CHAPTER XVI
ALEXANDER HENRY (THE YOUNGER) I
Among the north men who overran the country long known as the Hudson’s Bay Territory, Alexander Henry, the younger, was a commanding figure. He was a nephew of that other Alexander Henry whose adventures have been described earlier in this book. To Alexander Henry, the younger, we owe the most curious and complete record ever printed of the daily life of the fur trader in the north.
Alexander Henry, the younger, was a diarist; he kept a journal in which he set down, in the most matter-of-fact way, everything that happened to him, and, as has been said by Dr. Coues, “it mirrors life in a way Mr. Samuel Pepys might envy could he compare his inimitable diary with this curious companion piece of causerie, and perceive that he who goes over the sea may change his sky, but not his mind.”
The wonderful journal of Henry’s slept for nearly a century. Where the original may be we do not know, but a copy was made by George Coventry about the year 1824, and this copy about seventy years later came under the notice of Dr. Elliott Coues, whose studies of the old West, have furnished so great a mass of material from which the student of history may glean information.
The diary covers a period of about fifteen years, from 1799 to 1814, during which time Henry travelled from Lake Superior to the Pacific. He lived in and travelled through, at various times, the Canadian Provinces of Ontario, Manitoba, Assiniboia, Keewatin, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia; while in the United States his travels were through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In these long journeys he met many different tribes of Indians, and saw much of the Chippewas, the three tribes of the Blackfeet, the Crees, Assiniboines, Sioux, Sarcees, and other northern tribes, while in his southern journeyings he reached the Mandans, the Minitari, the Rees, and even the Cheyennes, south of the Missouri River, and on the west coast saw many tribes of the Columbia.
The journal begins in the autumn of 1799, when he was camped on the White Earth River, near the foot of what is now known as Riding Mountain, in Manitoba, a little west of Portage La Prairie. Here he had stopped after his journey from Montreal, to trade with the Indians the liquor, blankets, strouding, and various trinkets the Indians liked. He made that fall a clear profit of seven hundred pounds. This was his first trial in the Northwest.
In the summer of 1800 Henry was on his way westward, with a brigade of canoes, each of which carried twenty-eight pieces of goods, ten of which were kegs of rum of nine gallons each; loads which sunk the canoes to the gunwales. He was proceeding by the Grande Portage to Lake Winnipeg, over the road which, even then, was being travelled by many fur traders. Wherever he found Indians, they were usually drunk, and when drunk always troublesome. They crossed the Lake of the Woods, and ran down the river Winnipic. At Portage de Lisle one of the canoes, to avoid the trouble of making this portage, passed down near the north shore with a full load. “She had not gone many yards when, by some mismanagement of the foreman, the current bore down her bow full upon the shore against a rock, upon which the fellow, taking advantage of his situation, jumped, while the current whirled the canoe around. The steersman, finding himself within reach of the shore, jumped upon the rock, with one of the midmen; the other midman, not being sufficiently active, remained in the canoe, which was instantly carried out and lost to view among the high waves. At length she appeared, and stood perpendicularly for a moment, when she sank down again, and I then perceived the man rising upon a bale of drygoods in the midst of the waves. We made every exertion to get near him, and did not cease calling out to him to take courage, and not let go his hold; but alas! he sank under a heavy swell, and when the bale arose the man appeared no more. At this time we were only a few yards from him; but while we were eagerly looking out for him, poor fellow, the whirlpool caught my canoe, and before we could get away she was half-full of water. We then made all haste to get ashore, and go in search of the property. The canoe we found flat upon the water, broken in many places. However, we hauled her ashore, and afterwards collected as many pieces as we could find. The men had landed a few packages above the rapid, otherwise our loss would have been still greater.”
On August 16 they entered Lake Winnipeg, and were almost wrecked by a storm, the wind blowing violently over a shoal flat, and raising a tumbling sea. Wild-fowl were plenty; so were also Rocky Mountain locusts, which Henry said were thrown up on the beach to a depth of six to nine inches. He shot a white pelican, of which many were seen. From here Henry went up the Red River to establish a trading-fort, and on the way up he divided his goods, one-half of which were to be sent to Portage La Prairie on the Assiniboine River. The Indians here were chiefly canoe and foot people, and had few horses. Pigeons were very numerous, as were also fish, and the Indians had some dried buffalo meat, which was purchased from them. Fruit was abundant along the bank; plums of three different sorts, pembinas, and grapes.
A number of Indians had joined him, all of whom wanted liquor and supplies. He gave them more or less liquor, with the result that most of them were drunk much of the time, and showed no disposition either to hunt or to trap. As they proceeded up Red River, they approached the country ranged over by the Sioux, between whom and the Ojibwas there was everlasting war. The Indians were therefore in a continual state of alarm, and every time a shot was heard they thought that the enemy were about to attack them. They were now close to the country of the buffalo, and the Indians were bringing in fresh meat. Henry speaks of the abundance of these animals at his camp of August 26, where, he says, “The ravages of the buffaloes at this place are astonishing to a person unaccustomed to these meadows. The beach, once soft black mud, into which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in many places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn away. Numerous paths, some of which are a foot deep in the hard turf, come from the plains to the brink of the river, and vast quantities of dung gives this place the appearance of a cattle yard. We have reached the commencement of the great plains of Red River, where the eye is lost in one continuous level westward. Not a tree or a rising ground interrupts the view.” Here he had his first experience in running buffalo, and merely for the amusement of it killed not a few.
The Indians continued drinking and fighting among themselves. No one as yet had been killed, but more than one had been severely injured. Now, however, they had used up all their liquor, and Henry refused to give them any more; so that while many continued to loaf about and beg for drink, some went hunting. Keeping on up the Red River, he pushed on southward, being anxious to reach a country where the beaver seemed to be plenty. Game was very abundant—buffalo, elk and bears. “Whilst we were arranging camp I saw a bear on the east side of the river, a little above us, coming down to drink. I crossed over and followed him; he instantly stopped within a few paces, and ran up a large oak. I shot him between the shoulders, and he fell to the ground like a rock, but in a moment was scampering away as fast as he could. I traced him by the blood, and soon found him sitting under a brush heap, grumbling and licking his wounds. A second shot dispatched him. By the hideous scream he uttered when he fell from the tree, I imagined he was coming at me, and was waiting for him with my second barrel cocked, when he ran off. I went for my two men, and it was hard work for us three to drag him to the canoe; he was very fat. I found that my first ball had gone through his heart. I was surprised that he should have been so active after a wound of that kind.”