The colonists came back to their devastated farms, however, or some of them did, and the old Company tried to give them better protection. The enemy organized a force, including Métis and Indians, for a fresh attack. The Hudson’s Bay commander, Governor Semple, went out to meet them, but his party was surrounded. The Governor and a score of the settlers were killed, and the rest were either captured or put to flight. So ended the “Battle of Seven Oaks.” Lord Selkirk sent up reinforcements, and many of the original settlers went back to restore their ruined homes; some of their descendants are still to be found in the neighborhood; but for half a century no fresh attempt was made to colonize the West.
The worst effects of all that fierce competition between the companies, unfortunately, fell not on the rivals, but on the native races for whose custom both were struggling. Each side made strenuous efforts to win over the tribes, and one of the principal attractions offered was “fire-water.” The red man is even more [a]The Rivals Join Forces] easily maddened and destroyed by alcohol than the white, and with spirits thrust upon them at every turn the Indians were plunging headlong to ruin, when the murderous competition suddenly stopped. The two companies had become sensitive—not in the heart, but in the pocket—to the evil effects of their feud. In 1821, Lord Selkirk having died, the Nor’-westers made terms and even joined forces with their rivals.
The Hudson’s Bay Company, freed from the dangers and losses of competition, and reinforced by the Scots who had fought them so fiercely, began a fresh career of peace and profit. In the same year its privilege of trading monopoly was extended to cover—for twenty-one years—the mountains and valleys and islands of what we call British Columbia, in addition to the plains and forests of the interior, an extension which was renewed in 1838 for a term to end in 1859. The Company’s rule now stretched from the Atlantic end of Hudson Strait to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Dotted at long intervals over the Company’s 2,800,000 square miles of earth stood the forts where the furs were collected, and where the authority of civilization was exercised by traders largely recruited from the Orkney Islands. These young men, entering the Company’s service as clerks, gradually made their way up till they became chief factors or chief traders. Forty per cent. of the Company’s annual profit was divided among these officers. The profits were very high, for the goods sold by the Company cost a mere trifle compared to the value of the furs received from the Indians in payment.
Even with such a partnership in prospect, the young men found the life at first very hard to bear. They were [a]The Fur Trader’s Life] cut off not only from home but from all the social and religious observances which ordinary colonists take with them from one land to another. No towns were allowed to spring up. The Company’s men, and the families of mixed race clustering around the fort, grew vegetables for their own use; but the rest of the territory was a gigantic game preserve, jealously guarded against the intrusion of settlers.
A postal service had been organized by the company, but to many a fort the mail only came once a year, and letters were months old when delivered. Communication was not difficult—that is to say, there were no great physical obstacles, at any rate till the Rocky Mountains were reached; there were rivers navigable by big boats from the Mountains to the Bay, though broken in the east by rapids where the boats had to be hauled up by ropes on the way back; there were easy trails over the prairie—pony and ox carts used to ply between Edmonton and Winnipeg, a thousand miles; and in winter dog sledges and men on snowshoes could glide in all directions over the frozen land; yet the immensity of the distances to be covered made travelling intolerably slow.
They rarely visited their homes in Scotland, these hardy fur traders. Even those who came down to the forts on Hudson Bay, where the fur bales were loaded in ships for the old country, knew that they could not cross the sea and come back in the same year. And the voyage was perilous as well as long—no one could ever tell how long it might be.
The Bay itself, though not free from risk, was the easiest part of the way. Getting into the Straits, and through them, and out at the other end—that was the [a]“The Boyling Streights”] fearful part of it. The Arctic ice was bad enough by itself; but masses of rocky ice hurled about by furious storms, or tossed to and fro on racing tides, made navigation terrible, and when a blinding fog fell on the turbulent sea the sailors were helpless.