Читать книгу The History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia - Rev. A. G. Morice - Страница 18

For more than a century the Hudson's Bay Company, a commercial corporation with which the reader will in due time become better acquainted, had been claiming the monopoly of the fur trade over the vast basin of Hudson Bay and its tributaries, while their claim over the western territories adjoining what was then Canada had come to be disputed by several merchants of Montreal, on the plea that the said territories originally belonged to French Canada and that the English company's pretension to trade thereon was condemned by the very letter of its own charter. This, they argued, expressly specified that the lands handed over to the new corporation were those which were not actually "possessed by the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State" at the time of its formation. As individual efforts could not have much effect on the powerful company, the chief fur-dealers of Montreal, among whom Joseph Frobisher and Simon McTavish were the most prominent personalities, united their interests in 1783, and constituted themselves the North-West Fur-Trading Company.

But the new concern had hardly been brought into existence when, at the instigation of a troublesome character, an American named Peter Pond, a few fur-dealers among whom was a young man known as Alexander Mackenzie, of whom we shall presently have much to say, formed themselves into a rival corporation.

As a consequence, the fur trade for a time presented the ludicrous spectacle of small localities enjoying the competition of three different posts, kept by men bitterly hostile to one another. This bitterness having resulted in the violent death of a certain John Ross, a bourgeois or partner representing the interests of the minor North-West company at Lake Athabaska, the two Canadian concerns coalesced in 1787, and Alexander Mackenzie was entrusted with the post so suddenly vacated by John Ross.

Alexander Mackenzie was a Scotch Highlander, born at Stornoway, who had come to Montreal about 1779, when he entered the service of Gregory, Macleod & Co. Of a restless and somewhat impetuous disposition, he was by nature inclined to be biased, and, if crossed in his plans, he would become rather self-assertive and stubborn. But his very defects were simply excesses of good qualities, and they admirably fitted him for the tasks he was so gloriously to achieve.

Possessed of a fairly good education, the young man does not seem to have taken kindly to the drudgery incident to the daily life of a fur-trader. Adventure and the search after glory were much more congenial to his tastes. These he successfully followed in his first expedition down the noble stream which now bears his name. That journey was effected during the summer of 1789, and it served only to whet his appetite for excitement and fame. It was also a welcome preparation for the more difficult task which remained in store for him.

There had been some contention as to the probable distance from Lake Athabaska to the Pacific Ocean, which the expeditions of adventurers belonging to various nationalities had made fairly known. There, according to native reports, "white men were to be seen who wore armor," whereby were meant either the Spaniards or English, or even the aborigines of the coast, who, as will appear further on, were often taken for whites by the natives of the interior, and amongst whom the use of armor was quite common. An expert had finally decided that the distance to the grande mer de l'ouest, as the Pacific was called by the French Canadians of the time, must be very great. But this only urged Mackenzie to reach it by land.

During his expedition to the Arctic Ocean he had more than once deplored his want of astronomical knowledge and the lack of the proper instruments. To obtain this desideratum, he crossed over to London in 1791, there acquired the necessary information, and returned in the spring of 1792, when he sent ahead of his expedition two men to prepare timber for houses and palisades wherein to winter, so as to be able to make an early start in 1793.

Mackenzie was the discoverer of New Caledonia and, therefore, of the interior of British Columbia. Nay, as the skippers who visited the North Pacific coast never ventured inland, he might with reason be put down as the discoverer of the whole country. On that account, the smallest details entered in his Journal, the aspect of the country, and the nature of its fauna, such as they appeared to him, but more especially his account of his first encounters with the natives are, in our eyes, invested with an importance which could hardly be exaggerated. Having left Fort Chippewayan on the 10th of October, 1792, he arrived ten days later at the last post established on the Peace River, "amidst the rejoicing and firing of the people, who were animated with the prospect of again indulging themselves in the luxury of rum, of which they had been deprived since the beginning of May, as it is a practice throughout the North-West neither to sell nor give any rum to the natives during the summer," [18] which implies that the contrary was the case in the course of other seasons.

The very first pages of Mackenzie's Journal are valuable as giving us an insight into the policy followed by the North-West Company with regard to their subordinates. We therefore continue our quotation:

"As they [the Indians, who must have been Beavers] very soon expressed their desire of the expected regale, I called them together, to the number of forty-two hunters or men capable of bearing arms, to offer some advice...and I strengthened my admonition with a nine gallon cask of reduced rum and a quantity of tobacco." [19]

Leaving the new establishment, he crossed the Rocky Mountains up to the junction of the Parsnip and the Finlay, and, a short distance west thereof, he met, on the former, the men he had sent to prepare his winter quarters. With them he found an Indian chief, together with about seventy of his men, who, from their conduct and familiarity with fire-arms, seem to have been Beavers encroaching on Sekanais territory.

His tent had no sooner been pitched than he summoned them together, reproached them with their past mis-behaviour, after which he gave each of them "about four inches of Brazil tobacco," and "presented them with a quantity of rum," adding the somewhat naïve recommendation that they should use it with discretion! In spite of the bitter cold, he had to wait until the 23rd of December before the house that was being erected for him was in habitable. He then set his men to build five more houses for themselves, and thenceforth his life was that of a fur-dealer, occasionally visited by the trappers, and subsisting on the game of the country, which, happily, was quite abundant.

On the 1st of January, 1793, he was, as usual, awakened by volleys from his men's muskets, and, in return for their good wishes, he treated them "with plenty of spirits." [20] Five days afterwards he mentions the firing of the Indian guns as a mark of sorrow at the death of a member of the tribe, a circumstance which goes to prove that fire-arms were already common in that part of the world. Intoxicants do not seem to have been much scarcer, since he adds in a foot-note, that when those Indians "are drinking, they frequently present their guns to each other, when any of the parties have not other means of procuring rum."

In April the supply of liquor was exhausted among the natives, who sent an embassy to him to "demand rum to drink." [21] Having at first refused to comply with their request, their threats forced him to yield to their importunities.

At the opening of the spring he received a valued reinforcement in the person of Alexander Mackay, who was destined to meet with a violent death on the ship Tonquin, which was captured by the Coast Indians. Finally, on the 9th of May, 1793, Mackenzie left for his perilous expedition in a birch-bark canoe 25 feet long, 4¾ feet beam, and 26 inches hold. Therein he found place for 3,000 pounds of baggage and provisions, together with a crew of nine French Canadians, whose names are worthy to be transmitted to posterity. Besides Mackay and his chief, there were Joseph Landry, Charles Ducette, Baptiste Bisson, François Courtois, Jacques Beauchampp, and François Beaulieu. These were accompanied by two Indians, who were to act as hunters and interpreters.

Ascending the Parsnip River, the explorer met with several elk and herds of buffalo, two noble animals which have since disappeared forever from those quarters. [22] Then beaver succeeds to the larger game, and Mackenzie declares that in no part of the world did he see so much beaver work.

On the 9th of June he meets with the first party of undoubted Sekanais, a body of natives who had heard of white men, but had never seen any. They immediately took to flight, and on his sending his men to parley with them, the latter were received with the brandishing of spears, the display of bows and arrows, and loud vociferations. Having succeeded in dispelling their fears, the explorer soon noticed iron work in their possession. On inquiry he found that they got it from people who lived up a large river (the Carriers), who in turn procured it from others who dwelt in houses (the Coast Indians), to whom it was furnished by men like Mackenzie himself, who travelled in canoes large as islands on the "stinking lake," the sea. They professed to know of no stream that emptied therein, but mentioned a large river whose "inhabitants built houses, lived on islands, and were a numerous and warlike people." [23] This is the first implied reference we find in the whole field of literature to the Fraser and the Carrier Indians.

Having persuaded one of the Sekanais to accompany them in the capacity of guide, Mackenzie and party reached (June 12th) a lake two miles long, which was no other than the source of the Parsnip. After a portage of only 817 paces, they came to another lake, whence they entered a small stream which was to try sorely their patience, and which, for that reason, they called the "Bad River." This might be described as a generally shallow creek with a rocky bottom, where rapids, whirlpools, eddies, and treacherous rocks succeeded each other with hardly any interruption. The party's canoe fared badly along this wild river, getting broken with several holes in the bottom, when the crew had to jump into the water, and the whole cargo was wrecked, though afterwards recovered, with the exception of the bullets, which were irretrievably lost.

As a climax, the guide, on whom they had counted to introduce them to the terrible Carriers, deserted on the 15th, and they were left alone to contemplate the "Great River," which they reached in the course of the same day, and which Mackenzie took to be the Columbia, though he occasionally calls it Tacoutche-Desse, after his Eastern Déné interpreter. [24] This, as everybody knows, was nothing else than the large stream which nowadays goes by the name of Fraser River.

On the 19th of June his men saw, without being able to entertain them, a small party of Carriers, who fled at their approach, and by threatening signs with their arms (which, besides the usual bows and arrows, consisted of spears and large knives), deterred them from attempting anything like friendly intercourse.

On the morrow he passed a house which seemed to him so novel that he describes it minutely, along with "a large machine...of a cylindrical form," which was none other than a salmon basket. After meeting several other lodges built on the same model, mostly on islands, he cached in the ground ninety pounds of pemmican, and, on June 21st, somewhere between what is now Quesnel and Alexandria, he came upon the first party of Carriers with whom he could hold intercourse. His account of his experience with them is so graphic that, in spite of its length and owing to the importance of the occurrence to the historian and the ethnographer, we will reproduce it almost in its entirety. It is but fair to fully notice the risks the great explorer ran, and the wonderful tact with which he came out of them without injury to himself or his people.

"We perceived a small new canoe that had been drawn up to the edge of the woods, and soon after another appeared with one man in it, which came out of a small river. He no sooner saw us than he gave the whoop to alarm his friends, who immediately appeared on the bank, armed with bows and arrows and spears. They were thinly habited, and displayed the most outrageous antics. Though they were certainly in a state of great apprehension, they manifested by their gestures that they were resolved to attack us if we should venture to land. I therefore ordered the men to stop the way of the canoe, and even to check her drifting with the current, as it would have been extreme folly to have approached these savages before their fury had in some degree subsided. My interpreters, who understood their language, informed me that they threatened us with instant death if we drew nigh the shore, and then followed their menace by discharging a volley of arrows, some of which fell short of the canoe and others passed over it, so that they fortunately did us no injury. As we had been carried by the current below the spot where the Indians were, I ordered my people to paddle to the opposite side of the river, without the least appearance of confusion, so that they brought me abreast of them. My interpreters, while we were within hearing, had done everything in their power to pacify them, but in vain. We also observed that they had sent off a canoe with two men down the river, as we concluded, to communicate their alarm and procure assistance...."

This circumstance induced him to leave no step untried in order to establish friendly intercourse with them before the arrival of the expected reinforcements. So he goes on to say:

"I left the canoe and walked by myself along the beach, in order to induce some of the natives to come to me, which I imagined they might be disposed to do when they saw me alone without any apparent possibility of receiving assistance from my people.... At the same time, in order to possess the utmost security of which my situation was susceptible, I directed one of the Indians to slip into the woods with my gun and his own, and to conceal himself from their discovery; he also had orders to keep as near me as possible without being seen, and if any of the natives should venture across and attempt to shoot me from the water, it was his instructions to lay him low; at the same time he was particularly enjoined not to fire till I had discharged one or both of the pistols that I carried in my belt....

"In the meantime, my other interpreter assured them that we entertained the most friendly disposition, which I confirmed by such signals as I conceived would be comprehended by them. I had not, indeed, been long at my station and my Indian in ambush behind me, when two of the natives came off in a canoe, but stopped when they had got within a hundred yards of me. I made signs for them to land, and as an inducement displayed looking-glasses, beads, and other alluring trinkets. At length, but with every mark of extreme apprehension, they approached the shore, stern foremost, but would not venture to land. I now made them a present of some beads, with which they were going to push off, when I renewed my entreaties, and after some time prevailed on them to come ashore and sit down by me. My hunter now thought it right to join me, and created some alarm in my new acquaintance. It was, however, soon removed, and I had the satisfaction to find that he and these people perfectly understood each other. [25]... I expressed my wish to conduct them to our canoe, but they declined my offer; and when they saw some of my people coming towards us they requested me to let them return, and I was so satisfied with the progress I had made in my intercourse with them that I did not hesitate a moment in complying with their desire.

"During their short stay they observed us and everything about us with a mixture of admiration and astonishment. We could plainly distinguish that their friends received them with great joy on their return, and that the articles which they carried back with them were examined with a general and eager curiosity; they also appeared to hold a consultation, which lasted about a quarter of an hour, and the result of which was an invitation to come over to them, which was cheerfully accepted. Nevertheless on our landing, they betrayed evident signs of confusion, which arose probably from the quickness of our movements.... The two men, however, who had come with us appeared, very naturally, to possess the greatest share of courage on the occasion and were ready to receive us on our landing; but our demeanor soon dispelled all their apprehensions." [26]

Having secured their confidence by gifts of trinkets and the like, he was informed that the river on which they had embarked was long, with a very strong current and several rapids which no man could safely shoot. Mackenzie's new friends described their immediate neighbors, the Shushwaps, as "a very malignant race, who lived in large subterranean recesses," and they did their best to dissuade him from continuing farther, if he valued his life at all. According to their reports, the Shushwaps then possessed iron arms and utensils, which they procured from neighbors in the west, who obtained them from people like Mackenzie.

But he was not to be easily dissuaded. Taking along two of his new acquaintances to secure him a favorable reception from the Indians he would meet on his way down, he was just leaving for the south, when a canoe was sighted which was manned by three men, one of whom cautioned him to wait until next day, as the messengers he had noticed detaching themselves from the main group had gone down to alarm the people, who would certainly oppose his passage.

On the morrow he left early with his two Carrier guides, only to fall in with another body of hostile Indians. The guide went to them, and, "after a very vociferous discourse," one of them was persuaded to approach them, a man who presented a "very ferocious aspect," after which his example was followed by his companions, to the number of seven men and ten women.

A little farther down he had a repetition of his recent encounter, and he states that so wild and ferocious was the appearance of the Indians that he entertained fears for the safety of the guides sent to conciliate them. At the main village—which was afterwards to be called Alexandria, in memory of his eventful trip—he found, among the Carriers, a Beaver Indian and four Shushwaps, and he was not a little astonished to be addressed in Cree by a Sekanais woman who had been taken prisoner by a band of "Knisteneaux."

There, a map of the southern course of the river was drawn for his benefit, to show him the madness of his enterprise, while he was told that, after only seven days' march due west, he could obtain his object by following a route to the "stinking lake," where the Indians themselves used to procure brass, copper and trinkets. From that quarter they also got iron bars eighteen inches long, which they fashioned into axes and arrow and spear points.

As he had not more than thirty days' provisions left, he held a consultation with his men, the result of which was that they would return up the river to the stream (Blackwater), whose valley they would follow by land to reach the coast.

On their way up they divided into two parties. To lighten their craft, Mackay followed the shore on foot with the two eastern Indians and one Carrier, who had promised to guide them to the sea. On getting to the rendezvous they had agreed upon, Mackenzie and his crew were greeted by a story from Mackay and the easterners, which we had better allow the explorer to relate in his own words.

"They—Mackay and companions—informed us that they had taken refuge in that place with the determination to sell their lives, which they considered in the most imminent danger, as dear as possible. In a very short time after they had left us, they met a party of Indians whom we had known at this place, and were probably those whom we had seen to land from their canoe. They appeared to be in a state of extreme rage, and their bows bent with their arrows across them. The guide stopped to ask them some questions, which my people did not understand, and then set off with the utmost speed. Mr. Mackay, however, did not leave him till they were both exhausted from running. When the young man came up, he then said that some treacherous design was meditated against them...but refused to name the enemy. The guide then conducted them through very bad ways, as fast as they could run and, when he was desired to slacken his pace, he answered that they might follow him in any manner they pleased, but that he was impatient to get to his family, in order to prepare shoes and other necessaries for his journey. They did not, however, think it prudent to quit him, and he would not stop till ten at night.

"On passing a track that was but lately made, they began to be ferociously alarmed, and on inquiring of the guide where they were, he pretended not to understand them. They then all lay down, exhausted with fatigue, and without any kind of covering; they were cold, wet and hungry, but dared not light a fire from the apprehension of an enemy. This comfortless spot they left at dawn of day and, on their arrival at the lodges, found them deserted, the property of the Indians being scattered about as if abandoned forever.

"The guide then made two or three trips into the woods, calling aloud and bellowing like a madman. At length he set off in the same direction as they came, and had not since appeared. To heighten their misery, as they did not find us at the place appointed, they concluded that we were all destroyed, and had already formed their plans to take to the woods and cross in as direct line as they could to the waters of the Peace River, a scheme which could only be suggested by despair." [27]

At this recital, a general panic seized those around Mackenzie, and, unloading everything except six packages, which he left to the care of four men, the leader was prevailed upon to return to the camp of the previous night, which was more propitious for defence. There he saw to it that the party's arms were in good order, filled each man's flask with powder, and distributed one hundred bullets, while some of the men were employed in melting down shot to make more.

While they were busy with these warlike preparations, an Indian landed where they stood, who, on perceiving them, bolted away with the threat that he would hasten and join his friends, who would come and kill the intruders.

They passed an uneasy night and kept strict watch over their surroundings. Early next day they returned to Mackay, who complained that his men were discontented and wanted to go home. Indeed, while Mackenzie was taking observations at noon they went so far as to load, of their own accord, his canoe to return east. Feigning not to notice dissatisfaction, he let them go by water while he followed over land.

Here a little incident still added to their apprehensions. His men had already got to an Indian house, there to pass the night, when, by inadvertence, he let go an arrow, which, to his alarm, struck the lodge they had just entered. That was too much for their strained nerves. They thought themselves attacked by the mysterious Carriers, and the explanation their chief gave them of the accident served only to increase their fears. The arrow was without any head, and yet it had penetrated more than an inch a hard, dry log. [28] Why remain in the power of a people possessed of such means of destruction? moralized his crew.

About midnight a rustling noise was heard in the woods which created a general panic, while their dog remained in a state of nervous restlessness until two, when the sentinel informed Mackenzie that he saw something like a human form creeping along on all-fours. This ultimately proved to be a blind old man, who was welcome as a means of clearing up the mystery which had attended the Indians' actions for the last few days. He explained that, shortly after they had passed on their way to the sea coast, natives had arrived from up the river who had declared them to be perfidious enemies; and their unexpected return so soon after they had proclaimed that they were going to follow the river to its mouth had confirmed those rumors and created a panic of which he had been one of the victims, since, unable to follow them, he had been left to his fate.

At these words Mackenzie must have remembered with dismay the pleasure he had taken in firing off his gun to show the extent of his power, and the unspeakable fright they had manifested on hearing its report. This circumstance had now turned against him, and he and his men were in the ludicrous position of people haunted by the apprehension of those whom fear had driven away from them.

The next day, which was the 28th of June, was employed in making a new canoe, and on the 29th they were agreeably surprised at beholding their Carrier guide, with a companion, making for their camp. He declared that he had spent his time in search of his missing family, who had fled like the others.

On Tuesday, 2nd July, 1793, the whole party reached the mouth of the Blackwater, where Mackenzie harangued his men, declaring his firm and irrevocable resolution to go west, even though he might be left alone. Then he made another cache, left his canoe on a scaffolding, and handing each of his white companions a pack of some ninety pounds, with a gun and ammunition—the Indians grumbling with only half that weight—he directed his steps in their company towards the village of the Nas-khu’tins, which was then eleven miles distant from the mouth of the Blackwater River, on a lake called Pœncho.

There he found, as usual, several articles of European manufacture, among which he mentions a lance resembling a sergeant's halberd, which had lately come from the sea coast. Taking care to send two couriers in advance to predispose people in his favor, he proceeded west, and in the course of a few days he met a woman from the coast all bedecked in ornaments of various kinds.

After crossing two mountains the whole party came upon an arm of the sea, now Bentinck Inlet, among troublesome Indians, where the indefatigable explorer wrote on a rock, "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."

In another month, August 24th, the intrepid voyagers were safely back at Fort Chippewayan. [29]