In this same year the Company, at the suggestion of Chief Factor McLaughlin, demanded and obtained of the Russian Fur Company a ten years' lease for trading purposes of a strip of land ten leagues wide, extending north from latitude 50° 40', and lying between British territory and the ocean, paying therefor two thousand east side land otter, worth thirty-two shillings and sixpence each. Statesmen in England marvelled at this arrangement, wondering why the Company sought these ten leagues of Russian seaboard. But traffic with the natives was only one of the objects of the Company, for they also contemplated making a customer of the Russians for European goods, as well as for those products of the soil which the inclemency of the more northern regions prevented their rivals from raising.
Acting upon this arrangement, a party was organized at Montreal in 1839 to take possession of the leased territory. They set out from York Factory in July, and travelled from thence by way of Edmonton, Jasper House and Walla Walla to Fort Vancouver. In the following year they proceeded to the Redoubt St. Dionysius, or as it was thereafter called, Fort Stickine, the Russian post at the mouth of the Stickine River, which was to be the British headquarters in the leased territory. In charge of the fort they found a Russian officer with fifty men, guarded by a brig of thirty-two guns. The officer was informed by the Company's pioneers that they would remain with eighteen men, at which the Russians expressed astonishment. They informed young McLaughlin and W. G. Rae, who had been appointed to the new post, that the savages were troublesome, that the chief had many slaves skilled in assassination and accustomed to obey his murderous orders. To which the Company's men replied, "Other forts we rule with twenty men, and we will hold Stickine."
Thomas Simpson.
To this period belong the adventures and the tragic end of Thomas Simpson, the Arctic explorer. As a youth, Simpson had shown great scholastic promise, and seemed destined for medicine, when fortune tempted him to try the service of the Company. His cousin, George Simpson, was then Governor of the Company's territories, and repeated offers of a position decided the brilliant student to embark in the fur-trade. He began work as secretary to Governor Simpson, with whom he travelled from post to post for some time, until he settled down as accountant at Fort Garry. But soon the Company had a duty for him to perform. In order to strengthen their hand when applying for a renewal of their general trading license, the Honourable Adventurers decided to spend some money in exploring the Arctic coast. Young Simpson was requested to undertake this arduous task. Exploration from the Atlantic showed a defined coast line to within seven degrees of the Great Fish River, and it was to devolve upon Simpson to explore the intervening gap. The important duty was laid upon him of completing the discovery of the northern coast of North America, and in accomplishing this it was thought that the long-looked for North-West passage would be brought to light. Simpson set out from Fort Garry in the winter of 1836-37 and travelled on foot the whole distance to Lake Athabasca, a matter of one thousand two hundred miles, where he encountered Dease, the chief factor, who was nominally at the head of the expedition. In the spring the party descended the Mackenzie in open boats, coasting along to the westward until they attained the farthest point attained by Franklin. From here a successful journey was made to within a short distance of Point Barrow, when their progress was arrested by the ice. After wintering at Great Bear Lake, in the spring of 1838 the expedition again started for the coast, crossing the Coppermine River and descending that stream to its mouth. But to their great disappointment they found the coast ice-bound. In the following spring they were more fortunate, finding the sea comparatively open, and as before, Simpson struck off along the coast on foot. The expedition returned by way of the Coppermine and Great Bear Lake to the Mackenzie River, and here Simpson wrote a narrative of the expedition while waiting for the freezing up of that stream. He departed from Fort Simpson on the 2nd December, and reached Fort Garry on 1st of February, covering a distance of one thousand nine hundred and ten miles in sixty-one days, many of which were spent in enforced delays at the Company's forts on the way. Simpson was greatly disappointed to find on his arrival at Red River no letters from the Company in London, inasmuch as he had offered to make another expedition to complete the seven degrees still remaining of unexplored coast. The Company had accepted his offer, and wrote to that effect, but the letter arrived too late. The same mail also contained the news that the Royal Geographical Society, in view of the success which had attended his first expedition, had awarded him its gold medal; while the British Government had bestowed on him a pension of £100 sterling per annum. Simpson's later discoveries far excelled those he had made in 1837, and no doubt the honours accorded him would have been very great; but in 1840, while travelling, about three days' journey from Fort Garry, in what is now Dakota, a tragedy took place, the details of which are still wrapt in mystery. It appears that the party of which Simpson was a member were arranging their camp for the night. Their horses were grazing hard by. All were armed with guns and pistols, for the Sioux were on the warpath. One of the party was helping to pitch the tent when he heard the report of a gun. On turning around he beheld Simpson in the act of shooting, first, John Bird and then Antoine Legros, the former of whom fell dead, while the latter had time to give his son a last embrace. According to this witness, Simpson then spoke for the first time, demanding if he knew of any plot to rob him of his papers. This was the last seen alive of the Arctic explorer; next morning his dead body was found lying beside the others he had slain. There is little doubt that he was the victim of a fit of insanity, superinduced by the fear that one of his fellow-travellers might report the results of the expedition to the Company in England before him. His death removed an able and distinguished explorer, who rendered good service to the Company.
In 1842 Lord Ashburton arrived in the United States, equipped with instructions and powers for the settlement of certain questions long pending between Britain and America. It was expected that the Oregon boundary matter would be one of these, but this was not the case.[118]
Meanwhile the utmost excitement prevailed in Oregon, the settlers of both nationalities claiming possession. Political meetings were held on the part of the British, at which old Hudson's Bay Company servants and ignorant voyageurs were nominated for office, the latter men, "whose ideas of government," says McKay, "were little above those of a grisly bear."
Travelling along the middle Columbia at this time was by no means devoid of danger, owing to the animosity of the natives towards the Americans. Their faith in the Company remained unshaken; but they were subject to fits of suspicion and ill-temper, which were occasionally fraught with considerable inconvenience for the Hudson's Bay servants. In 1844, when J. W. McKay first came to Fort Vancouver, he found that many of the Indians along the route were not to be trusted. Early in 1846 McKay was dispatched to California to ascertain what arrangements might be made for securing certain supplies nearer than England, in case the Company's farming establishment on the Columbia should be surrendered to the United States.
In 1846 Joseph McKay was given the general supervision of the Pacific establishments, in succession to James Douglas. Taking passage northward in the Beaver in October, according to the custom of the general agent, he visited the several stations and made such changes and left such instructions as he deemed advisable. The Russians he found "affable and polite, but tricky." In August, 1847, he mentions meeting a chief of the Stickine Indians, whom he had reason to believe perfectly trustworthy. "He told me that he had been approached by a Russian officer with presents of beads and tobacco, and that he was told that if he would get up a war with the English in that vicinity and compel them to withdraw, he should receive assistance in the shape of arms and ammunition; and in case of success he would receive a medal from the Russian Emperor, a splendid uniform, and anything else he might desire, while his people should always be paid the highest prices for their peltries."