He who would seek in these pages the native romance, the vivid colour, the absorbing drama of the Great North-West, will seek, I fear, in vain. My concern has been chiefly with the larger annals of the Hudson's Bay Company, its history proper, which until now has not been compiled.
Toronto, 27th June, 1899.
INTRODUCTION.
Mr. Beckles Willson has asked me to write a short introduction for his forthcoming book on the Hudson's Bay Company, and it gives me great pleasure to comply with his request.
It is gratifying to know that this work has been undertaken by a young Canadian, who has for some years had a laudable desire to write the history of what he appropriately calls "The Great Company," with whose operations the development of the Western parts of Canada has been so closely connected.
The history of the Company during the two centuries of its existence must bring out prominently several matters which are apt now to be lightly remembered. I refer to the immense area of country—more than half as large as Europe—over which its control eventually extended, the explorations conducted under its auspices, the successful endeavours, in spite of strenuous opposition, to retain its hold upon what it regarded as its territory, its friendly relations with the Indians, and, finally, the manner in which its work prepared the way for the incorporation of the "illimitable wilderness" within the Dominion.
It is not too much to say that the fur-traders were the pioneers of civilization in the far West. They undertook the most fatiguing journeys with the greatest pluck and fortitude; they explored the country and kept it in trust for Great Britain. These fur-traders penetrated to the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, into what is now known as British Columbia, and even to the far north and northwest, in connection with the extension of trade, and the establishment of the famous "H. B. C." posts and forts, which were the leading features of the maps of the country until comparatively recent times. The names of many of these early explorers are perpetuated in its rivers and lakes; and many important Arctic discoveries are associated with the names of officers of the Company, such as Hearne, Dease, and Simpson, and, in later times, Dr. John Rae.
The American and Russian Companies which were seeking trade on the Pacific Coast, in the early days of the present century, were not able to withstand the activity and enterprise of their British rivals, but for whose discoveries and work even British Columbia might not have remained British territory. For many years the only civilized occupants of both banks of the Columbia River were the fur-traders, and it is not their fault that the region between it and the international boundary does not now belong to Canada. Alaska was also leased by the Hudson's Bay Company from Russia, and one cannot help thinking that if that country had been secured by Great Britain, we should probably never have heard of the Boundary Question, or of disputes over the Seal Fisheries. However, these things must be accepted as they are; but it will not, in any case, be questioned that the work of the Company prepared the way for the consolidation of the Dominion of Canada, enabling it to extend its limits from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the international boundary to the far north.