ROSAIRE DUPUIS
In January, 1912, Mr. Dupuis began practice and has met with gratifying success in following his profession, in which he is well versed. He is a conservative in politics and a Roman Catholic in religious belief. He holds membership with the Canadian Club, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association and the Knights of Columbus, and for the past two years has been secretary of the Anti-Alcoholic League. During the years 1909 and 1910 at Laval he was secretary of the Laval Students-at-Law. He is a young man of promise as well as a credit to one of Montreal’s best families.
DONALD ALEXANDER SMITH.
Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, whose career has been so wonderful as to appear almost magical, was born on August 6, 1820, in the ancient town of Forres, in Morayshire, Scotland. His father, Alexander Smith, was a small tradesman of Archieston and was born in the parish of Knocando. He married Barbara Stuart, of Leanchoil, Abernethy, a capable, thrifty woman, ambitious for her children. It was her desire that her son Donald should prepare for the bar, but, though he did not see fit to follow this wish, the mother heart never lost faith in her son and it was said that after he came to Canada as a fur trader she was frequently heard to remark: “They’ll all be proud of my Donald yet.” It was said that in boyhood he was shy, yet amiable, and displayed sturdy resolution and even hardihood if circumstances called those qualities forth. After leaving school he took up the study of law, his reading being directed by Robert Watson, solicitor, for two or three years. At length, however, he determined to enter the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, influenced somewhat by a previous suggestion made by John Stuart, his uncle, who was then visiting Scotland. In 1838 he sailed for the new world and after a voyage of between forty and fifty days upon an eight hundred ton vessel, one of the largest on the seas at that time, he landed on Canadian shores. The rebellion of Mackenzie and Papineau had just been suppressed. Donald A. Smith at once entered the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, but in a minor position. He met various hardships, but he proved his fidelity to the company as well as his capability in performing every service intrusted to him. He was first sent to the Labrador coast, where he spent thirteen years in a cold, bleak, barren, desolate region, with no companionship save a few employes, but during that period he learned the business methods of the company, how to manage Indians and how to secure the best returns. It has been said that power grows through the exercise of effort and year by year Donald Smith became more powerful. The hardships which he was forced to endure developed him. There is probably no other country in the world where there exists a longer or more dangerous postal route for men and dogs—two thousand miles of land travel from Quebec to Ungava in the depth of an Arctic winter, continuing from December until June—yet Lord Strathcona covered that route not once but many times.
His apprenticeship was, indeed, a difficult one, but he was undeterred by all obstacles he encountered and privations which he endured. At length, however, his eyesight became impaired, making it necessary that he go to Montreal for treatment. He covered the journey from Labrador by dog sled and on his arrival in Montreal he was greeted by Sir George Simpson, governor of the company, with the remark: “Well, young man, why are you not at your post?” “My eyes, sir,” came the reply, and he pointed to his blue goggles; “they got so very bad I have come to see a doctor.” But the governor thundered: “And who gave you permission to leave your post?” It would have taken a full year to obtain official consent, but when Mr. Smith was forced to reply, “No one,” the governor answered: “If it is a question between your eyes and your service in the Hudson’s Bay Company you will take my advice and return this instant to your post,” and Mr. Smith started almost immediately upon that return journey of nearly a thousand miles. The weather became so bad that both of his Indians succumbed to the cold and he arrived at the post more dead than alive. He once remarked: “A man who has been frozen and roasted by turns every year must be the tougher for it if he survived it at all.” Donald A. Smith did survive and advanced steadily. He learned the dialect of a number of Indian tribes and he so managed business affairs that his services were ever a matter of profit to the company. His advancement was slow at first, but his worth was eventually recognized and promotion came quicker. His duties were many and onerous because of his remoteness from civilization. He was called upon to minister to the sick and half a century later, when speaking to the students of the Middlesex Hospital in London he described the antiseptic which he used in Labrador in the ’40s, saying: “It was a primitive and somewhat rude form of treatment that was practiced in those days before Lord Lister introduced his discovery. For the treatment of wounds, ulcerated sores, etc., a pulp was made by boiling the inner bark of the juniper tree. The liquor which resulted was used for washing and treating the wounds and the bark, beaten into a plastic mass, was applied after the thorough cleaning of the wound, forming a soft cushion, lending itself to every inequality of the sore. Scrupulous cleanliness was observed and fresh material used for every application.”
When in Labrador, at the age of twenty-nine years, Donald A. Smith married Isabella Sophia Hardisty, with whom he traveled life’s journey for sixty-five years, separated in her death, which occurred in London in 1913. In the meantime he was advancing from one post to another in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, becoming trader and then chief trader, while his splendid administrative ability won him further promotion to factor and to chief factor. In 1851 he was transferred to the Northwest provinces and became most active in their later development. He eventually reached the position of supreme head of the company, becoming the last resident governor of the corporation that had its beginning under the Merry Monarch. The year 1868 witnessed his arrival in Montreal, as chief executive for the Hudson’s Bay Company. He is described at that time as “a man of middle stature, rather slight in build, and looked not at all the typical northerner, except when one studied his countenance.” “The snow tan of the north had made him dark as an Indian. He wore a full beard, black and wiry. Black brows met above his eyes, enhancing the stern, uncompromising aspect of his face. He looked what he was—a commander of men and of forces, a man made strong by a life of struggle and conquest in the wilderness.” He had not yet become a wealthy man, although he had saved his money and had invested it in land at various points in the northwest—land that many would have regarded as valueless. With wonderful prescience he discerned something of what the future had in store for that great country and with the growth of its population and the onrushing tide of civilization his holdings increased in value, making him one of Canada’s more prosperous citizens.
While Donald A. Smith had reached the pinnacle of service in connection with the Hudson’s Bay Company when he came to Montreal, he was destined to gain equal eminence in other directions. In the interests of the Canadian Confederation it was seen that the title to the territory of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Rupert’s Land must pass to the crown and a purchase was arranged whereby the company received a million dollars and large reserves of land, although the transfer was not made without great difficulty and danger, culminating in what has been known as the Red River rebellion, or the first Riel rebellion.
Discontented people of that region had been trying to produce an agitation that would separate their settlement from that of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The rapid growth of population in Assiniboia was imperilling the company’s hold and its rule, hitherto wise and practical, was denounced as arbitrary. A contemporary biographer has written:
“Better representation was demanded and, by dint of much uproar and noise, considerable sympathy was obtained from outside. To understand fully the character of this Red River settlement it must be explained that the population was considerably mixed. In all there were about twelve thousand souls. There were Europeans, Canadians, Americans and French half-breeds. With a mixed population like this it was difficult to deal and when, on November 9, 1869, the deed was signed in London, whereby the company surrendered its interests in the northwest to the crown, with reservations for the company, rebellion broke out. The leader was the famous Louis Riel, a Metis, described as ‘a short, stout man, with a large head, a square cut, massive forehead overhung by a mass of long and thickly clustering hair and marked with well cut eyebrows—altogether a remarkable looking face.’