Читать книгу First Furrows - Rev. Alfred Campbell Garrioch - Страница 5

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After the writer had decided on “First Furrows” as the title of this work, he dipped the pen, poised it over the unwritten page and awaited further inspiration. It came. The front door flew open and an excited young lady shouted in the words—“The War is over.” The shouted intelligence, of course, referred to the “World War,” commenced August 4th, 1914, and ended November 11th, 1918, and the announcement blended well with above title which is intended as a compliment to Archdeacon Cochrane, the founder of St. Mary’s Church, with whom the plough—fitting emblem of the peaceful arts of husbandry—was an effective civilizing agency, so that the first furrow in many an earthly field led up to the first furrows in the sphere of spiritual living, resulting in the temporal and spiritual betterment of the people among whom he laboured. His life’s work will ever be remembered as having been a great blessing to the people of this country.

It is not easy to say when or from whom Portage la Prairie received its expressive name, but probably it was before the days of Verandrye, and possibly it was Radisson and Groseillers who named it.

These two noted French traders formed a partnership in 1658, which lasted till 1683, and on the retirement of Groseillers, Radisson kept on till 1690, making during the last five years an annual voyage to Hudson’s Bay in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Partly owing to unfair treatment, both from Old and New France, and partly owing to war between England and France, kept up intermittently and with varying fortune during a considerable portion of the foregoing period, those Frenchmen contracted the unfortunate habit of trading sometimes under the patronage of the one country, and at other times under that of the other, an unprofitable policy, as it turned out, and not to be excused, although it must be admitted there was great provocation at the time of its inception in the treatment received from the French in 1662. In that year the trade was remarkably good. They loaded three hundred canoes with furs, which, on their arrival at Quebec, were valued at $300,000. Yet so meanly were they treated that, by the time Governor D’Argensen got through with them, they had less than $20,000 left for themselves.

As to the territory visited by these traders when they made this phenomenal trade, writers are at variance; some French historians claiming that they not only visited Lake Winnipeg, but continued northward via Nelson River until they reached Hudson’s Bay, incidentally stating that their canoes were manned by Assiniboines. Other writers contend that the body of water which they discovered was not Hudson’s Bay, but Lake Winnipeg, and that they did their big trade with the tribes living in its vicinity and further West. The present writer takes no side in the dispute, and would remark that if Radisson and Groseillers did not visit Hudson’s Bay they had more time to visit Portage la Prairie. If, on the other hand, they did discover Hudson’s Bay, and their canoes as stated were manned by Assiniboines, we are thus furnished with strong presumptive evidence that they must have traded in the country of the Assiniboines, to do which they would have had to travel up the Assiniboine River, most likely as far West as Portage la Prairie, as it was the favourite rendezvous of those Indians in the time of Verandrye.

After this careful balancing of probabilities as to Radisson and Groseillers having ever visited Portage la Prairie—a matter at this date of little importance to those gentlemen or the City of Portage la Prairie—it must be mentioned to the credit of those celebrated Frenchmen, that but for their enterprising spirit and cosmopolitan character, Great Britain’s possession in this northern portion of the continent might have remained undeveloped for many years longer; for it was the knowledge of its resources that those men had gained by adventurous trade and travel, and which they communicated to men of kindred spirit in England, including that Prince of Adventurers, Prince Rupert, that paved the way to the formation in the year 1670, of the world-renowned chartered monopoly, known as the Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company, of which corporation it may safely be said that it, in turn, paved the way to the present civilization.

When the activities of Radisson and Groseillers came to an end in 1690, it was not till about forty years afterwards that anyone else showed a like ambition to penetrate as they had the remote regions of New France stretching away to the North and Northwest, and then, thirty-two years before Canada was irretrievably lost to France, in 1763, another celebrated Frenchman came to the front in the person of Sieur Gautier Verennes de la Verandrye, whose exploits both as trader and explorer quite equalled those of Radisson and Groseillers. Verandrye’s great ambition was to discover an overland route to the Pacific Ocean.

His first step in this direction was taken on the 8th June, 1771, when with a party of fifty men, composed of voyageurs, interpreters, a few soldiers and his three sons, aged respectively eighteen, seventeen and sixteen, he embarked in four large birch bark canoes, and struck towards the Northwest on his voyage of discovery.

With the exception of good wishes and advice he got no assistance from France, for like other European nations her attention at the time was engrossed with war, and she had neither money nor men to spare. He was, however, not only given a free hand to trade wherever any other Frenchman had traded, but further, was granted a monopoly in all new countries that he might discover. In this way he was supposed to pay his own way to the Western sea, and in any case, re-imburse himself for the cost of exploration, a truly economical arrangement for France, but a rather precarious means of support for Verandrye and his family, while engaged in an undertaking of such national importance, particularly when one considers the scalping propensities of the Indian tribes whose acquaintance he had already made, and that he was liable to fall in with others further West, who might be even more ferocious; and that he had no hint as to the distance of the Western sea, or of the physical obstructions to be encountered on the way thither.

In his first year, 1731, he went as far West as Rainy River where he built a fort which he named St. Pierre. In 1732 he built a fort at the Lake of the Woods which he named St. Charles. In 1733 he descended the Winnipeg River, and in the year following built Fort Maurepas, on the shore of Lake Winnipeg, at the mouth of the Winnipeg River; and near where Fort Alexander now stands. At these places he came in contact mostly with Crees and Ojibeways, some of whom knew the French by reputation, some from actual contact.

For the next four years, being still unable to get any assistance from the French Government, he devoted his attention to the requirements of the fur trade in such territory as was easy of access from the forts which he had established; but in 1738 he resolved to hold himself in check no longer, and struck out for the West in quest of the great sea lying somewhere in that direction.

The nearest approach to definite information that he had about this sea, was what he had obtained from the Indian named Ochagach, who could only tell him that its waters rose and fell and were too salt to drink, stating that he had been told this by Indians who lived somewhere in the West, and who, he doubted not, would be able to tell Verandrye all about it, and in fact, guide him thither. So on September 22nd, 1738, he loaded a number of canoes with supplies and struck out westward from Fort Maurepas. In two days he had skirted the South-east shore of Lake Winnipeg, entered the mouth of the Red River, and paddled up stream to where Winnipeg now stands.

For all that history or tradition can tell us as to how the natives regarded that particular locality where the Red and Assiniboine Rivers united it may have been a sort of no-man’s-land, a place not to be desired for anything in particular, and noticed chiefly en passant, by the way-faring man as he made his way by land or by water to some more desirable locality: at any rate Verandrye’s actions are not at variance with such a theory. After over a year had elapsed since the building of a fort at the Lake of the Woods he went westward seeking another suitable site for a fort, and evidently the mouth of the Winnipeg River spoke better things to him than the mouth of the Assiniboine, and he gave the preference to the former. Then after four years in which he became acquainted with the best centres of trade, and he decided to build another fort still further West, seemingly he regarded the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers as a place of secondary importance, and so he gave Winnipeg the go-bye, and passed up the Assiniboine, going fifty miles further west till he reached Portage la Prairie.

Due to an after-thought of Mr. de la Marque, one of Verandrye’s lieutenants, who with eight men joined him at Portage la Prairie shortly after his arrival, an official in charge of two or three men was sent back to the junction of the Rivers to build a small fort. It was named Fort Rouge after the Red River, while the one built at Portage la Prairie was called Fort de la Reine after the Queen of France. Little Fort Rouge soon died a natural death. It was abandoned because the Crees traded either at Mauripas, or if they went elsewhere, preferred to go straight to the “Hub,” or emporium of the West—Portage la Prairie.

The wisdom of Verandrye’s selection of Portage la Prairie as his headquarters is readily understood, when the modes of travel and transportation in vogue in his day are taken into account, as well as his project of discovering an overland route to the Western sea. The birch bark canoe was the boat of his time, and with it, shallow indeed were the waters that were not navigable; while in journeying overland, man went afoot, for horses and heavy boats belonged to a later day than that of Verandrye. Getting into the birch bark canoe at Fort de la Reine he could travel eastward to Montreal or northward to Hudson’s Bay; and on another voyage from the same starting point, after a short portage if the Assiniboine were low, or no portage at all if it were high, he entered Lake Manitoba via Portage Creek, and navigating its entire length to its Northern limit, he passed into Lake Winnipegosis, and did the same with it, and so made connection with the Saskatchewan River at Cedar Lake, when he could either paddle eastward to Hudson’s Bay or westward to the Rocky Mountains; and on a third voyage, with Fort de la Reine still the starting point, he could voyage hundreds of miles up the Assiniboine, and any of its tributaries—the Souris, Qu’Appelle or Little Saskatchewan.

Verandrye commenced to build Fort de la Reine on October 3rd and finished October 15th, so it could not have been an elaborate affair. Remembering, however, that he had the advantage of a military training, and that he had a considerable force of employees, as well as the assistance of a band of Indians, it is likely that the fort was quite pretentious in size and appearance, well suited for the purpose intended and elegant enough to suit the tastes of the Assine Pwatuk, Stone Indians.

These Indians are a branch of the Sioux tribe, called Pwatuk by the Crees, Pwanuk by the Saulteaux, and in order to distinguish them from the former, they were called Assine Pwatuk or Pwanuk, Stone Sioux, the distinguishing or qualifying word having been suggested by a peculiar method these Indians had of boiling their meat, in the days previous to their knowledge of pots and kettles. They dug a hole in the ground, and when they had made it water-tight, they placed water and red hot stones therein, and so contrived to boil their meat.

Following a wise practice which is not as common as it might be, of retaining original names of places, the river on whose banks these Indians once lived is still called Assiniboine, the last syllable boine or bwoin being a shortened and euphonized form of Pwanuk. But the poor Assine Pwanuk themselves, after whom the river was named, following in the wake of the bison, and like them swept westward by the advancing waves of civilization, struggle today for an existence, with their backs well up against the Rockies, and are to be found almost entirely within the confines of the Morely Reserves, forty miles West of Calgary.

A few days after completing Fort de la Reine, Verandrye continued his journey westward, to discover or at least learn something further about the “Kihchi Sakahikun,” Big Lake, whose waters were too salt to drink. His party comprised fifty-two voyageurs and soldiers, and as the close of navigation was near, the journey from the start was undertaken by land, the men carrying the necessary outfit on their backs.

They had not journeyed far when they were overtaken by two hundred Assiniboines, who invited them to their camp, and accompanied them thither. These simple minded people were greatly delighted, and showed the explorer every mark of respect. He was, however, rather startled when he found them prepared to give practical expression to their friendship by accompanying him with wives, children, dogs and all, to the country of the Mandans. Too courteous to hurt their feelings by a refusal, Verandrye accepted with the grace of a true Frenchman, and so moved on southward in the company of this motley crowd.

They arrived at the Mandan village about the end of November, 1738; and there also they received a most hearty welcome. The head chief speaking on behalf of himself and people, asked Verandrye to reckon them as among the members of his family, than which, according to Indian ideas, it was not possible to give any stronger proof of friendship and confidence. Verandrye, not to be out-done in civility, consented to the proposed honorary relationship, and the agreement was forthwith solemnly ratified, as the chiefs bent before him, and he placed his hands on the head of each—a veritable “rite of laying on of hands.” Ochagach had told Verandrye that the Mandans were white skinned as Verandrye himself, but this turned out to be incorrect. Possibly Ochagach was colour blind, or he was trying to pay a compliment to the superiority of Verandrye’s complexion as compared with his own.

While Verandrye made a thorough examination of this village, his son paid a visit to another that was in the neighbourhood. In general style and arrangement they were much alike, and it was known that for a century after Verandrye’s visit they were still maintained in a good state of preservation. The following is a description of the one Verandrye examined.

“Within the stockades were one hundred and fifty cabins. The streets and squares were laid out regularly, and were kept remarkably neat and clean. The smooth, wide ramparts were built with timbers, strengthened with cross pieces. At each corner was a bastion, and the fort was surrounded by a ditch fifteen feet deep and from fifteen to eighteen feet wide. He was astonished to find such elaborate fortifications among a savage tribe. Nowhere else in the New World had he seen anything of the kind.”

“The dwellings of the Mandans were large and comfortable; they were divided into several rooms, and around the wall were beds in the form of bunks. They had earthen vessels in which they cooked their food. They had underground storehouses in which they stored away fruits, skins, dried meat and grain for winter use, and for trading with neighbouring Indians for guns and ammunition.”

As may be supposed, Verandrye’s multitudinous Assiniboine retinue would have very soon made serious inroads into these stores, had they remained guests of the Mandans for any length of time, so after they had been allowed a few days rest, the wily Mandan chief contrived to disembarrass himself and his honoured guests of their mutual friends—the Assiniboines, and the way in which he did this without hurting anybody’s feelings shows that while he might have been a little behind Verandrye in politeness, he was away ahead of him in diplomacy.

He caused a rumour to be circulated that the Sioux were about to attack the village, and in apparent excitement at once set preparations afoot to meet the attack. The peace-loving Stonies, who had suffered enough in their own country from the warring propensities of their former compatriots, did not wait to be involved in the seemingly impending Sioux-Mandan mix-up, and hastily striking camp, fled for their lives.

Fort Pembina in 1859.

On the day when he was to have returned to Portage la Prairie, Verandrye was taken seriously ill, and in consequence remained in the Mandan village till the middle of December. Even then he was still quite ill, and mentioned his sufferings on the way back as the greatest he had ever endured.

Two Frenchmen were left behind to learn the language. They rejoined him at his fort the following autumn. They reported a visit to the Mandans of a party of Indians from the far West who were mounted on horses; and who reported another people still further West, who dwelt in houses of brick and stone, and lived on the shore of a great lake whose waters were too salt to drink.

Probably owing to the grudging character of French patronage, Verandrye did not again in person make an attempt at the discovery of the Pacific, but made Fort de la Reine his headquarters all the time he was in the country, thence directing exploring expeditions westward via the Mandan village, and trading operations northward via Lake Manitoba. It was in line with such a policy that while the two Frenchmen were learning the Mandan language so as to be of use in further westward exploration, Verandrye sent his son, Francois, to Lake Manitoba, with a view to the extension of trade in that direction. The prospects were found encouraging, and a fort named Fort Dauphin was built somewhere on the north-western shore of the Lake. While Francois was thus employed (1740) Pierre, his brother was sent to the Mandan village to acquire more knowledge of the kihchikamik, big lake, and even to get there if he could. In the meantime, Verandrye himself gathered up the furs and journeyed to Montreal for a fresh outfit.

When he returned in 1741 to Portage la Prairie, he was met by his son Pierre, who reported failure in exploration work, owing to lack of assistance from the Mandans. Francois and his brother would seem to have been more persevering in their department. Following the northern water-stretches, they passed from Lake Manitoba to Lake Winnipegosis and thence to Cedar Lake on the Saskatchewan, where they built Fort Bourbon. Going further West they built another fort at the Pas, between Cedar Lake and the North and South branches of the Saskatchewan River. This fort they named Fort Pascoyak.

The next expedition in quest of the western sea was entrusted by Verandrye to Francois and another son. They left Fort de la Reine in 1742, accompanied by two Frenchmen; and they succeeded in hiring two guides at the Mandan village. In the course of their journey they crossed the bad lands of the Missouri, and were astonished at the mounds and pillars brilliantly coloured in blue, crimson, green and yellow, and only that they thought it would not be a brilliant idea to load down their backs with any more stuff, they would have liked to have carried away some specimens.

In this expedition the Verandryes made the acquaintance of the following tribes: the “Good-looking Indians,” the “Little Foxes,” the “Horse Indians,” “Bows” and “Indians of the Little Cherry.” They reached the foot of the Rockies on New Year’s Day, 1743. It was the nearest to their objective that the Verandryes ever got. They got back to Fort de la Reine July 2, 1743, having been absent one year and forty-eight days.

An unfriendly influence having been exerted against Verandrye for some years in Montreal, he was summoned thither in 1746; and had to answer charges made against him by parties who were incapable of forming either a just estimate of the man or his achievements.

While he was being thus harassed, the seven forts he and his sons had built were falling into ruins; but in 1747, his son Francois returned and repaired them, including Fort de la Reine. The effort to resuscitate their trading met with but indifferent success, as the misrepresentation at Montreal continued; and when the French Government saw fit to transfer its patronage from Verandrye to M. de Noyelle, their business was again brought to a standstill.

Thanks to the just representations of the Marquis de la Galissoniere, a reaction took place in Verandrye’s favour, with the result that he was decorated with the cross of St. Louis, and restored to his leadership in the West; but these expressions of restored confidence came too late, for in the midst of preparations to resume his work in the West, he was stricken with serious illness and died before the end of the year.

As Verandrye’s sons had been partners with him in his business they supposed that when the Government patronage was renewed they were included and would be able to continue their trading as if he had lived, but the Government refused to take this view of the matter; and although Francois Verandrye made a strong and straight-forward appeal to the French authorities adverse influence prevailed and the Verandrye brothers were financially ruined; and being debarred from that sphere in which they had won their laurels, and in which they were best fitted to shine, their light went out and they sank into oblivion.

After the death of Verandrye, Legardeur de St. Pierre was appointed by the Government of New France to carry on the search for the Western sea; and for this purpose he left Montreal with a party in 1750.

He passed his first winter at Fort Mauripas, whence he sent forward Niverville, one of his lieutenants, who with a party proceeded over Lake Winnipeg, hauling their supplies on toboggans. When they reached Fort Pascoyak, Niverville was taken ill, and had to remain there; but others of the party went on up stream till they reached the foot of the Rockies, and there they built a fort which they named Fort la Jonquire in honour of the Governor. This was as near as they got to the Western sea, but they had further confirmation of the story of Ochagach, for they saw some Indians who had seen other Indians who had seen the kihchikamik, the sea.

St. Pierre himself was no more successful, for though he seems to have made one determined dash towards the Pacific, the highest mark of success on record is that he travelled about as far West as the present City of Calgary. On the whole, though a brave and successful leader, he was an unsuccessful explorer, partly no doubt, because he was not sufficiently diplomatic in his dealings with the Indians. The following incident which occurred at Fort de la Reine in 1753, just before his recall and departure from the country, would seem to show that if he did not discover the Pacific it was not for lack of decisiveness.

He was alone in the fort, the few men comprising the garrison having gone out to hunt, when without any warning a large party of Assiniboines, rushed into the fort and commenced to plunder the stores. Promptly St. Pierre sized up the situation and as promptly made his resolve, and proceeded to carry it out. Seizing a fire-brand, he rushed to a barrel of gun-powder, and tearing off the top, informed them that if they did not immediately leave he would blow them all to places unknown. They might not have understood his words, but they were quite sure that he was speaking a dead language, and that his thoughts had taken an elevating turn, and they did not wait to be elevated, but knowing him to be a man of his word, they fled in terror; and need it be said, hardly had the heels of the last Assiniboine disappeared round the corner, when the gates were securely barred, and kept so until his men returned. Then they hastily gathered their belongings together and abandoned the place. Four days afterwards it was burned to the ground by the Indians.

Legardeur de St. Pierre was succeeded by Chevalier de la Corne, and during the four years of his stay he added one fort to those built by Verandrye and his sons. It was located a few miles below the forks, and was named la Corne after himself, and was the last fort built under the French regime, for after the fall of Quebec and the change in the ownership of Canada which resulted, there followed a period of about twenty years during which the fur trade languished, and Verandrye’s forts fell into ruins.