The union of the opposing companies from Montreal led to a great development of trade, and, as we have already seen, to important schemes of exploration.
Roderick McKenzie, the cousin of Sir Alexander, in coming down from Rainy Lake to Grand Portage, heard of a new route to Kaministiquia. We have already seen that Umfreville had found out a circuitous passage from Nepigon to Winnipeg River, but this had been considered impracticable by the fur-traders.
Accordingly, when the treaty of amity and commerce made it certain that Grand Portage had to be given up, it was regarded as a great matter when the route to Kaministiquia became known. This was discovered by Mr. Roderick McKenzie quite by accident. When coming, in 1797, to Canada on leave of absence, this trader was told by an Indian family near Rainy Lake that a little farther north there was a good route for large canoes, which was formerly used by the whites in their trading expeditions. Taking an Indian with him, McKenzie followed this course, which brought him out at the mouth of the Kaministiquia. This proved to be the old French route, for all along it traces were found of their former establishments. Strange that a route at one time so well known should be completely forgotten in forty years.
In the year 1800 the North-West Company built a fort, called the New Fort, at the mouth of the Kaministiquia, and, abandoning Grand Portage, moved their headquarters to this point in 1803. In the year after the union of the North-West and X Y Companies the name Fort William was given to this establishment, in honour of the Hon. William McGillivray, who had become the person of greatest distinction in the united North-West Company.
As giving us a glimpse of the life of "the lords of the lakes and forests," which was led at Fort William, we have a good sketch written by a trader, Gabriel Franchère, who was a French Canadian of respectable family and began life in a business place in Montreal. At this stage, says a local writer, "the fur trade was at its apogee," and Franchère was engaged by the Astor Company and went to Astoria. Returning over the mountains, he passed Fort William. His book, written in French, has been translated into English, and is creditable to the writer, who died as late as 1856 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Franchère says of Fort William, rather inaccurately, that it was built in 1805. This lively writer was much impressed by the trade carried on at this point, and gives the following vivid description:—
"Fort William has really the appearance of a fort from the palisade fifteen feet high, and also that of a pretty village from the number of buildings it encloses. In the middle of a spacious square stands a large building, elegantly built, though of wood, the middle door of which is raised five feet above the ground plot, and in the front of which runs a long gallery. In the centre of this building is a room about sixty feet long and thirty wide, decorated with several paintings, and some portraits in crayon of a number of the partners of the Company. It is in this room that the agents, the clerks, and the interpreters take their meals at different tables. At each extremity of the room are two small apartments for the partners."
"The back part of the house is occupied by the kitchen and sleeping apartments of the domestics. On each side of this building there is another of the same size, but lower; these are divided lengthwise by a corridor, and contain each twelve pretty sleeping-rooms. One of these houses is intended for the partners, the other for the clerks.
"On the east side of the Fort there is another house intended for the same purpose, and a large building in which furs are examined and where they are put up in tight bales by means of a press. Behind, and still on the same side, are found the lodges of the guides, another building for furs, and a powder magazine. This last building is of grey stone, and roofed in with tin. In the corner stands a kind of bastion or point of observation.