Karr, Clarence, Hudson’s Bay Company

Nanaimo Historical Society Fonds
Series 2 Sound Recordings

Tape 28 © - Folder 40

Clarence Karr talks about the Hudson Bay Company, ca. 1980

Clarence Karr: When I first talked to Claudia and suggested the Hudson Bay Company on the Coast and as I thought about it more it struck me that people know a lot less about the pre-Hudson Bay era than they know about the Hudson Bay era. So I am going to spend probably more than half the time on that pre-era and sort of give a perspective of the development of the coast in the international scene.
This is, in fact, one of the last areas of the world, the settled world, to be discovered by Europe. And if you look at the geography, there are three ways of getting here. One is to walk across the continent from east to west, the other one is sail down the Atlantic, around the Cape Horn, South American and back up this coast and the third way is to go right around the world.
The three ways happened almost at the same time but this was, from Europe, the most remote part of the coastal world that would be settled if you ignore the South American continent. And not only that but the interest came simultaneously from many areas at one time. The British, for instance, with their detailed charting of the coast with Captain George Vancouver were twenty-eight days earlier in landing up at Bella Coola then Alexander MacKenzie was coming by land from the other side. Remarkable when you think of it, that was in 1793.
Now there are a couple of primary, well one main primary interest and that was finding a short direct route to China. That was an absolute pre-occupation and if you look at the North West Passage and chart the voyages from Denmark and England and so on that attempted through there. There are dozens of them, people like Henry Hudson, of course, who got lost there.
But that was the great pre-occupation of that northern route which sort of freed up the southern powers in Europe to have a little more freedom of concentration on the other ways. Hence, Spain with its Empire in Latin and South America which would extend that empire up here. But Spain too was interested in a way to China. France was interested in a way to China. Jacques Cartier and Champlain when they sailed up the St. Lawrence River were looking for China. And some wit later on, in fact, named the launching post for the Montreal Fur Trade West “lachine” which is China in French and the south shore suburb is still called “Lachine”.
Of course, they didn’t find China. You had very early developed a myth of that great western sea which wasn’t the Pacific but it was great body of water out here that if you just walked over the next hill it would be there you could then you could sail on to the Pacific and into China. And it wasn’t really until one has checked Captain George Vancouver’s detailed charting of this coast that the myth of the Western Sea, in fact, disappeared about the same time as the overland people realized that “no” there was no western sea.
And it is the China trade in spices, silk, porcelain and so on where the money was and the great interest was. That is what they wanted to cash in on. If you get one ship of spices back from the east, you made a lifetime salary. The fur trade pales by comparison.
But even after that the interest was on the sea otter trade, from Russia, from Spain and from Britain after Cook. A sea otter pelt was worth seven time what a beaver pelt was. So again the beaver trade paled by comparison to that, in fact, to the extent that the sea otter is still a protected species and came very to becoming extinct.
Now you get the attacks on this coast, the Russian Empire moving in the eighteenth century down from the North, 1728 is the first primary voyage of Vitus Bering after whom the strait between Alaska and Russia is named. And in the next fifty years, they began to dot the fur trading sea otter coast down the Aleutian Island chain and then down the Alaskan panhandle. Spain in that second half of that eighteenth century too moved up from the south. For instance, San Francisco was founded as a mission station in 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the American nation on the other coast.
And in that same time, Spain was sending exploring missions up the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands long before there was any Brits over here. In fact, Captain Cook came in large part because they knew that the Russians and Spaniards were over here and his penetration in 1778 comes pretty late in the game. Though he did the usual thing and landed and took possession in the name of the King of England. Now he missed most of the coast on the way up for one reason or the other, went back to the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii and was, of course, killed there so that the western sea and all that wasn’t solved by Cook at all.
In fact, the main effect of Cook on the coast would be to bring his sailors into the sea otter trade in the north coast. Significant numbers of the British, in fact, came as a result of that. And in particular, after the publication of Cook’s voyages posthumously in 1784. Publication, the speed with which they came out with books two or three years after the voyage the book out. Widely read and very very influential but then as you see, we move into the last part of that century with the Captain George Vancouver era, the penetration from the land side, you also get the American involvement coming in because the Americas purchased the center of the United States from France in 1803.
And in 1805 sent Lewis and Clark out to see what they could find. Lewis and Clark, of course, continued right to the coast through the Columbia and you see Lewis and Clark names spread all through that period with highways and trails and so on.
And it wasn’t long before Bostonian traders from the States, in fact, were around the coast cashing in on the sea otter trade, as independents.
At this time, the Hudson Bay Company is asleep on Hudson’s Bay, literally. Their first inland post was 1774, with the company founded in 1608. Their first inland post they set up off the bay was 1774, well over a hundred years later. They depended on the Indians to bring the furs down to Hudson and James Bay. And they sent two or three exploring missions inland but they weren’t that interested in the inland at that point, until they got some competition. So they may have been late in the game in terms of being found by Europe but the interest was greater then almost any part of the world once they found us.
The Russians, the British, the Spaniards, dozens, Perez, Hezeta, Quadra, Martina, Alberni and working for Spain Malaspina. Wide ranging too, not just trade, but scientific expeditions. For instance, Alberni was a scientific explorer.
The real significant group, however, was not of these, it was the Montreal traders. And after the conquest, one had a group of people in part from Scotland and England but largely from the thirteen colonies what became the United States that came up to take over the trade from the French after 1760. And some of Canada’s most famous families, the McGill family for instance, was one of those groups which left their fur trade fortune to found McGill University. The Molson family, which needs no introduction to Canada, it continues unlike the McGills. The McGillivray, three brothers, Duncan, Simon, William. Simon McTavish who was the big boss for most of this period.
Some of their names sort of carry through but when the Hudson Bay Company took over from them, they cancelled most of the names so that there are no McGillivray rivers or mountains, although Fort William was named after William McGillivray who was first in charge of Fort William.
But if you follow that through, you see you got Alexander MacKenzie, David Thompson and Simon Fraser who are in this North West Company from Montreal. It is different from the Hudson Bay Company, which was a joint chartered company. The Montreal North West Group was simply a series of agreements that usually renewed every ten years, un-chartered. Which had certain advantages but certain weakness in terms of financing and borrowing in particular.
They were in fact a remarkable group of Canadians, self-assured, aggressive, proud, bigoted, sometimes obnoxious. They centered around the Beaver Club in Montreal, which was created in 1787. And if any of you have been to Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, the main restaurant in there is still called the Beaver Club and all the accruements of the fur trade are hanging around the walls. It is a very expensive restaurant but a very interesting place.
To belong to the club, one had to have wintered in the west in the business of the fur trade and the camaraderie was absolutely fantastic. There were five toasts to start every meal, the President, Vice-President, and Cork Master, the later being the most important post. The Toast to the Mother of Saints, The King, the Fur Trade, Wives and Children and to absent members but you didn’t need toasts to drink. They ate sturgeon and pemmican and beaver tails, a real feast. Sang voyageur songs, which have their roots from the Indian through the French Canadian voyageurs in the French fur trade. Pretended they were paddling canoes, they would get two rows on the floor and going like this, singing and ending in war whoops and often staying until dawn until everyone was sort of laying on the floor blotto.
But this was the group that ran Montreal; you didn’t do anything in Montreal without them. Montreal having been the headquarters of the French trade before this. Now they took over from the French, they took a lot the French Canadians in their employ and the Indian alliances that the French had made, the trading patterns and gradually moved west for a number of reasons, one is that the depletion of the species of fur in the east. And in the fur trade the beavers highlighted but they took everything down to the muskrat. The only thing they left of known fur was the prairie gopher, which took too many to make anything. But muskrat and in fact, lynx was much more sought for instance then beaver was because of the price that lynx gained. Of course, there wasn’t as many lynxes as there were beaver. In part because of the settlement of the American boundary pushed them out of the States from 1783 to 1796 and they had to move further north, in fact, transfer the headquarters from the American side to Fort William.
And in part, a desire to cash in on the China trade and to find the western sea. It is a very strong motivation in them and a as key chain, Peter Pond was one of the Americans who came up, the most lively guy in the Beaver Club and, in fact, he killed two rival white traders in the west. He never got convicted but the second murder destroyed his career in the fur trade but he was 47 then and worn out anyway. [chuckles from the audience] He came back from New York with a volume of Cooks voyages in his hand and started piecing together and that desire to go out. And the French before that with La Verendrye had a desire again to find that western sea. Pond’s junior colleague was Alexander MacKenzie and when Pond was brought back on a second murder charge to Montreal. MacKenzie took over from him but Pond had instilled that great dream in Alexander MacKenzie and when Pond then retires from the trade it is then up to MacKenzie.
Of course, he starts in 1789 with the trip up the, what he thought was the outlet which turned out to be the MacKenzie River which he named the River of Disappointment. He didn’t carry over into the trade, MacKenzie didn’t name the Mackenzie River MacKenzie, neither did Simon Fraser, in fact, Thompson named the Fraser River for Fraser and Fraser the Thompson River for Thompson. Tit for tat kind of thing. And then, of course, 1793 MacKenzie came largely overland from the Peace to Bella Coola area again not finding, he found the delineation of the coast but not a viable route to the west.
By that time, they also want a transport network. The Hudson’s Bay Company denied the North West Company access through Hudson’s Bay and the cost of shipping from Montreal as they moved further west was becoming greater and greater and they wanted another way again of transport in that was shorter.
Now in the same time, in the interval, you had the publication of Vancouver’s voyages in 1801, which influenced, sort of the next round. And it comes through Duncan McGillivray, one of the three brothers, who is in the more southern area around present day Banff. His assistant was David Thompson. Thompson had been with the Hudson Bay Company and he had left the company after the first term of service because they wouldn’t let him explore and map which he was a self-trained surveyor and good one. Remarkable man. Thompson traveled about 55,000 miles in western North America and mapped it all. He created in the wall in Fort William, headquarters of the fur trade, a great big wall map and every time he came back he would add a new section of detail to it. And if you look at map of his voyages, the red lines that criss cross the entire North West here and the prairie area, are just amazing.
So, Thompson then would in the early years of the nineteenth century finally after several delays get to the mouth of the Columbia to find the American flag flying. For which some people have never forgiven David Thompson, though I don’t think it makes any difference at all. It was the Pacific Fur Company, a subsidiary of the American Fur Company of the Astor family that was there but it was only there for two and a half years.
Meanwhile, in the north things had gotten transferred to Simon Fraser also of the North West Company. Fraser would found the first post in British Columbia on that end as Thompson did the first fur trading post in the south of British Columbia and explored right over through the Kootenays into the Okanagan.
For instance, Fort George, now Prince George, set up in 1807. 1808 Fraser descended the river, which he though when he started out was the Columbia, and when he took a latitude reading he knew that it wasn’t the Columbia but another river which would bear his name. But one trip down the Fraser is all anyone ever wanted in their live. And it again doesn’t provide the access in fact, what the active accomplished was an access route and it has not been stressed enough in the history. It was the Columbia and what they would do, they would go up the Columbia to the Okanagan River, I don’t have a map with me, I hope you have a good visual image of the west. Jump Okanagan lakes up to Kamloops and then in that area there is a bit of pack trailing with horses that is necessary to get to the upper reaches of the Fraser to Fort George and so on and carry the trade on through that way. And that was a supply route and it worked.
So it is the Montreal group that opens the whole northwest to the fur trade. That made the alliances with the Indians, brought in Iroquois from the east to work in the trade as Simon Fraser had both French Canadians and Iroquois with him on his trip.
And, also, that opened up from the 1790’s the China trade. The only successful portion of the whole China trade in fact that it happened was the North West Company largely working out of Boston but for instance Alexander MacKenzie in one year himself chartered on behalf of the company two ships to China. Taking furs that way and bring back porcelain, silk and spices this way.
Now there was a big fur trade war between the North Wester’s and Hudson Bay, which Hudson’s Bay won. And there is a merger in 1821, which is really an absorption because the North West Company simply disappears, they keep an office in Montreal but for all intents and purposes they are running out of London, England with Hudson’s Bay and the coast here with Fort George at the mouth of the Columbia being the headquarters of the trade on this particular coast.
But most of the coast, the trade routes and the whole thing had been handed sort of on a platter to the Hudson Bay Company by the North West Montreal traders. The competition sort of evaporates. Russia had some problems; they agreed not to go below 54-40 pretty much in the early 1820’s. And 54-40 is the southern border of the Alaska Panhandle. But the Russians are still viewed with skeptical eyes. Spain withdrew not so much because of any kind of British navel or other pressure, they had problems at home, they had problems in Mexico and in California. They weren’t getting support from Spain, financially or otherwise. And besides that they hated the climate. I think you can appreciate that living at Nootka as opposed to living in San Diego, I mean there is really no choice is there now. [chuckles from the audience]
Just the same way the British would complain bitterly about the post life on the North coast after the Hudson Bay Company set up post. It was hell, it was lonely, it was isolated and it rained always.
Now there is no era of monopoly trade of the Hudson’s Bay Company, one gets conservation practices, no summer killing, letting the young survive with mothers, the only exception to that was a George Simpson decision south of the Columbia River and they razed that area they took everything out in a deliberate policy. Simpson said it’s going to go to the States anyway, we might as well leave them nothing. And that centered on Peter Ogden’s work in the Snake River area. The Snake is not a very famous river, some of you may remember Evil Knievel didn’t make it across a few years ago. [chuckles] Since the fur trade it is the most important thing that has happened to the Snake, although they run rafts groups down it now.
But you see in this era of the trade, most of the decisions are really made through the corporate structure of the company. Which means London, England with the board and the governor of the company in Canada. Which for most of this period is Sir George Simpson. Nicknamed by some “the Little Emperor”.
Now the names that kind of stick out on the coast are John McLoughlin, who was the first head of trade on the coast out of Fort George and the mouth of the Columbia. His successor in 1846 was James Douglas.
But there were many other people, like Roderick Finlayson and so on. Who were chief factors and chief traders up and down the coast. For instance, when Fort Langley was set up in 1827, it had a chief trader who basically developed it without reference to Fort George. Decision to relocate to Vancouver Island was not made at Fort George, it was made in London. The Hudson Bay’s presence and profit in the coastal section and you have two sections. The South is the Columbian Department and the North Interior is the Caledonian Department, centered around Prince George. It wasn’t making a great deal of money, after the merger in 1821, it was over staffed, miss-managed, the food columns were immense. The traders had not acquired a great like for salmon and there wasn’t much else. So people actually literally almost starved to death in the Caledonian Department of the trade in the nineteenth century.
On the coast here, because they had ship access, were totally dependent pretty well on the European food. Simpson came for the first time, McLoughlin was sent 1823 to head up the ship, Simpson came in 1824 and couldn’t believe much of what he saw. He cut the manpower in half, for instance, after he was here in both Departments. Cleaned out the miss-management and probably sent better people. This had sort of been the Siberia of the fur trade, if you got in trouble with the boss you were sent here because it was out of the way and you were out of one’s hair. Well, Simpson did a bit of that on the coast here.
Simpson had great hopes, in fact, there was more room for expansion here then anywhere else in the whole trade. The bulk, the lion’s share, three quarters of the profit came from Athabasca; that northern Alberta into northern BC above the Peace, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba area. Basically, you see the colder the climate the richer, the thicker the fur but also that you need a certain kind of wooded area for animals to be in great quantity and that was the key area, in fact, in Canada.
The potential was really in many ways never fulfilled here in part because of geography and in part because of inaccessibility. You couldn’t get into all the waterway areas easily and hence there were many areas the Hudson’s Bay Company simply couldn’t get into in present day B.C. And also because of management decisions in some ways, one decision on his 1824 trip was to create another post, which would be Fort Langley. The site was selected in 1824 by Simpson but not set up until 1827.