Kitabı oku: «The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company», sayfa 23
But Hargrave was also a letter-writer, and a receiver of many news letters and friendly letters, a man who enjoyed conversation, and when this could not be had with his friends tête-à-tête, his social chats were carried on by means of letters, many months and even years apart. By degrees he rose in the service. From the first a friend of the emperor-governor, he has the good wishes of his friends expressed for his first rise to the post of chief trader, which he gained in 1833, and by-and-by came his next well-deserved promotion to be chief factor in 1844.
Along with all these letters was a book handsomely bound for keeping accounts and private memoranda. This book shows James Hargrave to have been a most methodical and painstaking man. In it is contained a list of all the promotions to official positions of commissioned officers for nearly forty years, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Here also is an account of his investments, and the satisfactory statement that, during his nearly forty years of service, his shares of the profits, investments, and re-investments of what he did not use, allowed him to retire from active service with, as the result of his labour, about 8,700l.
The writer has sought to glean from the hundreds of letters in the Edinburgh garret what is interesting in the life of Rupert's Land, so far as is shown in the writing and acting of this old fur trader and his friends.
Many of the letters are from Governor Simpson. These letters of the Governor are chiefly written from Red River or Norway House – the former the "Fur Traders' Paradise," the latter the meeting-place of the Council, held once a year to decide all matters of business. Occasionally a letter of the Governor's is from Bas de la Rivière (i.e. the mouth of the Winnipeg River), written by that energetic officer, as might be said, "on the wing," and in a few cases from London, England, whither frequently Governor Simpson crossed on the business of the Company.
Governor Simpson's remarks as to society in Red River, 1831, are keen and amusing: – "As yet we have had one fête, which was honoured by the presence of all the elegance and dignity of the place from his Reverence of Juliopolis (Bishop Provencher) down to friend Cook, who (the latter) was as grave and sober as a bishop… By-the-bye, we have got a very 'rum' fellow of a doctor here now: the strangest compound of skill, simplicity, selfishness, extravagance, musical taste, and want of courtesy, I ever fell in with. The people are living on the fat of the earth, in short, Red River is a perfect land of Canaan as far as good cheer goes… Do me the favour to pick out a couple pounds of choice snuff for me and send them by Mr. Miles."
A short time after this, Governor Simpson, writing, says, speaking of the completion of St. John's Church, afterward the Cathedral Church, and referring to the discontent of the Selkirk settlers, with which he had small sympathy, "We have got into the new church, which is really a splendid edifice for Red River, and the people are less clamorous about a Gaelic minister than they were." The good Governor had his pleas ant fling at the claim made by the Highlanders to have their private stills when he says, "And about whiskey they say not one word, now that rum is so cheap, and good strong 'heavy wet' in general use." Speaking of one of the chief officers who was off duty, the Governor says "Chief Factor Charles is like a fish out of water, having no musquash to count, nor Chipewyans to trade with; he is as brisk and active as a boy, and instead of showing any disposition to retire, wishes to volunteer to put a finishing hand to the as yet fruitless attempt at discovering the North-West passage."
Governor Simpson knows well the art of flattery, and his skill in managing his large force of Company officers and men is well seen. He states to Hargrave that he once predicted at the board that the traders of York Factory would yet have a seat at the Board. This, he stated, gave mortal offence to some members, but he was to bear the prediction in mind. He compliments him on sending the best-written letter that he has received for a long time, and we find that in the following year Hargrave was made Chief Trader. This was the occasion for numerous congratulations from his friends Archdeacon Cochrane of Red River, Trader Sieveright, and others.
The news of the time was common subject of discussion between the traders in their letters. Governor Simpson gave an account of the outbreak of cholera in the eastern states and provinces, and traces in a very graphic way its dangerous approach towards Rupert's Land. Up to August, 1832, fifteen hundred people had died in Montreal. The pestilence had reached Mackinaw, and two hundred of the steamboat passengers were carried off, and some near Sault Ste. Marie. "God grant," says the Governor, "it may not penetrate further into our wilds, but the chances are decidedly against us."
That the Hudson's Bay Company officers were not traders only is made abundantly evident. In one of his letters, Governor Simpson states that their countryman, Sir Walter Scott, has just passed away, he thanks Hargrave for sending him copies of Blackwood's Magazine, and orders are often given for fresh and timely books. A little earlier we find the minute interest which the fur traders took in public events in a letter from Chief Factor John Stuart, after whom Stuart's Lake, in New Caledonia, was named. He speaks to Hargrave of the continuation of Southey's "History of the War of the Peninsula" not being published, and we know from other sources that this History fell still-born, but Stuart goes on to say that he had sent for Col. Napier's "History of the Peninsular War." "Napier's politics," says Stuart, "are different, and we shall see whether it is the radical or a laurel (Southey was poet laureate) that deserves the palm." These examples but illustrate what all close observers notice, that the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company not only read to purpose, but maintained a keen outlook for the best and most finished contemporary literature. Much additional evidence might be supplied on this point.
All through Governor Simpson's letters there is a strain of sympathy for the people of the Company that is very beautiful. These show that instead of being a hard and tyrannical man, the Governor had a tender heart. In one of his letters he expresses sympathy for Trader Heron, who had met misfortune. He speaks of his great anxiety for a serious trouble that had arisen in Rev. Mr. Jones's school at Red River, and hopes that it may not injure education; he laments at considerable length over Mr. J. S. McTavish's unfortunate accident. Having heard of Hargrave's long illness he sends a letter of warm sympathy, and this in the midst of a flying visit, and in London in the following year pays every attention by giving kind, hospitable invitations to Hargrave to enjoy the society of himself and Lady Simpson.
The racy letters of Governor Simpson are by no means more interesting than those of many others of Hargrave's friends. Ordinary business letters sometimes seem to have a humorous turn about them even fifty years after they were written. The Roman Catholic Bishop Provencher (Bishop of Juliopolis in partibus infidelium) affords an example of this. He writes in great distress to Hargrave as to the loss of a cask of white wine (une barrique de vin blanc). He had expected it by the York boats sent down by the great Red River merchant, Andrew McDermott… The cask had not arrived. The good Bishop cannot understand it, but presumes, as it is December when he writes, that it will come in the spring. The Bishop's last remark is open to a double meaning, when he says, "Leave it as it is, for he will take it without putting it in barrels."
The Bishop in a more important matter addresses Governor Simpson, and the Governor forwards his letter to York Factory. In this Bishop Provencher thanks him for giving a voyage in the canoes, from Red River to Montreal, to Priest Harper, and for bringing up Sub-Deacon Poiré, a "young man of talent." He also gives hearty thanks for a passage, granted by the Governor on the fur traders' route from the St. Lawrence, to two stonemasons. "I commence," he said, "to dig the foundation of my church to-morrow." He asks for a passage down and up for members of his ecclesiastical staff. He wants from York Factory forty or fifty hoes for Mr. Belcour to use in teaching the Indians to cultivate potatoes and Indian corn, and he naïvely remarks, "while thus engaged, he will at the same time cultivate their spirits and their hearts by the preaching of the Word of God." The eye for business is seen in the Bishop's final remark that he thinks "that the shoes from the Bay will cost much less than those made by the smiths at Red River."
Archdeacon Cochrane, a man of gigantic form and of amazing bonhomie, who has been called the "founder of the Church of England on Red River," writes several interesting letters. Beginning with business he drifts into a friendly talk. One of his letters deals with the supplies for the school he had opened (1831) at St. Andrew's, Red River, another sings the praises of his new church at the rapids: "It is an elegant little church, pewed for three hundred and forty people, and finished in the neatest manner it could be for Red River. The ceiling is an arc of an ellipse, painted light blue. The moulding and pulpit brown; the jambs and sashes of the windows white."
A little of the inner working of the fur-trading system in the predominance of Scottish influence is exhibited by Archdeacon Cochrane in one letter to Hargrave. Referring to Hargrave's promotion to the chief tradership, not yet bestowed, the old clergyman quaintly says, "Are you likely to get another feather in your cap? I begin to think that your name will have to be changed into MacArgrave. A 'mac' before your name would produce a greater effect than all the rest of your merits put together. Can't you demonstrate that you are one of the descendants of one of the great clans?"
Among the correspondence is a neat little note to Hargrave (1826) from Rev. David Jones, the Archdeacon's predecessor, written at Red River, asking his company to a family dinner on the next Monday, at 2 p.m.; and a delicate missive from Acting-Governor Bulger, of Red River, asking Hargrave to accept a small quantity of snuff.
Among Hargrave's correspondents are such notable fur traders as Cuthbert Grant, the leader of the Bois Brûlés, who had settled down on White Horse Plains, on the Assiniboine River, and was the famous captain of the buffalo hunters; and William Conolly, the daring Chief Factor of New Caledonia. Events in Fort Churchill are well described in the extensive correspondence of J. G. McTavish, long stationed there; and good Governors Finlayson and McMillan of Red River are well represented; as well as Alexander Ross, the historian of the Red River affairs. A full account of the wanderings from York Factory to the far distant Pacific slope of Mr. George Barnston, who afterwards was well known in business circles as a resident of Montreal, could be gathered, did time permit, from a most regular correspondence with Hargrave.
Probably the man most after the York Chief Factor's own heart was a good letter writer, John Sieveright, who early became Chief Trader and afterwards Chief Factor in 1846. Sieveright had become acquainted with Hargrave at Sault Ste. Marie. Afterwards he was removed to Fort Coulonge on the Upper Ottawa, but he still kept up his interest in Hargrave and the affairs of Rupert's Land. Sieveright has a play of humour and pleasant banter that was very agreeable to Hargrave. He rallies him about an old acquaintance, the handsome daughter of Fur Trader Johnston, of Sault Ste. Marie, who, it will be remembered, married an Indian princess. He has a great faculty of using what other correspondents write to him, in making up very readable and well written letters to his friends.
For many years Sieveright was at Fort Coulonge, and thus was in touch with the Hudson's Bay Company house at Lachine, the centre of the fur trade on this continent. Every year he paid a visit to headquarters, and had an advantage over the distant traders on the Saskatchewan, Mackenzie, and Nelson Rivers. He, however, seemed always to envy them their lot. Writing of Fort Coulonge, he gives us a picture of the fur trader's life: "This place has the advantage of being so near the civilized world as to allow us to hear now and then what is going on in it; but no society or amusement to help pass the time away. In consequence I cannot help reading a great deal too much – injurious at any time of life – particularly so when on the wrong side of fifty. I have been lately reading John Galt's 'Southernan,' not much to be admired. His characters are mostly all caricatures. If place will be allowed in paper trunk, I shall put that work and 'Laurie Todd' in for your acceptance."
CHAPTER XXXI
THE VOYAGEURS FROM MONTREAL
Lachine, the fur traders' Mecca – The departure – The flowing bowl – The canoe brigade – The voyageur's song – "En roulant ma boule" – Village of St. Anne's – Legend of the Church – The sailor's guardian – Origin of "Canadian Boat Song" – A loud invocation – "A la Claire Fontaine" – "Sing, nightingale" – At the rapids – The ominous crosses – "Lament of Cadieux" – A lonely maiden sits – The Wendigo – Home of the Ermatingers – A very old canal – The rugged coast – Fort William reached – A famous gathering – The joyous return.
Montreal, to-day the chief city of Canada, was, after the union of the Companies, the centre of the fur trade in the New World. The old Nor'-Wester influence centred on the St. Lawrence, and while the final court of appeal met in London, the forces that gave energy and effect to the decrees of the London Board acted from Montreal. At Lachine, above the rapids, nine miles from the city, lived Governor Simpson, and many retired traders looked upon Lachine as the Mecca of the fur trade. Even before the days of the Lachine Canal, which was built to avoid the rapids, it is said the pushing traders had taken advantage of the little River St. Pierre, which falls into the St. Lawrence, and had made a deep cutting from it up which they dragged their boats to Lachine. To the hardy French voyageurs, accustomed to "portage" their cargoes up steep cliffs, it was no hardship to use the improvised canal and reach Lachine at the head of the rapids.
Accordingly, Lachine became the port of departure for the voyageurs on their long journeys up the Ottawa, and on to the distant fur country. Heavy canoes carrying four tons of merchandise were built for the freight, and light canoes, some times manned with ten or twelve men, took the officers at great speed along the route. The canoes were marvels of durability. Made of thin but tough sheets of birch bark, securely gummed along the seams with pitch, they were so strong, and yet so light, that the Indians thought them an object of wonder, and said they were the gift of the Manitou.
The voyageurs were a hardy class of men, trained from boyhood to the use of the paddle. Many of them were Iroquois Indians – pure or with an admixture of white blood. But the French Canadians, too, became noted for their expert management of the canoe, and were favourites of Sir George Simpson. Like all sailors, the voyageurs felt the day of their departure a day of fate. Very often they sought to drown their sorrows in the flowing bowl, and it was the trick of the commander to prevent this by keeping the exact time of the departure a secret, filling up the time of the voyageurs with plenty to do and leaving on very short notice. However, as the cargo was well-nigh shipped, wives, daughters, children, and sweethearts too, of the departing canoe men began to linger about the docks, and so were ready to bid their sad farewells.
In the governor's or chief factor's brigade each voyageur wore a feather in his cap, and if the wind permitted it a British ensign was hoisted on each light canoe. Farewells were soon over. Cheers filled the air from those left behind, and out from Lachine up Lake St. Louis, an enlargement of the St. Lawrence, the brigade of canoes were soon to shoot on their long voyage. No sooner had "le maître" found his cargo afloat, his officers and visitors safely seated, than he gave the cheery word to start, when the men broke out with a "chanson de voyage." Perhaps it was the story of the "Three Fairy Ducks," with its chorus so lively in French, but so prosaic, even in the hands of the poetic McLennan, when translated into English as the "Rolling Ball": —
"Derrière chez nous, il y a un étang
(Behind the manor lies the mere),
En roulant ma boule. (Chorus.)
Trois beaux canards s'en vont baignant.
(Three ducks bathe in its waters clear.)
En roulant ma boule.
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule."
And now the paddles strike with accustomed dash. The voyageurs are excited with the prospect of the voyage, all scenes of home swim before their eyes, and the chorister leads off with his story of the prince (fils du roi) drawing near the lake, and with his magic gun cruelly sighting the black duck, but killing the white one. With falling voices the swinging men of the canoe relate how from the snow-white drake his
"Life blood falls in rubies bright,
His diamond eyes have lost their light,
His plumes go floating east and west,
And form at last a soldier's bed.
En roulant ma boule
(Sweet refuge for the wanderer's head),
En roulant ma boule,
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule."
As the brigade hies on its way, to the right is the purplish brown water of the Ottawa, and on the left the green tinge of the St. Lawrence, till suddenly turning around the western extremity of the Island of Montreal, the boiling waters of the mouth of the Ottawa are before the voyageurs. Since 1816 there has been a canal by which the canoes avoid these rapids, but before that time all men and officers disembarked and the goods were taken by portage around the foaming waters.
And now the village of Ste. Anne's is reached, a sacred place to the departing voyageurs, and here at the old warehouse the canoes are moored. Among the group of pretty Canadian houses stands out the Gothic church with its spire so dear an object to the canoe men. The superstitious voyageurs relate that old Brébœuf, who had gone as priest with the early French explorers, had been badly injured on the portage by the fall of earth and stones upon him. The attendance possible for him was small, and he had laid himself down to die on the spot where stands the church. He prayed to Ste. Anne, the sailors' guardian, and on her appearing to him he promised to build a church if he survived. Of course, say the voyageurs, with a merry twinkle of the eye, he recovered and kept his word. At the shrine of "la bonne Ste. Anne" the voyageur made his vow of devotion, asked for protection on his voyage, and left such gift as he could to the patron saint.
Coming up and down the river at this point the voyageurs often sang the song: —
"Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers très bien montés;"
with the refrain to every verse: —
"A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer,
A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer."
("Under the shady tree I go to play.")
It is said that it was when struck with the movement and rhythm of this French chanson that Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, on his visit to Canada, while on its inland waters, wrote the "Canadian Boat Song," and made celebrated the good Ste. Anne of the voyageurs. Whether in the first lines he succeeded in imitating the original or not, his musical notes are agreeable: —
"Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
"Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time."
Certainly the refrain has more of the spirit of the boatman's song: —
"Row, brothers, row; the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near and the daylight's past."
The true colouring of the scene is reflected in —
"We'll sing at Ste. Anne;"
and
"Ottawa's tide, this trembling moon,
Shall see us float over thy surges soon."
Ste. Anne really had a high distinction among all the resting-places on the fur trader's route. It was the last point in the departure from Montreal Island. Religion and sentiment for a hundred years had consecrated it, and a short distance above it, on an eminence overlooking the narrows – the real mouth of the Ottawa – was a venerable ruin, now overgrown with ivy and young trees, "Château brillant," a castle speaking of border foray and Indian warfare generations ago.
If the party was a distinguished one there was often a priest included, and he, as soon as the brigade was fairly off and the party had settled down to the motion, reverently removing his hat, sounded forth a loud invocation to the Deity and to a long train of male and female saints, in a loud and full voice, while all the men at the end of each versicle made response, "Qu'il me bénisse." This done, he called for a song. None of the many songs of France would be more likely at this stage than the favourite and most beloved of all French Canadian songs, "A la Claire Fontaine."
The leader in solo would ring out the verse —
"A la claire fontaine,
M'en allent promener,
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle,
Que je m'y sois baigné.
("Unto the crystal fountain,
For pleasure did I stray;
So fair I found the waters,
My limbs in them I lay.")
Then in full chorus all would unite, followed verse by verse. Most touching of all would be the address to the nightingale —
"Chantez, rossignol, chantez,
Toi qui as le cœur gai;
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l'ai à pleurer."
("Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou hast a heart so gay;
Thou hast a heart so merry,
While mine is sorrow's prey.")
The most beautiful of all, the chorus, is again repeated, and is, as translated by Lighthall: —
"Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest;
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway."
The brigade swept on up the Lake of Two Mountains, and though the work was hard, yet the spirit and exhilaration of the way kept up the hearts of the voyageurs and officers, and as one song was ended, another was begun and carried through. Now it was the rollicking chanson, "C'est la Belle Françoise," then the tender "La Violette Dandine," and when inspiration was needed, that song of perennial interest, "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre."
A distance up the Ottawa, however, the scenery changes, and the river is interrupted by three embarrassing rapids. At Carillon, opposite to which was Port Fortune, a great resort for retired fur traders, the labours began, and so these rapids, Carillon, Long Sault, and Chute au Blondeau, now avoided by canals, were in the old days passed by portage with infinite toil. Up the river to the great Chaudière, where the City of Ottawa now stands, they cheerfully rowed, and after another great portage the Upper Ottawa was faced.
The most dangerous and exacting part of the great river was the well-known section where two long islands, the lower the Calumet, and the Allumette block the stream, and fierce rapids are to be encountered. This was the pièce de résistance of the canoe-men's experience. Around it their superstitions clustered. On the shores were many crosses erected to mark the death, in the boiling surges beside the portage, of many comrades who had perished here. Between the two islands on the north side of the river, the Hudson's Bay Company had founded Fort Coulonge, used as a depôt or refuge in case of accident. No wonder the region, with "Deep River" above, leading on to the sombre narrows of "Hell Gate" further up the stream, appealed to the fear and imagination of the voyageurs.
Ballad and story had grown round the boiling flood of the Calumet. As early as the time of Champlain, the story goes that an educated and daring Frenchman named Cadieux had settled here, and taken as his wife one of the dusky Ottawas. The prowling Iroquois attacked his dwelling. Cadieux and one Indian held the enemy at bay, and firing from different points led them to believe that the stronghold was well manned. In the meantime, the spouse of Cadieux and a few Indians launched their canoes into the boiling waters and escaped. From pool to pool the canoe was whirled, but in its course the Indians saw before them a female figure, in misty robes, leading them as protectress. The Christian spouse said it was the "bonne Ste. Anne," who led them out of danger and saved them. The Iroquois gave up the siege. Cadieux's companion had been killed, and the surviving settler himself perished from exhaustion in the forest. Beside him, tradition says, was found his death-song, and this "Lament de Cadieux," with its touching and attractive strain, the voyageurs sang when they faced the dangers of the foaming currents of the Upper Ottawa.
The whole route, with its rapids, whirlpools, and deceptive currents, came to be surrounded, especially in superstitious minds, with an air of dangerous mystery. A traveller tells us that a prominent fur trader pointed out to him the very spot where his father had been swept under the eddy and drowned. The camp-fire stories were largely the accounts of disasters and accidents on the long and dangerous way. As such a story was told on the edge of a shadowy forest the voyageurs were filled with dread. The story of the Wendigo was an alarming one. No crew would push on after the sun was set, lest they should see this apparition.
Some said he was a spirit condemned to wander to and fro in the earth on account of crimes committed, others believed the Wendigo was a desperate outcast, who had tasted human flesh, and prowled about at night, seeking in camping-places of the traders a victim. Tales were told of unlucky trappers who had disappeared in the woods and had never been heard of again. The story of the Wendigo made the camping-place to be surrounded with a sombre interest to the traders.
Unbelievers in this mysterious ogre freely declared that it was but a partner's story told to prevent the voyageurs delaying on their journey, and to hinder them from wandering to lonely spots by the rapids to fish or hunt. One of the old writers spoke of the enemy of the voyageurs —
"Il se nourrit des corps des pauvres voyageurs,
Des malheureux passants et des navigateurs."
"He feeds on the bodies of unfortunate men of the river, of unlucky travellers, and of the mariners.")
Impressed by the sombre memories of this fur traders' route, a traveller in the light canoes in fur-trading days, Dr. Bigsby, relates that he had a great surprise when, picking his way along a rocky portage, he "suddenly stumbled upon a young lady sitting alone under a bush in a green riding habit and white beaver bonnet." The impressionable doctor looked upon this forest sylph and doubted whether she was
"One of those fairy shepherds and shepherdesses
Who hereabouts live on simplicity and watercresses."
After confused explanations on the part of both, the lady was found to be an Ermatinger, daughter of the well-known trader of Sault Ste. Marie, who with his party was then at the other end of the portage.
We may now, with the privilege accorded the writer, omit the hardships of hundreds of miles of painful journeying, and waft the party of the voyageurs, whose fortunes we have been following, up to the head of the west branch of the Ottawa, across the Vaz portages, and down a little stream into Lake Nipissing, where there was an old-time fort of the Nor'-Westers, named La Ronde. Across Lake Nipissing, down the French River, and over the Georgian Bay with its beautiful scenery, the voyageurs' brigade at length reached the River St. Mary, soon to rest at the famous old fort of Sault Ste. Marie. Sault Ste. Marie was the home of the Ermatingers, to which the fairy shepherdess belonged.
The Ermatinger family, whose name so continually associates itself with Sault Ste. Marie, affords a fine example of energy and influence. Shortly after the conquest of Canada by Wolfe, a Swiss merchant came from the United States and made Canada his home. One of his sons, George Ermatinger, journeyed westward to the territory now making up Michigan, and, finding his way to Sault Ste. Marie, married, engaged in the fur trade, and died there.
Still more noted than his brother, Charles Oaks Ermatinger, going westward from Montreal, also made Sault Ste. Marie his home. A man of great courage and local influence in the war of 1812, the younger brother commanded a company of volunteers in the expedition from Fort St. Joseph, which succeeded that summer in capturing Michilimackinac. His fur-trading establishment at Sault Ste. Marie was situated on the south side of the river, opposite the rapids. When this territory was taken possession of by the troops of the United States in 1822, the fur trader's premises at Sault Ste. Marie were seized and became the American fort. For some years after this seizure trader Ermatinger had a serious dispute with the United States Government about his property, but finally received compensation. True to the Ermatinger disposition, the trader then withdrew to the Canadian side, retained his British connection, and carried on trade at Sault Ste. Marie, Drummond Island, and elsewhere.
A resident of Sault Ste. Marie informs the writer that the family of Ermatinger about that place is now a very numerous one, "related to almost all the families, both white and red." Very early in the century (1814), a passing trader named Franchère arrived from the west country at the time that the American troops devastated Sault Ste. Marie. Charles Ermatinger then had his buildings on the Canadian side of the river, not far from the houses and stores of the North-West Company, which had been burnt down by the American troops. Ermatinger at the time was living on the south side of the river temporarily in a house of old trader Nolin, whose family, the traveller tells us, consisted of "three half-breed boys and as many girls, one of whom was passably pretty." Ermatinger had just erected a grist mill, and was then building a stone house "very elegant." To this home the young lady overtaken by Dr. Bigsby on the canoe route belonged. Of the two nephews of the doughty old trader of Sault Ste. Marie, Charles and Francis Ermatinger, who were prominent in the fur trade, more anon.
