Little rum and, when he has tasted the intoxicating beverage, they vanish
like smoke and he brings forth his store of furs which he has carefully
concealed from the scrutinising eyes of his visitors. This mode of
carrying on the trade not only causes the amount of furs collected by
either of the two Companies to depend more upon the activity of their
agents, the knowledge they possess of the motions of the Indians, and the
quantity of rum they carry, than upon the liberality of the credits they
give, but is also productive of an increasing deterioration of the
character of the Indians and will probably ultimately prove destructive
to the fur trade itself. Indeed the evil has already in part recoiled
upon the traders; for the Indians, long deceived, have become deceivers
in their turn, and not unfrequently, after having incurred a heavy debt
at one post, move off to another to play the same game. In some cases the
rival posts have entered into a mutual agreement to trade only with the
Indians they have respectively fitted out, but such treaties, being
seldom rigidly adhered to, prove a fertile subject for disputes and the
differences have been more than once decided by force of arms. To carry
on the contest the two Companies are obliged to employ a great many
servants whom they maintain often with much difficulty and always at a
considerable expense.*
(*Footnote. As the contending parties have united the evils mentioned in
this and the two preceding pages are now in all probability at an end.)
There are thirty men belonging to the Hudson's Bay Fort at Cumberland and
nearly as many women and children.
The inhabitants of the North-West Company's House are still more
numerous. These large families are fed during the greatest part of the
year on fish which are principally procured at Beaver Lake, about fifty
miles distant. The fishery, commencing with the first frosts in autumn,
continues abundant till January, and the produce is dragged over the snow
on sledges, each drawn by three dogs and carrying about two hundred and
fifty pounds. The journey to and from the lake occupies five days and
every sledge requires a driver. About three thousand fish averaging three
pounds apiece were caught by the Hudson's Bay fishermen last season; in
addition to which a few sturgeon were occasionally caught in Pine Island
Lake; and towards the spring a considerable quantity of moose meat was
procured from the Basquiau Hill, sixty or seventy miles distant. The rest
of our winter's provision consisted of geese, salted in the autumn, and
of dried meats and pemmican obtained from the provision posts on the
plains of the Saskatchewan. A good many potatoes are also raised at this
post and a small supply of tea and sugar is brought from the depot at
York Factory. The provisions obtained from these various sources were
amply sufficient in the winter of 1819-20; but through improvidence this
post has in former seasons been reduced to great straits.
Many of the labourers and a great majority of the agents and clerks
employed by the two Companies have Indian or half-breed wives, and the
mixed offspring thus produced has become extremely numerous.
These metifs, or, as the Canadians term them, bois brules, are upon the
whole a good-looking people and, where the experiment has been made, have
shown much aptness in learning and willingness to be taught; they have
however been sadly neglected. The example of their fathers has released
them from the restraint imposed by the Indian opinions of good and bad
behaviour; and generally speaking no pains have been taken to fill the
void with better principles. Hence it is not surprising that the males,
trained up in a high opinion of the authority and rights of the Company
to which their fathers belonged and, unacquainted with the laws of the
civilised world, should be ready to engage in any measure whatever that
they are prompted to believe will forward the interests of the cause they
espouse. Nor that the girls, taught a certain degree of refinement by the
acquisition of an European language, should be inflamed by the
unrestrained discourse of their Indian relations, and very early give up
all pretensions to chastity. It is however but justice to remark that
there is a very decided difference in the conduct of the children of the
Orkney men employed by the Hudson's Bay Company and those of the Canadian
voyagers. Some trouble is occasionally bestowed in teaching the former
and it is not thrown away, but all the good that can be said of the
latter is that they are not quite so licentious as their fathers are.
Many of the half-breeds both male and female are brought up amongst and
intermarry with the Indians; and there are few tents wherein the paler
children of such marriages are not to be seen. It has been remarked, I do
not know with what truth, that half-breeds show more personal courage
than the pure Crees.*
(*Footnote. A singular change takes place in the physical constitution of
the Indian females who become inmates of a fort, namely they bear
children more frequently and longer but at the same time are rendered
liable to indurations of the mammae and prolapsus of the uterus, evils
from which they are in a great measure exempt whilst they lead a
wandering and laborious life.)
The girls at the forts, particularly the daughters of Canadians, are
given in marriage very young; they are very frequently wives at twelve
years of age and mothers at fourteen.
