The conquest of the great Northwest, Volume 1 (of 2) /

by Agnes C. Laut

CHAPTER XV

1699-1720

THE FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE ADVENTURERS TO EXPLORE—HENRY KELSEY PENETRATES AS FAR AS THE VALLEY OF THE SASKATCHEWAN—SANFORD AND ARRINGTON, KNOWN AS “RED CAP,” FOUND HENLEY HOUSE INLAND FROM ALBANY—BESET FROM WITHOUT, THE COMPANY IS ALSO BESET FROM WITHIN—PETITIONS AGAINST THE CHARTER—INCREASE OF CAPITAL—RESTORATION OF THE BAY FROM FRANCE

The Peace of Ryswick in 1697, which decreed that war should cease on Hudson Bay, and that France and England should each retain what they chanced to possess at the time of the treaty—left the Adventurers of England with only one fort, Albany, under doughty old Governor Knight, and one outpost, New Severn, which refugees driven to the woods had built out of necessity.

Back in ’85 when Robert Sanford had been ordered to explore inland, he had reported such voyages impracticable. The only way to obtain inland trade, he declared, was to give presents to the Indian chiefs and attract the tribes down to the bay. Now that the French had swept the English from the bay, Sanford was driven to the very thing he had said could not be done—penetrating inland to intercept the Indian fleets of canoes before they came down to the French. With one Arrington, known as Red Cap on the bay, and a man, John Vincent, Sanford year after year went upstream from Albany through Keewatin toward what is now Manitoba. By 1700, Henley House had been built one hundred and fifty miles inland from Albany. The French war was proving a blessing in disguise. It had awakened the sleeping English gentlemen of the bay and was scattering them far and wide. The very year the French came overland, 1686, Captain Abraham had sailed north from Nelson to Churchill—“a faire wide river,” he describes it, naming it after the great Marlborough; and now with only Albany as the radiating point, commanded by old Governor Knight, sloops under the apprentice boy, young Henry Kelsey, under Mike Grimmington and Smithsend, sailed across to the east side of the bay, known as East Main (now known as Ungava and Labrador) and yearly traded so successfully with the wandering Eskimo and Montagnais there that in spite of the French holding the bay, cargoes of 30,000 and 40,000 beaver pelts were sent home to England.

But the honors of exploration at this period belong to the ragamuffin, apprentice lad, Henry Kelsey. He had come straight to Nelson before the French occupation from the harum-scarum life of a London street arab. At the fur posts, discipline was absolutely strict. Only the governor and chief trader were allowed to converse with the Indians. No man could leave the fort to hunt without special parole. Every subordinate was sworn to unquestioning obedience to the officer above him. Servants were not supposed to speak unless spoken to. Written rules and regulations were stuck round the fort walls thick as advertisements put up by a modern bill poster, and the slightest infraction of these martinet rules was visited by guardroom duty, or a sound drubbing at the hands of the chief factor, or public court-martial followed by the lash. It was all a part of the cocked hat and red coat and gold lace and silk ruffles with which these little kings of the wilderness sought to invest themselves with the pomp of authority. It is to the everlasting credit of the Company’s governors that a system of such absolute despotism was seldom abused. Perhaps, too, the loneliness of the life—a handful of whites cooped up amid all the perils of savagery—made each man realize the responsibility of being his brother’s keeper.

Henry Kelsey, the apprentice boy, fresh from the streets of London, promptly ran amuck of the strict rules at Nelson. He went in and out of the fort without leave, and when gates were locked, he climbed the walls. In spite of rules to the contrary, he talked with the Indians and hunted with them, and when Captain Geyer switched him soundly for disobedience, he broke bars, jumped the walls, and ran away with a party of Assiniboines. About this time, came the French to the bay. The Company was moving heaven and earth to induce servants to go inland for trade when an Indian runner brought a message on birch bark from Kelsey. He had been up Hayes River with the Indians and now offered to conduct an exploration on condition of pardon. Geyer not only pardoned the young renegade but welcomed him back to the fort bag and baggage, Indian wife and all the trumpery of an Indian family. The great Company issued Kelsey a formal commission for discovery, and the next year on July 15, 1691, as the Assiniboines departed from Deering’s Point where they camped to trade at Nelson, Kelsey launched out in a canoe with them.

Radisson and young Chouart had been up this river some distance; but as far as known, Kelsey was the first white man to follow Hayes River westward as far as the prairies. The weather was exceedingly dry, game scarce, grass high and brittle, the tracks hard to follow whether of man or beast. Within a week, the Indians had gone up one hundred and seventy miles toward what are now known as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but only two moose and one partridge had been killed, and provisions were exhausted. Leaving the Indians, Kelsey pushed forward across country following the trail of an encampment to the fore. At the end of a thirty mile tramp through brushwood of poplars and scrub birch, he came to three leather tepees. No one was in them. Men and women were afield hunting. Ravenous with hunger, Kelsey ransacked provision bags. He found nothing but dried grass and was fain to stay his hunger with berries. At night the hunters came in with ten swans and a moose. Here, Kelsey remained with them hunting till his party came up, when all advanced together another one hundred and thirty miles to the Assiniboine camping place. There were only twenty-six tents of Assiniboines. In a fray, the main party of Assiniboine hunters had slain three Cree women, and had now fled south, away from Cree territory. By the middle of August, Kelsey and his hunters were on the buffalo plains. All day, the men hunted. At night, the women went out to bring in and dress the meat. Once, exhausted, Kelsey fell sound asleep on the trail. When he awakened, there was not even the dust of the hunt to guide him back to camp. From horizon to horizon was not a living soul; only the billowing prairie, grass neck high, with the lonely call of birds circling overhead. By following the crumpled grass and watching the sky for the reflection of the camp fires at night, Kelsey found his way back to the Assiniboines. Another time, camp fire had been made of dry moss. Kelsey was awakened to find the grass round him on fire and the stock of his musket blazing. With his jackknife he made a rude gunstock for the rest of the trip. Hunting with an Indian one day, the two came unexpectedly on a couple of grizzly bears. The surprise was mutual. The bears knew no fear of firearms and were disposed to parley, but the hunters didn’t wait. The Indian dashed for a tree; Kelsey for hiding in a bunch of willows, firing as he ran. The bears mistook the direction of the shot and had pursued the Indian. Kelsey’s charge had wounded one bear, and with a second shot, he now disabled the other, firing full in its face. The double victory over the beast of prey most feared by the Indians gained him the name of Little Giant—Miss-top-ashish.