta.) STORE NEWS] [GENERAL OFFICE (WINNIPEG) NEWS] [VANCOUVER] [Watch These Ball Players From Now On] [No Skirts for This 4200-Foot Climb] [Presentation to Mr. Horne] [H.B.C. Cribbage Players Win Baxter Cup] [Wholesome Minds] [Leaving for New Posts at Victoria] [The Wild Man] [EDMONTON] [Retail Store Topics] [A. & A.A. Early Season Sports Events] [LET'S FORGET IT] [Masquerade Baseball Match Amuses] [CALGARY] [New Department] [The Adventures of Sales Book No. 666] [The Story of Saleslip No. 1] [700 Attend Eighth Annual Field Sports] [Miss McColl Wins Prize in Music Festival] [H.B.C. Marine and River Transport News] [Hudson's Bay Company Incorporated A.D. 1670]
The "Lords of the North" in Annual Conclave
Commissioned Officers of H.B.C. Met in Grand Councils to Formulate Annual Plans for Administration of Vast Fur Districts; a Typical Meeting in 1878
By J. BROWN
"Lords of the North" was the appellation sometimes applied to those intrepid Factors and Chief Factors of H.B.C. who for many years gathered in annual conclave at some central fort to arrange for the administration and provisioning of the great fur-trade districts.
Norway House, Fort Carlton on the Saskatchewan, Fort Garry on the Red and the "Stone Fort" were successively the meeting places of these ancient councils.
When the season's furs had been gathered and stoutly baled and marked with the cryptic signs which destined them for the far-away auction mart at London—when the shouting, chanting fur brigades of the north went swinging away down roaring watercourses to meet the sailing ships on the great Bay—just at this time the bearded chieftains of the inland districts mobilized their voluminous accounts, dried their goose quill pens and shot away in swift birchbarks to the grand council.
Some of these officers travelled a thousand miles; others, at more southerly stations had not far to go. But in any case their only carriers were the canoe, the York boat, the plodding oxen or the pony of the plains.
The council was not usually complete until early July. Then the grizzled veterans of the fur service sat down to "talk musquash" under the chairmanship of the Chief Commissioner, and in the space of a fortnight had deliberated upon the commerce and government of a wilderness empire and promulgated the specific orders that would control the victualing, the supply and the trade, the commercial, civic, industrial and religious life of the vast unplotted north country for another year.
Weighty problems of transport were solved at these historic meetings, so that the chain of H.B.C. communication might be unbroken; mail packets, freight and furs traversed the forest leagues and the expanse of mountain and prairie under "timetables" placed in effect by this council. And rare indeed was there instanced the loss of a package of merchandise or pelts—or even a letter—notwithstanding the extraordinary difficulties of travel, the storm and stress of climate.
Some idea of the plan under which the grand council operated may be conveyed by the following extracts from the minutes of a typical meeting of the Factors and Chief Factors held at Fort Carlton, beginning the first of July, 1878: