Reports of the "Great River"—Company despatch Samuel Hearne on a Mission of Discovery—Norton's Instructions—Saluted on his Departure from the Fort—First and Second Journeys—Matonabee—Results of the Third Journey—The Company's Servants in the Middle of the Century—Death of Governor Norton.

The "Great River."

Some northern Indians, who came to trade at Prince of Wales' Fort in the spring of 1768, brought further accounts of the "Great River," as they persisted in calling it, and also produced several pieces of copper, as specimens of a mine long believed by the traders to exist in the vicinity. This determined Governor Norton to represent it to the Company as a matter well worthy their attention. As he went that year to England, he was given the opportunity of doing so in person; and in consequence of his representations, the Committee resolved to despatch an intelligent person by land to observe the latitude and longitude of the river's mouth, and to make a chart of the country traversed, with such observations as might lead to a better knowledge of the region. An intelligent mariner, Samuel Hearne, then in the Company's employ as mate of the brig Charlotte, was selected for the mission.[71]

Hearne's expedition of discovery.

Before starting on his journey in 1769, Hearne received full instructions from Moses Norton, the Governor. He was provided with an escort and was urged to cultivate, as he went, friendly relations with the Indians. "Smoke your calumet of peace with their leaders in order to establish a friendship with them." He was equipped with instruments, and was required to take account of latitude and longitude of the chief points visited; he was to seek for a north-west passage through the continent. But a more immediate and practical matter was dwelt upon in his letter. "Be careful to observe what mines are near the river,[72] what water there is at the river's mouth, how far the woods are from the seaside, the course of the river, the nature of the soil, and the productions of it; and make any other remarks that you may think will be either necessary or satisfactory. And if the said river be likely to be of any utility, take possession of it on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company by cutting your name on some of the rocks, and also the date of the year, month, etc."

Hearne promised to follow these instructions implicitly, and soon after daybreak on the morning of the 6th of November, the occupants of the fort assembled to witness the intrepid explorer's departure. A salute of seven guns and a ringing cheer thrice repeated was responded to by Hearne, already on his way, with a wave of his cap.

He had not gone far, however, when dissatisfaction broke out amongst his party. First one Indian guide deserted him and then another; but trusting to the fidelity of the rest Hearne pressed forward. At last, nearly the whole party left him, taking at the same time several bags of powder and shot, his hatchets, chisels and files. His chief guide, Chaw-chin-ahaw, now advised the explorer to return, and announced his own intention of travelling to his own tribe in the south-west.

"Thus," says Hearne, "they set out, making the woods ring with their laughter, and left us to consider our unhappy situation, nearly two hundred miles from Prince of Wales' Fort, all heavily laden, and in strength and spirits greatly reduced by hunger and fatigue."

Mortifying as the prospect of return was, it was inevitable. They arrived on the 11th of December, to the astonishment of Norton and the Company's servants.

Second expedition.

But Hearne was not to be daunted. On the 23rd of February he again set out with five Indians. This time his journey was a succession of short stages, with intervals of a whole day's rest between. These intervals were occupied in killing deer, or in seeking for fish under the ice with nets. On one occasion they spent a day in building a more permanent tent, where they waited for the flights of goose to appear.

The course had been in a general north-western direction from the Churchill River, but on the 10th of June the party abandoned the rivers and lakes and struck out into the barren lands. The following narrative by Hearne is interesting, because up to that moment no servant of the Company had ever seen a live musk ox, that "now rare denizen of the northern solitudes."

"We had not walked above seven or eight miles before we saw three musk oxen grazing by the side of a small lake. The Indians immediately went in pursuit of them, and as some were expert hunters they soon killed the whole of them. This was, no doubt, very fortunate, but to our great mortification before we could get one of them skinned, such a fall of rain came on as to put it out of our power to make a fire, which, even in the finest weather, could only be made of moss, as we were nearly a hundred miles from any woods. This was poor comfort for people who had not broken their fast for four or five days. Necessity, however, has no law, and having before been initiated into the method of eating raw meat, we were the better prepared for this repast. But this was by no means so well relished, either by me or the Southern Indians, as either raw venison or raw fish had been; for the flesh of the musk-ox is not only coarse and tough, but smells and tastes so strong of musk as to make it very disagreeable when raw, though it is tolerable eating when properly cooked. The weather continued so remarkably bad, accompanied with constant heavy rain, snow and sleet, and our necessities were so great by the time the weather permitted us to make a fire, that we had nearly eaten to the amount of one buffalo quite raw."

Hardships of the journey.

What severities of hardship were endured by our traveller may be judged from his description. "We have fasted many times," he declares, "two whole days and nights; twice upwards of three days, and once, while at Shethaunee, near seven days, during which we tasted not a mouthful of anything except a few cranberries, water, scraps of old leather and burnt bones. On these pressing occasions I have frequently seen the Indians examine their wardrobe, which consisted chiefly of skin clothing, and consider what part could best be spared; sometimes a piece of an old, half-rotten deerskin, and others a pair of old shoes, were sacrificed to alleviate extreme hunger."

It was while in the midst of these sufferings and bitter experiences, which required all the traveller's courage to endure that a disaster of a different order happened. It was the 11th of August. Hearne had reached a point some five hundred miles north-west of Churchill. It proving rather windy at noon, although otherwise fine, he had let his valuable quadrant stand, in order to obtain the latitude more exactly by two altitudes. He then retired to eat his mid-day meal. Suddenly he was startled by a crash, and looking in the direction, found that a gust of wind had overturned the instrument and sent it crashing to earth. As the ground where it stood was very stony, the bubble, sight-vane and vernier were entirely broken to pieces, and the instrument thus destroyed. In consequence of this misfortune, the traveller resolved to retrace his steps wearily back to Prince of Wales' Fort.

When he had arrived at Churchill River he had met the friendly chief, Matonabee,[73] who at once, and with charming simplicity, volunteered a reason for the troubles which had overtaken the white explorer. He had taken no women with him on his journey. Said Matonabee:

The Indian's estimate of woman.

"When all the men are heavy-laden they can neither hunt nor travel to any considerable distance; and in case they meet with success in hunting, who is to carry the product of their labour? Women," added he, "were made for labour; one of them carry or haul as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep up our fires at night, and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or for any length of time, in this country, without their assistance. Women," he observed again, "though they do everything, are maintained at a trifling expense, for as they always act as cooks, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their subsistence."

Hearne did not reach the fort till towards the close of November. On the 21st he thus describes the weather: "That night we lay on the south shore of Egg River, but long before daybreak the next morning, the weather being so bad, with a violent gale of wind from the north-west, and such a drift of snow that we could not have a bit of fire; and as no good woods were near to afford us shelter, we agreed to proceed on our way, especially as the wind was on our backs; and though the weather was bad near the surface we could frequently see the moon and sometimes the stars, to direct us in our course. In this situation we continued walking the whole day, and it was not until after ten at night that we could find the smallest tuft of wood to put up in; for though we well knew we must have passed by several hummocks of shrubby wood that might have afforded us some shelter, yet the wind blew so hard and the snow drifted so excessively thick that we could not see ten yards before us the whole day."

That night his dog, a valuable animal, was frozen to death, and after that there was nothing for it but he must himself haul his heavy sledge over the snowdrifts.

Twice baffled, yet the intrepid explorer was far from being swerved from his purpose. Not even the distrust of Norton, who wrote home to the Company that Hearne was unfit for the task in hand, could discourage him from making a third attempt. On this journey, his plan was to secure the company and assistance of Matonabee, and three or four of the best Indians under that chief; and this was put into practice on the 7th of December, 1770. This time the departure took place under different auspices. There was no firing of cannon from the fort, no cheering, and no hearty Godspeeds from the Governor and his staff.

Again, similar adventures to those encountered the first two journeys were met with. Hearne cultivated the friendship of strange, but not hostile, savages as he went along. In one locality he took part in "snaring deer in a pound," or large stockade. The rest of the winter was spent in such a succession of advances as the weather and state of the country permitted. In April it was possible to obtain supplies of birch wood staves for tent poles, and birch rind and timber for building canoes. Spring enabled the party to proceed with greater rapidity, and at last a rendezvous at a place called Clowey was reached. From this point the final dash for the Coppermine River, the main object of the expedition, must be made. At Clowey some hundreds of Indians joined the little party to proceed to the Coppermine, and thus it grew suddenly into a military expedition, for the tribe was bent on making war on the Esquimaux, should the latter be discovered.

The expedition reaches the Arctic.

The long-desired spot was attained at last. On the 14th of July Hearne and his party looked out over the dancing surface of the Coppermine River, and descending this stream to its mouth beheld the Arctic Ocean. Hearne thus being the first white man to reach the northern sea from the interior.

Says the explorer: "In those high latitudes, and at this season of the year, the sun is always at a good height over the horizon, so that we not only had daylight, but sunshine the whole night; a thick fog and drizzling rain then came on, and finding that neither the river nor sea were likely to be of any use, I did not think it worth while to wait for fair weather to determine the latitude exactly by an observation. For the sake of form, however, after having had some consultation with the Indians, I erected a mark and took possession of the coast, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company. I was not provided with instruments for cutting on stone, but I cut my name, date of the year, etc., on a piece of board that had been one of the Indian's targets, and placed it in a heap of stones on a small eminence near the entrance of the river, on the south side."

"It is, indeed," remarks Hearne, "well known to the intelligent and well-informed part of the Company's servants, that an extensive and numerous tribe of Indians, called E-arch-e-thinnews, whose country lies far west of any of the Company's or Canadian settlements, must have traffic with the Spaniards on the west side of the continent; because some of the Indians who formerly traded to York Fort, when at war with those people, frequently found saddles, bridles, muskets, and many other articles in their possession which were undoubtedly of Spanish manufacture."[74]

Hearne returns to England.

Hearne went home to England and related his experiences in a paper read before his employers, the Honorable Adventurers.[75] It was not until some years later that it was discovered that he had, either in ignorance or, according to one of his enemies named Dalrymple, "in a desire to increase the value of his performance," placed the latitude of the Coppermine at nearly 71 degrees north instead of at about 67½ degrees. Hearne's own apology was that after the breaking of his quadrant[76] on the second expedition, he was forced to employ an old Elton quadrant, which had for thirty years been amongst the relics and rubbish of Prince of Wales' Fort. But the geographical societies were indignant at having been thus imposed upon.

"I cannot help observing," wrote Hearne, "that I feel myself rather hurt at Mr. Dalrymple's rejecting my latitude in so peremptory a manner and in so great a proportion as he has done; because before I arrived at Cange-cath-a-whachaga, the sun did not set during the whole night, a proof that I was then to the northward of the Arctic circle."

Hearne's journey, considering the epoch in which it was undertaken, the life led by the Company's servants at the forts, and the terrible uncertainties incident to plunging into an icy wilderness, with no security against hunger or the attacks of savages, was greater than it really appeared, and without doubt paved the way for the Company's new policy.

With the ship which brought Hearne over from England came a large number of young Orkney Islanders.

Company employ Orkney Islanders.

The labouring servants, as has been seen, were first in 1712, and from about 1775 onwards, procured from the Orkney Islands, their wages being about £6 a year. They were engaged by the captains of the ships, usually for a period of five years. Each servant signed a contract on his entrance into the service to serve for the term and not to return home until its expiration, unless recalled by the Company. He engaged during his passage back to do duty as watch on board ship without extra pay; but that which was the last and principal clause of the agreement related to illicit trading. He was bound in the most solemn manner not to detain, secrete, harbour or possess any skin or part of a skin, on any pretence whatever; but on the contrary, he was to search after and detect all persons who might be disposed to engage in this species of speculation. Should he detect any such, he was to expose them to the Governor. If contrary to this agreement, any persons should be found bold enough to conceal any peltry or otherwise infringe his contract, they were to forfeit all the wages due them by the Company. Although a further penalty was nominally exacted under the contract, that of a fine of two years' pay, it was rarely carried into effect, and then only when the delinquent was believed to have largely profited by his illegal transaction.

In the early days when a servant's time expired and he was about to return home, the Governor in person was supposed to inspect his chest, even examining his bedding and other effects, to see that it contained not even the smallest marten skin. An almost equally rigorous surveillance attended the sending of private letters and parcels, not merely in the Bay alone, but in London. In the latter case, the parcel of clothing, etc., intended for the Company's distant servant, was first obliged to be sent to the Hudson's Bay House, and there undergo a careful examination for fear it should contain anything used in private trade.

During the time that the Indians were at the posts trading their furs, the gates were continually kept closed, it being the regular employment of one person to see that no one made his exit for fear he should attempt a private barter with the Indians. While this rule was rarely relaxed, yet it was not at all of the forts that a too strict watch was kept on the movements of the employees. At York Fort, however, during the eighteenth century, if a servant wished to take a walk on a Sunday afternoon, at a time when no natives were trading, it was first necessary to apply to the Governor for leave.

Of the run of the Company's servants in the latter half of the eighteenth century, a writer of that day has said of them: "They are a close, prudent, quiet people, strictly faithful to their employers," adding that they were "sordidly avaricious."

Whilst these young Scotchmen were scattered about the country in small parties amongst the Indians, their general behaviour won them the respect of the savages, as well as procured them their protection. It is a significant fact that for the first fifteen years of the new rÉgime the Company did not suffer the loss of a single man, notwithstanding that their servants were annually exposed to all the dangers incident to the trade and times.

Character of the Company's traders.

It was observed that very few of the Canadian servants were to be entirely trusted with even a small assortment of goods, unless some substantial guarantee were first exacted. The chances were ten to one that the master would be defrauded of the whole stock of merchandise, often through the medium of the Indian women, who were quick to perceive what an easy prey was the one and how difficult the other. The French-Canadian traders were brave and hardy; apt in learning the habits and language of the Indians; dexterous canoemen and of a lively, not to say boisterous, disposition; but none of these qualities, nor all together, were often the means of earning the respect and trust of the natives. And it must not be imagined that these talents and accomplishments were limited to the Canadians, even in the earliest days of rivalry.

"Though such may be the sentiments of their employers," wrote one of the Company's factors, "let these gentlemen for a while look around them and survey without prejudice the inhabitants of our own hemisphere, and they will find people who are brought up from their infancy to hardships, and inured to the inclemency of the weather from their earliest days; they will also find people who might be trusted with thousands, and who are much too familiarized to labour and fatigue to repine under the pressure of calamity as long as their own and their master's benefit is in view. I will further be bold to say that the present servants of the Company may be led as far inland as navigation is practicable, with more ease and satisfaction to the owners, than the same number of Canadians."

The former, it was noted, would be always honest, tractable and obedient, as well from inclination as from fear of losing their pecuniary expectations; whereas the latter, being generally in debt, and having neither good name, integrity nor property to lose, were always neglectful of the property committed to their charge. Whenever difficulties arose there was never wanting some amongst them to impede the undertaking.

The council at the forts.

The Governor at each factory occasionally had a person to act with him, who was known as the second or under-factor. These, with the surgeon and the master of the sloop, constituted a council, who were supposed to deliberate in cases of emergency or upon affairs of importance. Amongst the latter were classed the reading of the Company's general letter, received annually and inditing a reply to it; the encroachments of their French, at a later period, Canadian rivals; or the misbehaviour of the servants. In these councils very little regard, it seems, was paid to the opinion of the subordinate members, who rather desired to obtain the Governor's favour by acquiescence rather than his resentment by opposition.

The Governors were appointed for either three or five years, and their nominal salary was from £50 to £150 per annum, which the premium on the trade often trebled and sometimes quadrupled. These officials commonly reigned as absolute in their petty commands as Eastern Nabobs; and as it was in a Governor's power to render the lives of those under them happy or unhappy as they chose, it was only natural that the inferior servants were most diligent in cultivating their good will. It was out of the power, of course, for any aggrieved or dissatisfied servant to return home until the ships came, and if he then persisted in his intention, the payment of his wages was withheld until the Company should decide upon his character, which was furnished in writing by the Governor. Although the voice of an inferior servant counted but little when opposed to the Governor, yet there are few instances when the Company, in parting with a servant, refused him his wages in full.

It is an old axiom that austerity is acquired by a term of absolute petty dominion, so that it is not remarkable that the Company's early Governors were distinguished by this trait in the fullest degree.

"I had an opportunity," wrote one former factor, "of being acquainted with many Governors in my time. I could single out several whose affability and capacity merited a better employment. Some I have known who despised servility and unworthy deeds; but this was only for a time, and while young in their stations."

Such criticism, while doubtless unjust, had yet, applied generally, a basis of truth.

Character of the trading governors.

Robson complains of a Governor at Churchill, in his time, who had a thousand times rendered himself obnoxious to society. But perhaps the Company had never in its employ a more eccentric and choleric official than the governor who was in command of York Factory from 1773 to 1784. It is said of him that his bad name extended even across the Atlantic and reached the Orkney Isles, where the malevolence of his disposition became a by-word, and restrained many youths from entering the Company's service. Intoxication seems to have been this Governor's principal delight, and this was often gratified at the expense of common prudence, as when the French captured York Factory in 1782; no common spirits being on hand, he procured raw alcohol from the surgeon, of which he drank several bumpers to raise his courage.

Although most of the Company's early trading Governors were, in spite of their tempers and habits, persons of education and intelligence, yet there were occasional exceptions. One, Governor Hughes, was said to be incapable of casting up a simple sum in addition; numeral characters being almost unknown to him; nor was his success in writing his own name greater. Yet his courage and business ability was beyond question.

It has already been observed that the Company were accustomed to treat with much deference, and to place great reliance upon their chief factors while these were at their posts in the Bay; yet it must not be supposed that the same consideration was extended to them on their return home. A Governor, it was said by one of the Company's servants, might attend the Hudson's Bay House, and walk about their Hall for a whole day without the least notice being taken of his attendance. It is related that one such Governor, after having served the Company for a matter of seventeen years, went home in 1782, expecting to reap in person some of the rewards of his faithful service in the compliments and attentions of the Adventurers as a body. But, to his chagrin, not the slightest notice was taken of him, and he returned without having even been introduced to a single partner.

Death of Governor Norton.

On the 29th of December, 1773, there died one of the notable characters in the Bay, Governor Moses Norton. Norton was an Indian half-breed, the son of a previous Governor, Richard Norton. He was born at Prince of Wales' Fort, but had been in England nine years, and considering the small sum spent on his education, had made considerable progress in literature. At his return to the Bay, according to Hearne, he entered into all the abominable vices of his countrymen. He established a seraglio, in which figured five or six of the most comely Indian maidens. Yet, although somewhat lax in his morality himself, he seems to have been by no means indulgent to others. To his own friends and relatives, the Indians and half-breeds, it is said, he was "so partial that he set more value on, and showed more respect to, one of their favourite dogs than he ever did to his first officer." This is probably a spiteful exaggeration, but it is certain that Norton, although a man of ability, was not very popular. His great desire was to excite admiration for his skilful use of drugs. "He always," declared one of the Governor's enemies, "kept about him a box of poison to administer to those who refused him their wives or daughters." With all these bad qualities, no man took greater pains to inculcate virtue, morality and continence upon others; always painting in the most glaring colours the jealous and revengeful disposition of the Indians, when any attempt was made to violate the chastity of their wives and daughters.

His apartments at the fort were not only convenient, but had some pretensions to elegance, and were always crowded with his favourites. As this Governor advanced in years, his jealousy increased, and it is said he actually poisoned two of his women because he thought they had transferred their affections elsewhere. He had the reputation of being a most notorious smuggler; but though he put many thousands into the pockets of the Company's captains, he seldom put a shilling into his own.