It has been already mentioned that the conquest of Canada by the British led to a great increase in travel for the development of the fur trade. Previously, under the French, permission was only granted to a few persons to penetrate into the interior to trade with the natives, commerce being regarded as a special privilege or monopoly to be sold or granted by the Crown. But after the British had completely assumed control, nothing was done to bar access to the interior. So long as the Catholic missionaries had been practically placed in charge of the Amerindians, and had served as buffers between them and unscrupulous traders, they—the Amerindians—had been saved from two scourges, smallpox and strong drink.[1] But now, unhappily, all restrictions about trade in alcohol were removed. In their eagerness to obtain ardent spirits and "high" wine, the Indians eagerly welcomed British traders and French Canadians in their midst. The fur trade developed fast. The Hudson's Bay Company had established its trading stations only in the vicinity or on the coasts of that inland sea, far away from the two Canadas, from the Middle West and the vast North West. After a little reluctance and suspicion, most of the northern Amerindian tribes were persuaded to deflect their caravans from the routes leading to Hudson Bay, and to meet the British, the New Englander ("Bostonian"), and the French Canadian traders at various rendezvous on Lake Winnipeg and its tributary lakes and rivers. The principal depot and starting-point for the north-west traders was Grand Portage, on the north-west coast of Lake Superior, whence canoes and goods were transferred by a nine-mile portage to the waters flowing to Rainy Lake, and so onwards to the Winnipeg River and the vast system of the Saskatchewan, the Red River, and the Assiniboine.
Amongst the pioneers in this new development of the fur trade, who became also the great explorers of northernmost America, was Alexander Henry (already described), THOMAS CURRIE, JAMES FINLAY, PETER POND,[2] JOSEPH and BENJAMIN FROBISHER, and SIMON M'TAVISH. These and some of their supporting merchants in Montreal resolved to form a great fur-trading association, the celebrated North-west Trading Company, and did so in 1784.
Two of the Montreal merchant firms participating in this confederation (Gregory and M'Leod) were inclined to play a somewhat independent part, and called themselves the New North-west Trading Company. They had the foresight to engage as their principal agents in the north-west (Sir) ALEXANDER MACKENZIE and his cousin RODERICK MACKENZIE. Both these young men were Highlanders, probably of Norse origin. Alexander Mackenzie was born at Stornoway, in the Island of Lewis (Hebrides), in 1763. He was only sixteen when he started for Canada to take up a position as clerk in the partnership concern of Gregory & M'Leod at Montreal.
It may be said here briefly that this "New North-west Company" went at first by the nickname of "The Little Company" or "The Potties", this last being an Amerindian corruption of the French Les Petits. Later it developed into the "X.Y. Company", or "Sir Alexander Mackenzie & Co.". Although much in rivalry with the original "Nor'-westers", the rivalry never degenerated into the actual warfare, the indefensible deeds of violence and treachery, which later on were perpetrated by the Hudson's Bay Company on the agents of the North-west, and returned with interest by the latter. Often the New North-west agents and the original Nor'-westers would camp or build side by side, and share equably in the fur trade with the natives; their canoemen and French-Canadian voyageurs would sing their boating songs in chorus as they paddled side by side across the lakes and down the rivers, or marched with their heavy loads over the portages and along the trails. Eventually, in 1804, the X.Y. Company and the North-west fused into the North-west Trading Company, which until 1821 fought a hard fight against the encroachments and jealousy of the Hudson's Bay Company.
During the period, however, from 1785 to 1812 the men of the north-west, of Montreal, and Grand Portage (as contrasted with those of Hudson Bay) effected a revolution in Canadian geography. They played the rôle of imperial pioneers with a stubborn heroism, with little thought of personal gain, and in most cases with full foreknowledge and appreciation of what would accrue to the British Empire through their success. It is impossible to relate the adventures of all of them within the space of any one book, or even of several volumes. Moreover, this has been done already, not only in their own published journals and books, but in the admirable works of Elliot Coues, Dr. George Bryce, Dr. S.J. Dawson, Alexander Ross, and others. I must confine myself here to a description of the adventures of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, with a glance at incidents recorded by Simon Fraser and by Alexander Henry the Younger.
Mackenzie, having been appointed at the age of twenty-two a partner in the New North-west Company, proceeded to Grand Portage in 1785, and by the year 1788 (after founding Fort Chipewayan on Lake Athabaska) conceived the idea of following the mysterious Slave River to its ultimate outlet into the Arctic or the Pacific Ocean. He left Fort Chipewayan on June 3, 1789, accompanied by four French-Canadian voyageurs, two French-Canadian women (wives of two voyageurs), a young German named John Steinbruck, and an Amerindian guide known as "English Chief". This last was a follower and pupil of the Matonabi who had guided Hearne to the Coppermine River and the eastern end of the Great Slave Lake. The party of eight whites packed themselves and their goods into one birch-bark canoe. English Chief and his two wives, together with an additional Amerindian guide and a hunter, travelled in a second and smaller canoe. The expedition, moreover, was accompanied as far as Slave River by LE ROUX, a celebrated French-Canadian exploring trader who worked for the X.Y. Company. The journey down the Slave River was rendered difficult and dangerous by the rapids. Several times the canoes and their loads had to be lugged past these falls by an overland portage. Mosquitoes tortured the whole party almost past bearance. The leaders of the expedition and their Indian hunter had to be busily engaged (the Indian women also) in hunting and fishing in order to get food for the support of the party, who seemed to have had little reserve provisions with them. Pemmican was made of fish dried in the sun and rubbed to powder. Swans, geese, cranes, and ducks fell to the guns; an occasional beaver was also added to the pot. When they reached the Great Slave Lake they found its islands—notwithstanding their barren appearance—covered with bushes producing a great variety of palatable fruits—cranberries, juniper berries, raspberries, partridge berries, gooseberries, and the "pathogomenan", a fruit like a raspberry.
Slave Lake, however, was still, in mid-June, under the spell of winter, its surface obstructed with drifting ice. In attempting to cross the lake the frail birch-bark canoes ran a great risk of being crushed between the ice floes. However, at length, after halting at several islands and leaving Le Roux to go to the trading station he had founded on the shores of Slave Lake, Mackenzie and his two canoes found their way to the river outlet of Slave Lake, that river which was henceforth to be called by his name. Great mountains approached near to the west of their course. They appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, called by the natives "spirit stones"—indeed over a great part of North America the Rocky Mountains were called "the Mountains of Bright Stones"—yet these brilliant patches were nothing more wonderful than unmelted snow.
A few days later the party encountered Amerindians of the Slave and Dog-rib tribes, who were so aloof from even "Indian" civilization that they did not know the use of tobacco, and were still in the Stone Age as regards their weapons and implements. These people, though they furnished a guide, foretold disaster and famine to the expedition, and greatly exaggerated the obstacles which would be met with—rapids near the entrance of the tributary from Great Bear Lake—before the salt water was reached.
The canoes of these Slave and Dog-rib tribes of the Athapaskan (Tinné) group were covered, not with birch bark, but with the bark of the spruce fir.
The lodges of the Slave Indians were of very simple structure: a few poles supported by a fork and forming a semicircle at the bottom, with some branches or a piece of bark as a covering. They built two of these huts facing each other, and made a fire between them. The furniture consisted of a few dishes of wood, bark, or horn. The vessels in which they cooked their victuals were in the shape of a gourd, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and made of wátápé.