Which the route directly to the northward was rendered
impracticable by the impossibility of procuring hunters and guides on the
coast.
I found that, as the Esquimaux inhabitants had left Churchill a month
previous to our arrival, no interpreter from that quarter could be
procured before their return in the following spring. The Governor
however undertook to forward to us, next season, the only one amongst
them who understood English, if he could be induced to go.
The Governor selected one of the largest of the Company's boats for our
use on the journey, and directed the carpenters to commence refitting it
immediately; but he was only able to furnish us with a steersman; and we
were obliged to make up the rest of the crew with the boatmen brought
from Stromness and our two attendants.
York Factory, the principal depot of the Hudson's Bay Company, stands on
the west bank of Hayes River, about five miles above its mouth, on the
marshy peninsula which separates the Hayes and Nelson Rivers. The
surrounding country is flat and swampy and covered with willows, poplars,
larch, spruce, and birch-trees; but the requisition for fuel has expended
all the wood in the vicinity of the fort and the residents have now to
send for it to a considerable distance. The soil is alluvial clay and
contains imbedded rolled stones. Though the bank of the river is elevated
about twenty feet it is frequently overflown by the spring floods, and
large portions are annually carried away by the disruption of the ice
which, grounding in the stream, have formed several muddy islands. These
interruptions, together with the various collection of stones that are
hid at high-water, render the navigation of the river difficult; but
vessels of two hundred tons burden may be brought through the proper
channels as high as the Factory.
The principal buildings are placed in the form of a square having an
octagonal court in the centre; they are two storeys in height and have
flat roofs covered with lead. The officers dwell in one portion of this
square, and in the other parts the articles of merchandise are kept: the
workshops, storehouses for the furs, and the servants' houses are ranged
on the outside of the square, and the whole is surrounded by a stockade
twenty feet high. A platform is laid from the house to the pier on the
bank for the convenience of transporting the stores and furs, which is
the only promenade the residents have on this marshy spot during the
summer season. The few Indians who now frequent this establishment belong
to the Swampy Crees. There were several of them encamped on the outside
of the stockade. Their tents were rudely constructed by tying twenty or
thirty poles together at the top, and spreading them out at the base so
as to form a cone; these were covered with dressed moose-skins.
