Gamesters of the Wilderness - Part I

...Twilight of the long June night - the 18th, almost the longest day in the year - had deepened into the white stillness that precedes dawn, when two forms took shape in the thicket of underbrush behind the fort; and there stepped forth, clad in buckskin cap-a-pie, musket over shoulder, war-hatchet, power-horn, dagger, pistol in belt, and unsheathed sword aglint in hand, two French wood-lopers, the far-famed coureurs de bois, whose scalping raids were to strike terror from Louisiana to Hudson's Bay...

No Robin Hoods of legend ever lived in more complete security than those "Gentlemen Adventurers Trading in Hudson's Bay" for whom Prince Rupert had secured from his cousin, King Charles, in 1670, complete monopoly of all furs north and westward of Hudson's Bay. A thousand miles of juniper swamps and impassable cataracts cut the Hudson's Bay fur traders off from the fur traders of New France to the south. To the west was impenetrable and unknown wilderness. To the north and east for eight months of the year was an impassable barrier of ice floe and berg and those elemental frozen foes to human presence.

For fifteen years after their organization the Gentlemen Adventurers of England - the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, a company numbering among its patrons King Charles II, Prince Rupert, General Munck, the Duke of York, the Duke of Marlborough, and a host of other worthies ranging from the nobility down to the goldsmiths and merchant princes of London - slumbered in security on the margin of a frozen sea. Charles Fort with its stone bastions on Rupert's River - named after King and Prince who secured the charter - quickly sent offshoots to Moose River on the west, Albany (named after an Albany far south), and Nelson (the modern York), which drained all the furs westward to the Rocky Mountains. Rupert and Moose and Albany each yearly collected three thousand five hundred beaver pelts, worth in modern money one dollar and a half each, not to mention twice as many pelts of otter and mink and marten and ermine and sable. To the north, Nelson (York) sent out in a single year as much as one hundred thousand dollars' worth of beaver. "The Gentlemen Adventurers of England Trading in Hudson's Bay" had found a gold-mine rich as Spanish El Dorado.

To be sure, Radisson, the Frenchman, who had helped to found the company with Prince Rupert, had gone over to the French fur traders one year, trading Nelson (York), bag and baggage, to the French Company of the North; but Radisson had become a British subject again and traded these forts back to England. He was in the employment of the company. Radisson was safe. To be sure, the ships of the French Fur Company had continued to come to the bay; but the French fur traders demanded four beaver for a musket, where the English demanded only two; and so those French fur-ships went back to Quebec empty of cargo. Two of the French fur-ships, meeting the Merchant of Perpetuana trapped in the ice-floes of the north, had scuttled the Hudson's Bay ship of provisions, captured master, mate, and crew, cast all in a dungeon on bread and water for eleven months in Quebec, where Edward Humes, the captain, died, and the rest were sold to life-long slavery in Martinique, whence only Smithsend, the mate, escaped. Sieur Pere, a gay adventurer from New France, had come down to the bay overland from the Great Lakes, with three comrades, to spy on the English fur-traders for the French company; but the young seigneur had been given food and a hearty Godspeed from the English, and having deliberately let his canoe float off to sea while he slept, so that he could not be sent away, had been clapped with one comrade into the fur-fort of Albany, while the two other adventurers were put on Charlton Island to earn their living hunting. The two adventurers had escaped to the mainland on a raft by night, and fleeing to Canada, a thousand miles by swamp and forest, had told a story of Pere's imprisonment that set the fire-eaters of New France in a flame. But all unknowing, the Gentlemen Adventurers of England slumbered secure on the margin of their frozen sea.

Like a bolt from the blue came the bold raiders of Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville into the midst of this security.

It was one of the long June nights, 1686, when twilight of the north merges with dawn. Fourteen cannon in all protruded from the embrasures of the four stone bastions round little Moose Factory to the southwest of the bay. The eighteen-foot pickets of the palisaded square wall were everywhere punctured with holes for musketry defence. In one bastion were three thousand pounds of powder. In another, twelve civilian soldiers slept. In a third were stored furs. The fourth bastion served as kitchen, and across the middle of the courtyard, forty by forty feet, was the two-story stone house and residence of the chief factor. The sentinel had shot the strong iron bolts of the main gates facing the waterway; but so secure did he feel of the impossibility of attack that he had lain down to sleep, wrapped in a blanket, without even loading the cannon it was his duty to guard. Twilight of the long June night - the 18th, almost the longest day in the year - had deepened into the white stillness that precedes dawn, when two forms took shape in the thicket of underbrush behind the fort; and there stepped forth, clad in buckskin cap-a-pie, musket over shoulder, war-hatchet, powder-born, dagger, pistol in belt, and unsheathed sword aglint in hand, two French wood-lopers, the far-famed coureurs des bois, whose scalping raids were to strike terror from Louisiana to Hudson's Bay. At first glance the two newcomers might have been marauding Iroquois come this outrageous distance over swamp and cataract form their own fighting ground. Closer scrutiny showed them to be young French noblemen, Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville, age twenty-four, and his brother Sainte-Helene, trained to the wild woods of Montreal, to the roving life of the wood-loper, to pillage and raid and ambuscade. Born in Montreal in 1661 and schooled to all the wilderness perils of the struggling colony's early life, Pierre le Moyne, one of nine sons of Charles le Moyne, of Montreal, became the Robin Hood of American wilds.

Sending his brother Sainte-Helene round one side of the picketed walls to peer through the embrasures of the moonlit fortress, Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville skirted round the other side himself and quickly made the discovery that not one of the cannon was loaded. The tompion was in every muzzle. Scarcely a cat's-paw of wind dimpled the waters of the bay, smooth as silk.

With a quick glance Iberville and his brother took in every detail of the situation. Then they melted back into the pallid half-light like shadows. In a trice a hundred forms had taken shape in the mist - sixty-six Indians decked in all the war-gear of savage glory from head-dress and vermilion cheeks to naked, read-stained limbs lithe as a tiger, smooth and supple as satin. Sixty-six Indians and thirty-three half-wild French soldiers, gay in all the regimentals of French pomp, commanded by old Chevalier de Troyes, veteran of a hundred wars, now commissioned to demand the release of Monsieur Pere from the forts of the English fur traders. Beside de Troyes stood de la Chesnay, Head of the Northern Company of Fur Traders in Quebec, only too glad of this chance to raid the forts of rival traders in time of peace. And well to the fore, cross in hand, head bared, the Resuit Sylvie, come to rescue the souls of northern heathendom from hell.

Impossible as it may seems, these hundred intrepid adventurers had come overland from Montreal. What did the incursion of these French raiders mean? It meant that they had set out in mid-winter on a voyage men hardly dared in summer. Without waiting for the ice to break up, they started from Montreal in March. No tents were carried; only the blanket, haversack fashion, tied to each man's back. Bivouac was under the stars. No provision but what each blanket carried! No protection but the musket on shoulder, the war-axe and powder-horn and pistol in belt! No reward but the vague promise of loot from the English wagwamming - as the Indians say - on the Northern Bay! A march of six hundred miles through trackless forests in midwinter; then down the maelstrom sweep of torrents swollen by spring thaw for three hundred miles to the juniper swamps of windfall and dank rotting forest growth around the bay!

It had been no play, this fur-trade raid; and now Iberville was back from his scouting, having seen with his own eyes that the English fur traders were really wigwamming on the bay. Hastily all burdens of blankets and food and clothes were cast aside and cached...

From Gamesters of the Wilderness: The Hudson's Bay Fur Company and the French Raiders 1670-1697, by Agnes Christina Laut

Ox Cart Trails: WOODS BRANCH

The oxcart trail on the open prairie. Photo courtesy Wadena County Historical Society 

History of the Woods Branch of the Red River Trails (1844-1870)
Written By: John Crandall, Special to Wadena Pioneer Journal | Oct 30th 2019 - 7am.

Commencing in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada the Red River Trail squirreled its way down the Red River Valley and down the Minnesota River Valley to Mendota and later St. Paul, Minn. Thus began a half century of commerce between the Selkirk colonies in Manitoba, Canada and St. Paul.

In 1812 Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk was granted thousands of square miles of land in Manitoba where the Assiniboine River and the Red River meet (Winnipeg) by the Hudson Bay Company (HBC), which had been founded in England in 1670. Portions of this land grant extended West and Southwest into what we know today as Minnesota and North Dakota. Selkirk dreamed of establishing an agricultural colony for Scottish settlers in the New World. But the Earle’s dreams would not continue peacefully. It only infuriated the Northwest Fur Company.

With the British traders entrenched in the region around Hudson Bay, the struggle for the soul of the interior of North America and the riches provided by the lucrative fur trade industry began.

The French traders and voyageurs began exploring the Great Lakes and west at the start of the 18th century, establishing many fur posts along the waterways that followed the future Canadian and American boundaries. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ending the French and Indian War (1754-1763) France gave up over a century of control of Canada to England.

With the French relinquishing their claim to Canada, exploration and trade began to expand into the interior of America. First, in 1784 came the reorganization of the Northwest Fur Company (NWC), which sought to challenge the monopoly the Hudson Bay Company had on the fur trade industry. Between 1783 and 1821, there was an immense increase in the amount of bloodshed and open hostility between the HBC and NWC ending only after the two companies merged in 1821. Secondly, came President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Even after the end of the American Revolution, the northern boundary of the newly formed American States was unclear. The British continued their incursions into the Red River Valley. It wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that America put a total end to the British occupancy of the United States. In order to stop British traders from enticing the Native Americans to continue trading with them, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun convinced Congress to build a contingency of forts along the Mississippi River and West to the Yellowstone River to protect American interest. In 1819 construction of Fort Snelling commenced.

"On the 3rd of August, 1818 - three weeks after the arrival of the missionaries - clouds of grasshoppers descended on the fields, and in a trice devoured nearly everything. The few grains of wheat remaining barely sufficed to seed the garden-bed farms the following spring. To add to the misfortune, the grasshoppers deposited their eggs, thus insuring another scourge the next year..." 

"...the grasshoppers had again devastated the fields, this time destroying all vegetation, even to the bark of the trees."

- Father Provencher  

During the first two decades of the 19th century the Red River colonists became more disgruntled with the Hudson Bay’s monopolistic control of trade. In addition, several years of grasshopper blights and the inability to obtain seed for planting prompted the residents of the Red River colonies to begin looking south to Fort Snelling. So, in 1821 the first group of Red River settlers migrated to Fort Snelling and were allowed to settle on the Fort Snelling military reservation. This was to be the first of numerous migrations that would use the Red River Trails as an avenue for reaching and establishing trade with American traders at Mendota.

In 1823 Major Stephen Long reached the settlement of Pembina (in what is now North Dakota) while on an explorative mission to determine where the 49th parallel lay. Upon determining the boundary between Canada and U.S., it became clear that Pembina now resided on U.S. soil. So, the tie that binds was broken between the Red River Colonies and Hudson Bay Company.

Throughout the first part of the 19th century little trade flowed south along the Red River and Minnesota River Valleys. The trickle of traffic that did traverse the Red River Trail during this time frame were seeking a safe haven from the horrific violence between HBC and NWFC. Once migration between Pembina and Fort Snelling began in full swing it would peak around 1826, but continued well into the 1830s and 1840s.

"...the fight for the fur trade was suicidal. As competition with the Hudson's Bay Company intensified, the Nor'Westers kidnapped Indian trappers, laid siege to bay posts, terrorized women and children. Dozens of bay men were murdered. The solution, Mackenzie said, was to merge the two companies before they destroyed one other."

- Empire of the Bay

When given their royal charter in 1670 the Hudson Bay Company was given total monopolistic control of all commerce occurring within their jurisdiction. As the population in the Red River Valley increased, HBC began placing higher prices on their goods and less compensation for the furs traded. In time, the Red River Colonist began to seek other sources for conducting trade.

Upon arrival of the American Fur Company in the valley, the Red River Colonies’ chance came. With the American Fur Company absorbing the holdings of the Columbia Fur Company in 1827, the American Fur Company acquired full control of the fur posts that the Columbia Fur Company had along the Minnesota and South Dakota border linking them to the Red River Valley.

During the 1830s, with an increasing growth of settlers in the Red River region and increased production of furs and agricultural products the Hudson Bay Company could not keep pace with the economy. This overflow of productivity induced the Colony traders to seek closer connections to the traders located at Mendota.

With an ever-present increase of settlers in and around Fort Snelling, the American government became increasingly concerned. With negotiation of the Treaty of 1837 with the Dakota and Chippewa, large tracts of land were opened east of the Mississippi River for white settlement. With increasing concerns about the number of settlers homesteading on military land, the government, in 1840, concluded a survey of their holdings around Fort Snelling. The results showed many Red River colonists residing on a military reservation. In the end, the Federal Government expelled them from their homes, forcing them across the river to what was to become St. Paul, and eventually the commercial hub for Red River trade.

The Red River Oxcart trail began its journey south from Winnipeg linking with Pembina and then followed a network of trails south on both sides of the Red River and eventually crossing the continental divide at Lake Traverse. Upon arriving at Big Stone Lake, the trail turned eastward and followed the Minnesota River into St. Paul.

The Valley of the Red River traversed by traders from Pembina to St. Paul was land that had been in contention between the Dakota and Chippewa for over a century. The incursion of the Ojibway into Minnesota and Dakota land began in the 1700s. By the early 1800s the Sioux had been pushed south of the Minnesota River. The Dakota still claimed the Long Prairie and Sauk Valleys as their hunting grounds after tragic losses.

With trade beginning to increase between the Red River colonies and Mendota, this area became an area of concern for the Federal Government. In 1825, the administration tried to work out a demarcation line between Dakota and Chippewa holdings. The line ran from St. Paul on the Minnesota River northwesterly to present day Moorhead, Minn., but to no avail.

As hostilities between the Chippewa and the Dakota fluctuated over the decades it became apparent to the Red River traders that alternate routes should be established in order to avoid conflicts. The middle route was established early in the 1840’s starting at Breckenridge, Minn., and heading east, skirting the northern boundary of Dakota, holding in Minnesota, and followed the Sauk Valley, terminating at St. Cloud, Minn., on the Mississippi River. After fording the river, the Middle trail followed the east bank into St. Paul.

A photo of a group of oxcart travelers taking a rest along the Red River Trail. Photo courtesy Wadena County Historical Society

Although easy to follow, the Minnesota Valley trail and the Middle Branch of the Red River trail traversed land held by the Dakota. Most of the Teamsters that handled the oxcarts were “Mixed Blood” or “Metis” with ancestral ties to the Ojibway who were long standing enemies of the Dakota. One such conflict occurred in 1844 when a group of Metis attacked a Dakota hunting party and killed them.

As news of the attack reached St. Paul, a group of Red River traders who had arrived earlier became stranded in St. Paul. So, in 1844, Peter Garrioch or William Halliet, depending upon which source you read, decided that they needed to find a safer route, which would take them through Chippewa lands thus avoid any contact with the Dakota. Following the Mississippi River, the party traveled northwest to the Village of Crow Wing situated on the Mississippi River and across from the mouth of the Crow Wing River. Here, fording the Mississippi, they began their trail following the Crow Wing River. Upon fording the Crow Wing River at the sight of what would become “Old Wadena” they followed the Leaf River west. The only real forested area of the Woods Branch was the region from Detroit Lakes to Crow Wing Village.

Over the years some changes were made to the Woods Trail. In 1855, Congress passed an appropriation of $10,000 for building a military road from Fort Ripley, established in 1848, to improve travel conditions. The original survey of the route took place in 1858 and followed the Woods Branch all the way to Pembina.

At a point known as Grand Marais, a swampy area some 8 miles east of “Old Wadena,” completion of the road halted because the government had not appropriated enough funds for completion of the route.

In 1857 an economic panic hit the United States. To improve trade relations with the Red River Valley settlements, a study of steamboat navigation on the Red River was taken. The study reported that the Red River could be open for steamboat navigation for five months. The result of this study prompted the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce to post a $1,000 bonus to any man who could get a steamboat on the Red River. Anson Northrup proposed building a boat for such a purpose. In the fall of 1857 Northrup’s vessel, the North Star made an extensive excursion up the Mississippi to Pokegama Falls, (near present day Grand Rapids, MN). Upon returning down the Mississippi River, the North Star ended up being docked at Crow Wing Village. There Northrup began the construction of the steamer he would transport over land to the Red River. He loaded the machinery, cabin, furniture and lumber to build the boat, on 34 teams and with sixty men started for Lafayette on the Red River. (“Opening of the Red River of the North to Commerce and Civilization” MN Historical Society collections, Vol III, 1898). The route Northrup used for transporting his boat was the Woods Branch of the Red River Oxcart Trail, which took them right through “Old Wadena”. The “Anson Northrup” was launched in the spring of 1858.

During the 1860s, commerce along the Woods Branch dwindled and when the Northern Pacific Railroad company extended its railway from Brainerd through Wadena County in 1871, the era of the oxcarts was dead.

Profile: Major George Seton

Men's Barracks, Lower Fort Garry - Winter of 1857-1858

The Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment men's barracks as seen from the officer’s mess room window at Lower Fort Garry during the Winter of 1857-1858. Following incursions into Canadian territory by American troops, a company of this regiment was sent from Montreal in July 1857 via York Factory. It was at Fort Garry by early October and remained in garrison until 1861. Watercolour by Major George Seton the detachment's commander. (Library and Archives Canada, C-001066)

Seton was one of many military personnel that passed through our area during the 19th century. When researching him in response to a print I recently acquired, I came across a research project being done on his family line by a descendant of his, Nancy Anderson. She has kindly been corresponding with me and has shared a bit of information on Seton, which is hard to come by as you might suspect. Although Seton does surface peripherally in the historic record in several documents, it was mostly in records that mention him in passing - i.e., listing rank/position/location, or he participated in such and such event, etc.

On her website, she states:

...Seton [of the 93rd Highlanders and Royal Canadian Rifles] came to Lower Fort Garry (Red River) in advance of his troops and, in July 1857, met John Palliser of the Palliser Expedition there.

Blackfoot parfleche¹, around AD 1860
From the Canadian Plains, North America collection

She later wrote me with more specific information as regards the intersection of Major Seton with our area, stating:

...from The Palliser Expedition, an account of John Palliser's British North American Exploring Expedition 1857-1860, by Irene M. Spry comes this - "John Palliser and his men set out south, on horseback, from Upper Fort Garry [Winnipeg] to Pembina² Fort in the United States, along the banks of the Red River in July 1857. There was the usual scurry and bustle, swearing and shouting, attendant on a large party setting off from the fort...[I've omitted some description]...The civilized society in question included not only Mr. Swanston of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had received them so hospitably and helped them greatly with their preparations, but also Major Seton, who had come overland to Red River in advance of the troops then on their way from Canada by the Hudson's Bay route, and Mr. Johnson, the Recorder of Assiniboia..... These two gentlemen saw Palliser and his colleagues ten miles on their way next morning. Nine miles farther on, the explorers caught up with the slower carts, just as the men were pitching camp for the night..."

She also said, "The Hudson's Bay Archives information on Sixth Reg of Foot Records is on Reel 4M145, E.67/2-5. I haven't read it yet and don't know what's in it. Probably you can request it through your library or local archives...and there's a Beaver Magazine article, A Soldier at Fort Garry, by George F. G. Stanley, Autumn 1957 that talks about the troops coming to Fort Garry. They made Fort Garry (from Hudson's Bay) on Oct. 13, It says, 'One Major Seton of our Corps had been sent in advance via U.S. Route in order to see preparations made for our accommodation, and right nobly he had done it. Several of the large Stores Houses had been fitted up for the comfort and convenience of the men, and a Separate apartment for each married man.' I know that George Seton later formed part of the government of Assiniboia, but I can't remember what that government was called. That's about all on Seton [as regards our area...]"

¹ - Parfleches are rectangular rawhide containers that fold over like envelopes. They were used in the nineteenth century particularly for holding pemmican, ground dried buffalo meat mixed with fat and berries. This food was vital in the fur trade, where a high calorie diet was required by canoe men.

On the northern Plains, moccasin soles were sometimes made from sections of painted rawhide, re-used either from an older pair or from parfleches made as gifts.

This parfleche forms part of the earliest documented collection of material from the Canadian Plains in The British Museum. It was acquired from a soldier, Major George Seton (1819-1905). Seton was also an artist, trained in creating panoramas for military purposes. He served in the Royal Canadian Rifles from 1853-58, the last two years stationed at Fort Garry, Manitoba (Rupert's Land), at the behest of the Hudson's Bay Company who had requested protection from supposed American and native threats. At the end of his posting he participated in two expeditions, one British and one Canadian, sent out to report on the Canadian Plains. He collected this parfleche while on the British expedition, which reported that the plains of Saskatchewan and Alberta were suitable for farming.

J.C.H. King, First peoples, first contacts: (London, The British Museum Press, 1999)

From British Museum collection: North America (Room 26)

² - "...On 21 July the expedition started on its journey across the plains, heading south up Red River to the American boundary, where they made careful observations in conjunction with a chance-met American land surveyor, Charles W. Iddings. From Pembina (N. Dak.) the party travelled west via St Joseph’s (Walhalla)..." - From Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on John Palliser. FYI - Charles W. Iddings was a surveyor living over the post office in St. Paul in 1856. He eventually became associated with Joseph S. Sewall of St. Paul, the engineer who built the Wabasha Street bridge. During this connection the two men published a map of Minnesota which is known as the Sewall and Iddings map of 1860.

Map from Muskets to Missiles: A Military History of Minnesota by Virginia Brainard Kunz

Agnes Christina Laut

I have come to know the author below quite well, and highly respect her thoroughness regarding the history that surrounds her stories, many historically true in themselves. A great deal of them involve our region and the early time periods of the fur trade. She makes that time and the people of it come alive. I can't recommend her enough to those wanting to know more about our history...

Agnes Christina Laut was a prolific author of fiction and popular history in the first decades of the twentieth century. Her success can be gauged by the extensive republication of her books during her lifetime and their current availability in most libraries today. She was born in Stanley township, Huron County, Ontario, on 11 February 1871 to John Laut, a merchant from Glasgow, and Eliza George Laut, a daughter of Rev. James George, D.D., vice-principal of Queen's University from 1853 to 1857. When Laut was two years old her family moved to Winnipeg, where the future author became well acquainted with western frontier life. At the age of fifteen she completed normal school, and although she was too young to receive a teaching certificate, she acted as a substitute in a prairie school. Several years of teaching in Winnipeg preceded her enrollment at the University of Manitoba. Because of ill health Laut withdrew after her second year and turned to writing, sending her first articles to the New York Evening Post and the Manitoba Free Press. From 1895 to 1897 the latter employed her as an editorial writer, after which she enjoyed two years of "tramp life," crossing the continent to Newfoundland and contributing articles to American, English, and Canadian periodicals.

Laut's first novel, Lords of the North: A Romance of the Northwest (1900), was an instant success, readily meeting English Canada's desire for a national literature drawing on the country's colorful history and modeled on the fiction of Sir Walter Scott. It dramatizes the struggle between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company for control of the northwest fur trade as a contest between two feudal robber barons. The noble characters share a code of chivalry, refusing to yield to "the witching fascinations of a wild life in a wild, free, tameless land"; the Indians represent the threat of raw wilderness to the veneer of civilization. Like its successor, Heralds of Empire: Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade (1902), this romantic novel bears evidence of its author's careful research and her desire to enliven Canadian history. The two books share problems of characterization and plot, as well as clumsy archaic diction. Laut's fascination with the past was to find better expression in her many subsequent works of nonfiction.

In 1901 Laut moved to Wassaic, in Upstate New York, for her health and to be nearer her publishers. This was to be her home for the rest of her life, although she continued to spend her summers in the Canadian Rockies and Selkirk Mountains and to write extensively about Canada. Some indication of her financial success can be inferred from her 1902 contract with her Canadian publisher, William Briggs, from whom she could command the high royalty rate of twenty percent for The Story of the Trapper (1902), and from her purchase of Wildwood, her country estate.

Laut's best and best-selling books were (in her own words) intended "To re-create the shadowy figures of the heroic past, to clothe the dead once more in flesh and blood, to set the puppets of the play in life's great dramas again upon the stage of action." Drawing upon her extensive research into published and manuscript sources, including the private records of the Hudson's Bay Company, she reworked the same stories of early North American explorers and fur traders (Radisson and des Groseilliers, La Vérendrye, Hudson, Hearne, Lewis and Clark, Vancouver) into scores of magazine articles which formed the basis of more than a dozen books. Those intended for younger readers include three short books in George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton's Chronicles of Canada series (The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North [1914], Pioneers of the Pacific Coast: A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters [1915], The Cariboo Trail: A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia [1916]) and a 1930 series of three school history texts for the Ryerson Press. Her major works of history for adults include The Story of the Trapper, part of which was later incorporated into The Fur Trade of America (1921), Pathfinders of the West: Being the Thrilling Story of the Adventures of the Men Who Discovered the Great Northwest (1904), Vikings of the Pacific: The Adventures of the Explorers Who Came from the West, Eastward (1905), The Conquest of the Great Northwest: Being the Story of the Adventurers of England Known as the Hudson's Bay Company (1908), and Cadillac, Knight Errant of the Wilderness, Founder of Detroit, Governor of Louisiana from the Great Lakes to the Gulf (1931). The Conquest of the Great Northwest: Being the Story of the Adventurers of England Known as the Hudson's Bay Company was financially "her most satisfactory book," she claimed in 1912.

As a journalist, Laut traveled extensively through the Canadian West and American Southwest, writing about her travels in articles and books which plead the cause of wilderness conservation. A personal, anecdotal style characterizes Through Our Unknown Southwest, the Wonderland of the United States--Little Known and Unappreciated--The Home of the Cliff Dweller and the Hopi, the Forest Ranger and the Navajo--The Lure of the Painted Desert (1913) and Enchanted Trails of Glacier Park (1926), as well as The Romance of the Rails (1929). An outspoken Canadian nationalist, she wrote Canada, the Empire of the North: Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom (1909) to support the popular notion that the twentieth century belonged to Canada. In 1912 her reputation as a national spokesperson led to an assignment from the Toronto-based magazine Saturday Night to investigate labor and racial issues in British Columbia. Her analysis, republished as a pamphlet, Am I my Brother's Keeper (1913), and later included in The Canadian Commonwealth (1915), summarizes some of the prevailing tensions of her era. Social issues continued to concern her, and in 1919 Laut traveled to Mexico as secretary to the Childhood Conservation League. She reported her findings to a Senate subcommittee in Washington.

From a literary point of view, her weakest works are her last three volumes of fiction. The Freebooters of the Wilderness (1910) and The New Dawn (1913), both set in the United States of her own day, are contrived thesis novels. The first supports the efforts of the United States Forest Service to conserve the wilderness against rampant exploitation, while the second denounces the self-interest and underhandedness of both big business and the international labor movement. The Quenchless Light (1924) marks Laut's return to historical fiction, in this case to the time of the early Christian apostles.

Laut's record of publishing success and social action represents the fields of activity that opened to North American women for her generation. Following her death (on 15 November 1936), the American Historical Review (January 1937) opined that her historical writing in particular had "substantial merit." - From the Dictionary of Literary Biography

The Pemmican War

There have been some strange instigators for war over the course of human history. In North America, for example, a small war was fought over a food called Pemmican...and part of it was fought in our neck of the woods...
For a brief period, the momentum was with the HBC, who in 1816 rashly seized and captured the NWC post at Pembina, and later the NWC Fort Gibraltar at The Forks. This continuing conflict eventually led to the massacre of Hudson’s Bay Company Governor Semple and twenty of his men at Seven Oaks on 19 June 1816.

From the 1814 Pemmican War

Largely because of the threatened hostilities, on 7 November two boat-loads of Selkirk Settlers were sent south to Fort Daer on the Red River at the present site of Pembina, immediately south of the 49th parallel. (Fort Daer, built in 1812 by the first group of Red River settlers, had been named for Lord Selkirk, Baron Daer.)

From The Sacking of Peter Fidler’s Brandon House, 1816

January 8: Miles MacDonnell, (1769-1828) of the Hudson Bay Company, under authority of the British/Scots, prohibited the export of provisions from Pembina (Red River). No persons whatsoever shall take any provisions, either flesh, fish or vegetables procured or raised within the said Territory, without a license from the Governor, and whosoever shall be detected in attempting to convey shall be taken into custody and prosecuted as the law in such case directs. As an example, he seized the pemmican at the Canadian North West Company Post of La Souris. It is noteworthy that he also seized some pemmican stored at a nearby Hudson Bay Post. Most of the suppliers of pemmican at Red River are free trader Metis. Miles also served notice to quit on the other Canadian North West Company Forts, including the Canadians at River Winnipeg, Turtle River, Brandon House, Carlton House, Fort Dauphlin Portage des Prairies and River Qu Appella. It is amazing that the 'Pemmican War' did not breakout on this very day, based on British arrogance. The Metis Nation had an instinctive hostility towards Englishmen, Orkney men and Scots of the British Hudson Bay Company (or the North West Company for that matter). They formed the first Canadian Mounted Cavalry Division of the Red River Metis Nation, who watched, with increasing resentment, the actions of Miles MacDonnell (1769-1828). Miles MacDonnell (1769-1828) prohibited the running of buffalo by horsemen near the settlement because it drove the herds out of reach of the colonists. It would appear that Miles MacDonnell (1769-1828) had been commissioned to instigate a war so as to draw British armed forces into the region to secure the Hudsons Bay Company's fragile claim to the region. The Metis of Red River are angered by the British pemmican proclamation. Miles MacDonell (1769-1828) ordered the arrest of the Metis for running the buffalo with horses, and those who defied his authority included Bostonnais Pangman and Cuthbert Grant. It is noteworthy that the running of buffalo with horses is a tradition that predates the arrival of the H.B.C. in this region of Metis Country.

From the amazing website of Canadian history, particularly Metis history, by Richard Garneau

It all started this way:

In January 1814, Miles Macdonnell, the governor of the colony issued the "Pemmican Proclamation" stating that no provisions could be taken out of the boundaries of the territory. This action was needed because there were no guarantees that the next crop would be good, and another group of settlers were expected that year. The NWC and local Métis considered this a direct attack to their livelihood. It was tantamount to a declaration of war! The chief partners decided that it was imperative that the settlement fails for the Company to survive.

In 1814, the NWC and Métis started a campaign of terror. There were many shootings, skirmishes and fires to try to pursuade the colonists to give up and leave the country. Duncan Cammeron, one of the NWC partners came to the Red River settlement in the winter of 1814-15, played on their fear and convinced 133 settlers to relocate to Upper Canada. The NWC even offered them free passage in the spring. Jean-Baptiste Desautels dit Lapointe was returning to Canada himself in 1815 as his first contract had expired. Maybe he helped to transport these families?

In June of 1815 the remaining settlers were driven away by force and treat of violence. Archibald Norman Macleod of the NWC arrested the governor, Miles Macdonnell, and sent him to Fort William. The settlers fled to Jack River at the north end of Lake Winnipeg where the HBC had a trading post. The Métis moved in, razed Fort Douglas, looted everything of value, and burned the settlement.

In August, Colin Robertson, a Bay man, led the settlers back to Red River. He quickly worked to calm the Métis, seized the Nor’Wester’s Fort Gibraltar, and rebuilt Fort Douglas.

In the fall of 1815, a new governor, Robert Semple, arrived in the colony with a new group of settlers. The NWC continued to harass the settlers that winter. When the residents started hearing rumours of an attack being planned on the colony, the majority of the settlers sought safety within the walls of Fort Douglas.

In the winter of 1815-16, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière, an independent trader and friend of the settlement carried letters by snowshoe from Red River to Lord Selkirk who was in Montreal. The letters told Selkirk of the atrocities and deportations of 1815 and convinced the Lord that the settlement needed protection or it would be destroyed once again. Selkirk recruited 30 voyageurs and 104 discharged soldiers of the War of 1812 to come with him to Red River to protect the colony. These soldiers were mostly Swiss mercenaries from the regiments of Des Meurons and Watteville. Selkirk promised them free land at Red River, or free passage back to Europe in return for their services.

From Jean-Baptiste Desautels dit Lapointe, by Marc Jolicoeur (February 2000)

Letter from 1854

I come across ephemera quite often that touches on my hometown area.  Journal entries, newspaper articles, letters, etc.  The following is a letter being shared from the past, 1854 to be exact, of an early Minnesota politician seeing Pembina for the first time.  He discusses the geography of the area including the Red River, the possibility of a military fort at Pembina, and settlement hopes in the area...

While this is not the letter below, it is an example of a letter sent
around the same time (1854) and from the same place (Pembina)...

I will here subjoin the following extract from a letter addressed to Gov. Stephens by the Hon. Henry M. Rice, the able delegate from Minnesota. It is dated 3rd June, 1854:

Boundary Commission Tales - Part II

...Yet this [boundary] line which may be so simply described as "west on the 49th parallel" was not as easily marked on the ground. Perhaps the first attempt to fix its location was made by the Hudson's Bay Company. In the spring of 1823 it abandoned the fort at Pembina on the Red River, taken over from the Northwest Company two years earlier. Astronomical observations had placed the site too far south to be in British territory. A United States surveying expedition soon reached the spot, under Major Stephen H. Long of the Topographical Engineers. His astonomer, after four days' observations for latitude, determined a point for the parallel as it crossed the Red River. On the west bank an oak post was forthwith planted bearing on its north side "G.B." and on the south "U.S." This was the mark that some wag later turned around. Major Long issued a proclamation August 8, 1823, claiming the land south of the post for the United States. Yet neither his action nor that of the Hudson's Bay Company had lasting effect.

...Major Long's post on the Red River was renewed substantially in the same place by Captain John Pope, also of the Topographical Engineers, when he visited Pembina in 1850. Meanwhile the Hudson's Bay Company had in 1845 reinstated its fort or store a quarter of a mile to the north, in a position which later observations by Mr. Nicolay, an American scientist, confirmed as being in British territory. When Capt. John Palliser, the British explorer, visited the Hudson's Bay post in 1857, he "adopted" Nicholay's fix, although his own observations brought the 49th parallel 370 yards farther north. This multiplicity of positions may have inspired the citizens of Pembina to erect in 1860 what became known as the "whiskey post,"¹ about a mile north of Long's and Pope's, to stop the smuggling of liquor into the United States from a house near the line. In effect, their action created a no man's land and perhaps opened the door to more serious encroachment ten years later.

From West on the 49th Parallel: Red River to the Rockies 1872-1876, by John E. Parsons

¹ - This later post was never taken very seriously as it was put in for a special practical purpose. A man from the Red River settlement built a house close to the "Pope's Marker" and used it as a base to smuggle liquor into Pembina, a location convenient to both exporter and importers but too easily accessible to suit the good people of Pembina. It was to strike a blow at those liquor dealings that the more northerly post was erected and aptly dubbed "Whiskey Post." - From Adams George Archibald, First Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba

In Pembina, History is the Attraction

A historic postcard touts Pembina's attractions. 

[Photo Credit: State Historical Society of North Dakota/Digital Horizons]

Pembina, N.D., has accumulated a cast of characters and logged a number of firsts that belie its current existence as a town of 600 people.

By: Mike Jacobs (Grand Forks Herald Publisher Emeritus) | July 21, 2019

PEMBINA, N.D. – History is the attraction in Pembina and there is a lot of it – more than 200 years of it.

A look at the map of North America shows why this is so.

Pembina is close to the center of the continent, and a direct line drawn from northeast to southwest would pass between two of the continent’s great watersheds, one feeding Hudson’s Bay and the other the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Plus, it’s near the source of the continent’s greatest river, the Mississippi, flowing southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

Draw an international boundary across this expanse and history – dramatic, sweeping history – becomes inevitable in Pembina.

Profile: John Tanner

John Tanner 

b. circa 1780 - d. circa 1846 [Hunter, Guide & Narrator]

Tanner was kidnapped in Kentucky by Ojibwas at the age of nine, then sold to an Ottawa woman who brought him to Red River. His native name was Shaw-shaw-wabe-nase; in English they would call him "The Falcon." Dr. Edwin James wrote down the stories John Tanner told about his life...

 

Tanner worked and traded in and around Pembina for many years. Read his own words about what his life was like...

Tanner describes his dealings with an unscrupulous North West Company post manager who won't give credit to Tanner or his fellow natives to help them survive the upcoming winter while they trap furs for him. Instead, Tanner makes a deal with an HBC man new in the area, but in spring when he brings the furs into town to pay off his HBC credit line, the North West manager tries to steal Tanner's furs at gunpoint. “Mr. Henry had traded ten years at Pembina; he was succeeded by a Mr. McKenzie, who remained but a short time, and after him came Mr. Wells, called by the Indians Gah-se-moan, (a sail,) from the roundness and fullness of his person. He built a strong fort on Red River, near the mouth of the Assiniboine. The Hudson’s Bay Company had now no post in that part of the country, and the Indians were soon made conscious of the advantage which had formerly resulted to them from the competition between rival trading companies. Mr. Wells, at the commencement of winter, called us all together, gave the Indians a ten gallon keg of rum, and some tobacco, telling them, at the same time, he would not credit one of them the value of a single needle. When they brought skins, he would buy them, and give in exchange such articles as were necessary for their comfort and subsistence during the winter. I was not with the Indians when this talk was held. When it was reported to me, and a share of the presents offered me, I not only refused to accept any thing, but reproached the Indians for their pusillanimity in submitting to such terms. They had been accustomed, for many years, to receive credits in the fall; they were now entirely destitute not of clothing merely, but of ammunition, and many of the ----- of guns and traps. How were they, without the accustomed aid from the traders, to subsist themselves and their families during the ensuing winter? A few days afterwards, I went to Mr. Wells, and told him that I was poor, with a large family to support by my own exertions, and that I must unavoidably suffer, and perhaps perish, unless he would give me such a credit as I had always, in the fall, been accustomed to receive. He would not listen to my representation, and told me, roughly, to be gone from his house. I then took eight silver beavers, such as are worn by the women, as ornaments on their dress, and which I had purchased the year before at just twice the price that was commonly given for a capote; I laid them before him, on the table, and asked him to give me a capote for them, or retain them as a pledge for the payment of the price of the garment, as soon as I could procure the peltries. He took up the ornaments, threw them in my face, and told me never to come inside of his house again. The cold weather of the winter had not yet set in, and I went immediately to my hunting ground, killed a number of moose, and set my wife to make the skins into such garments as were best adapted to the winter season, and which I now saw we should be compelled to substitute for the blankets and woolen clothes we had been accustomed to receive from the traders. I continued my hunting with good success, but the winter had not half passed, when I heard that Mr. Hanie, a trader for the Hudson’s Bay people, had arrived at Pembina. I went immediately to him, and he gave me all the credit I asked, which was to the amount of seventy skins. Then I went to Muskrat River, where I hunted the remainder of the winter, killing great numbers of martens, beavers, otters, etc. Early in the spring, I sent word by some Indians to Mr. Hanie, that I would go down to the mouth of the Assiniboine, and meet him there, to pay my credit, as I had skins more than enough for this purpose. When I arrived at the Assiniboine, Mr. Hanie had not yet passed, and I stopped to wait for him opposite Mr. Well’s trading house. An old Frenchman offered me a lodging in his house, and I went in and deposited my peltries under the place he gave me to sleep in. Mr. Wells, having heard of my arrival, sent three times, urging me to come and see him. At last, I yielded to the solicitations of my brother-in-law, and crossed over with him. Mr. Wells was glad to see me, and treated me with much politeness; he offered me wine and provisions, and whatever his house afforded. I had taken nothing except a little tobacco, when I saw his Frenchman come in with my packs. They carried them past me into Mr. Well’s bed room; he then locked the door, and took out the key. Immediately his kindness and attentions to me relaxed. I said nothing, but felt not the less anxious ai uneasy, as I was very unwilling to be deprived of the means of paying Mr. Hanie his credit, still more so to have my property taken from me by violence, or without my own consent. I watched about the house, and at length found an opportunity to slip into the bed room, while Mr. Wells was then taking something from a trunk. He tried to drive me, and afterwards to push me out, but I was too strong for him. After he proceeded to this violence, I did not hesitate to take up my packs, but he snatched them from me. Again I seized them, and in the struggle that ensued, the thongs that bound them were broken, and the skins strewed about the floor. As I went to gather them up, he drew a pistol, cocked it, and presented it to my breast. For a moment I stood motionless, thinking he would certainly kill me, as I saw he was much enraged; then I seized his hand, and turned it aside, at the same moment drawing from my belt a large knife, which I grasped firmly in my right hand, still holding him by my left. Seeing himself thus suddenly and entirely in my power, he called first for his wife, then for his interpreter, and told them to put me out of the house. To this, the interpreter answered, “You are as able to put him out as I am.” Some of the Frenchmen were also in the house, but they refused to give him any assistance. Finding he was not likely to intimidate or overcome me by violence, he had recourse once more to milder measures. He offered to divide with me, and to allow me to retain half my peltries for the Hudson’s Bay people. “You have always,” said he, “belonged to the north west; why should you now desert us for the Hudson’s Bay!” He then proceeded to count the skins, dividing them into two parcels; but I told him it was unnecessary, as I was determined he should not have one of them. “I went to you,” said I, “last fall, when I was hungry and destitute, and you drove me, like a dog, from your door. The ammunition with which I killed these animals, was credited to me by Mr. Hanie, and the skins belong to him; but if this was not the case, you should not have one of them. You are a coward; you have not so much courage as a child. If you had the heart of a squaw, you would not have pointed your pistol at my breast, and have failed to shoot me. My life was in your power, and there was nothing to prevent your taking it, not even the fear of my friends, for you know that I am a stranger here, and not one among the Indians would raise his hand to avenge my death. You might have thrown my body into the river, as you would a dog, and no one would have asked you what you had done; but you wanted the spirit to do even this.” He asked me if I had not a knife in my hand. I then showed him two, a large and a small one, and told him to beware how he provoked me to use them. At last, wearied with this altercation, he went and sat down opposite me in the large room; though he was at considerable distance, so great was his agitation, that I could distinctly hear his heart beat. He sat awhile, then went and began to walk back and forth in the yard. I collected my skins together, and the interpreter helped me to tie them up; then taking them on my back, I walked out, passed close by him, put them in my canoe, and returned to the old Frenchman’s house, on the other side.”

- From Fur Trade Stories Read the whole book - A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner - here...

Refuge: Pembina & the Selkirk Settlers

The winter had been unusually severe, having begun earlier and continued later than usual. The snows averaged three feet deep, and in the woods, from four to five feet. The cold was intense, being often 45° below zero; the ice measured five feet seven inches in thickness. Not-withstanding all this, the colonists felt no dread till the spring was far advanced, when the flow of water, from the melting of the accumulated snow, became really alarming. On the 2nd of May, the day before the ice started, the water rose nine feet perpendicular in the twenty-four hours! Such a rise had never before been noticed in Red River. Even the Indians were startled, and as they stared with a bewildering gaze, put their hands to their mouths, exclaiming, "Yea ho! yea ho!" an expression of surprise, "What does this mean? What does this mean?"

From The Red River Settlement, by Alexander Ross (1856) - [Note: I highly recommend anyone reading this to click on the link here to this excerpt - it makes extremely fascinating reading...]

Lest it might be supposed that the sympathies of the present writer would lead him to picture too highly the struggles of the colonists, let us hear what Begg, a recent writer, in his "History of the North-West," says at this point: "Instead of finding a thriving settlement they found only ruins; but, worse than all, there was no food to feed them, and they had to continue their journey, in company with those who had returned from Jack River, in cold and snow to Pembina, 70 miles farther. Here they set to work to erect rude huts to shelter themselves, but in a month or so they had to leave these temporary houses and journey to the plains in the hope of securing food, there being a scarcity of provisions at Pembina, and no means of procuring any near that place. These unfortunate people had to journey a distance of 150 miles, and as they were ill-provided with suitable clothes to protect their persons from the cold they suffered dreadfully. Meeting with a party of hunters they remained with them during the rest of the winter, performing such work as they were capable of doing, in return for which they were fed and sheltered till spring, when they returned to Pembina, and from thence descended the Red River to Fort Douglas. They then began to cultivate the soil, and everything seemed propitious to their becoming comfortably settled in their new home, when, on the 19th of. June, 1816, an event happened which once more brought desolation to the colony."

That event was a collision between armed forces of the Hudson’s Bay and NorthWest companies at Seven Oaks, in Kildonan. The actual collision was partly the result of an accident, but it ended in the killing of Governor Semple, of the former company, and the killing or wounding of twenty-one out of twenty-seven men who accompanied him. This gave the North-West Company for a time the upper hand, and the colonists had to abandon their homes once more, and go out to Jack River, where they suffered great hardships during the winter. Next spring, however, the tables were turned, and the Hudson’s Bay Company got control, Lord Selkirk, on his way back from Montreal with his hired De Meuron soldiers, capturing Fort William and afterwards Fort Douglas from his rivals. Things had become so bad between these companies that the Imperial Government interfered by commissioners, and the settlers once more returned to their holdings. Law-suits innumerable ensued between the two companies until after the death of Lord Selkirk (who had always steadfastly opposed union), when a coalition was formed, the Hudson’s Bay Company ultimately absorbing the others and continuing unto this day. During all this fighting between the rival companies the colonists endured constant hardships, and experienced one set-back after another.

The historian before quoted tells us that "in the winter of 1817 they were forced to go again to Pembina owing to scarcity of food, but on their return to the settlement in the spring managed to sow a considerable area of land with wheat, etc. The summer was favorable, and the fields soon assumed a promising appearance, but on the 18th of July, 1818, the sky suddenly became darkened by clouds of grasshoppers, and as they descended on the earth in dense swarms they destroyed every green thing before them. The settlers managed to save a little grain, but not a vegetable was left in the gardens." It seemed as if everything was going against them and once more they went for refuge to Pembina during the winter. In the spring of 1819 they returned and sowed again, but the young grasshoppers in swarms began to appear, and devoured everything on the fields and plains. Again they were forced to go to Pembina, and so continued the struggle, subsisting on the products of the chase, until three years afterwards, when they gained sufficient from their fields to keep them from fear of starvation. This was in 1822, or about ten years after the first of them had arrived in the country. Things went fairly well to the year 1826, when a winter of great severity and unusual depth of snow led to great distress in the country. The plain hunters, who depended nearly altogether on the buffalo for food supply, were the chief sufferers, for the storms drove the buffalo beyond reach and killed the horses of the hunters. The settlers did all they could to relieve their brethren on the plains, but in the spring they themselves suffered the severest loss in their history. The sudden thaw of the great snow and ice accumulation caused the Red River to overflow its banks and become a raging torrent of wide extent. The settlers barely escaped with their lives and some of their stock, but their houses and stables were swept away in total wreckage into Lake Winnipeg. Yet, when the flood went down, these undaunted men came back and began all over again; and though we have had floods and grasshoppers, and civil disturbances, since that time the colony was never again uprooted. When we read over this hurried history of disastrous years, we feel that the most sympathetic and vivid imagination cannot conceive the sufferings these settlers endured, and we know that those who passed through the experience found no language adequate to the task of describing it. In my father’s closing years he was often visited by tourists from the Old Country, seeking information as to the early days, and I recall the attempts he made to depict the scenes, concerning which he could say, with the hero of Virgil, "Quorum magna pars fui." I can see him yet, a strongly-built, massive figure, in the old wooden chair, on the arm of which he brought down his hand now and again to give Celtic emphasis, to his words. I can hear the story flow on till he felt the inadequacy of language as recollections rushed upon him, and then he would stop short, saying, "It’s no use talking, gentlemen, I can’t tell you half of it; but I will say one thing, and that is that no people in the world but the Scotch could have done it," and the last party of Englishmen that came to the old farm-house, seeing his earnestness, applauded him with unselfish enthusiasm. Whether my father was unduly partial to his own race or not may be a matter of opinion, but there can be no two opinions as to the difficulties these colonists triumphantly battled with, and if you seek their monument, look around you on the religious and educational as well as the material greatness of the North-West.

From The Selkirk Settlers in Real Life, by Rev. R.C. MacBeth, M.A.

"Skin for a Skin"

The Hudson Bay Company was a prominent player in the settling of St. Vincent and Pembina. Its presence was felt during the latter 18th and early 19th centuries here.

I recently requested all extent records for the HBC posts that were in or around Pembina/St. Vincent from the Hudson Bay Archives in Winnipeg. I wasn't sure they'd even allow the records to be interlibrary loaned, but to my delight, they did. Thus began hours of scrolling through microfilm, of dimly-lit faint 19th century handwriting (to me, there's no better way to spend a Saturday morning...) Until I have time to go through my copious notes from that adventure, here is some interesting trivia about 'the Company'...

The Latin motto on the HBC coat of arms is Pro Pelle Cutem, which translates roughly as "a skin for a skin". There are several interpretations of this phrase, none of which can be proven irrefutably. One suggests that it is meant to indicate that the HBC traders risked their own skins to procure furs. This interpretation derives from the Book of Job Chapter 2, verse 4: " And Satan answered the Lord and said: Skin for skin; yea all that a man hath, will he give for his life."

Historian E.E. Rich proposed a somewhat different interpretation: "The Company wanted the pelt so as to get the wool from it; it wanted the skin, cutem, for the sake of the fleece, pro pelle. Such an explanation of the motto does not exclude literary and Biblical derivations, nor the possibility that the risks of a fur-trading life were in mind." This is the more plausible interpretation. Beaver fur in the 17th century was used in its natural state, or "in the pelt". Its primary value was as a source of fibres for felt-making and to that end, the more valuable part of the fur was the short, close "wool" which lay under the long silky guard hairs.

Source: Hudson Bay Archives

Pembina: Unique

Masthead - The paper was started by Horace Greeley

The article below - part of a series on new states in the Union - was written by an east coast newspaper  journalist sent to report onsite.  It offers an interesting 'snapshot' view of one year in the life of the Pembina/St. Vincent area, in 1889.

At that time, it was a few years into the intense settlement period. The area had been opened up; gone were the old fur trading, mission, and exploration days. It was a time of rapid growth and change. Read about how it looked to an outsider...

In Their Own Words: Charles Cavileer

Source:  State Historical Society of North Dakota
[Click to enlarge...]

THE OLD-TIME POST OFFICE AT PEMBINA
By Charles Cavileer

Cavileer

I came here (Pembina) in 1851, in company with N.W. Kittson and others. After being here a few days Mr. Kittson asked me to act as assistant postmaster, he having been appointed postmaster some time in 1849. Joseph R. Brown was contractor to carry the mail from Pembina, Wisconsin Territory¹, to Crow Wing in the same territory, via Thieving River, at its mouth at Red Lake River, thence by land and canoe to Red Lake Village, making short portages, thence making short portages between small lakes to Cass Lake and then by the same order of travel to Leach Lake and so on to Crow Lake and to the end of the route at Crow Wing Village, which was the headquarters of the North-West Fur Company for all that section of the country claimed by the Chippewas from Crow Wing to Pembina northwest and northeast to Sandy Lake, and Fond du Lac.

The contract was a go-as-you-please, on foot, horse back, cart or canoe, anyway-to-get-there affair. The contract price for carrying it was $1,100 a year. Kittson, being postmaster, could not act as sub-agent. He appointed me as assistant postmaster, and I ran the machine until some time in 1853 or '54. I did all the business of the office, made the quarterly returns and deposit of funds due the department, attending to every detail of the office, which at that time was no child's play as every letter and package had to be tied up in wrappers, waybilled and addressed to its destination. St. Paul packages contained nearly all of Minnesota, Chicago, Detroit and east and west exchange.

An example of an 1868 letter with U.S. postage
sent from Red River to St. Paul via Pembina.
Source: The Minnesota Territory in Postmarks

Letter rates of postage ran 6 1/4, 12 1/2, 18 3/4, to 25 cents, according to distance, from 6 1/4 for short distances to 25 for 500 miles and over. Every letter and package had to be wrapped and addressed. Even single letters had to be wrapped and addressed to their proper offices. All wrappers had to be saved and used as long as they would hold together and an address could be put on without showing another.

But when it came to making out the quarterly reports the dance had just commenced. Every letter received and dispatched must be returned from the records kept on bills for that purpose, and it made a package about the size of a family Bible, and the footing up of columns with the amounts running from 6 1/4, 12 1/2, 18 3/4 to 25, was a corker. And right here let me tell you, with a feeling of pride, that I never had a quarterly return come back to me for correction.

Let me give you a sketch of the business at that early day, and the hardships and tricks of some of our carriers.

Guest Essay: The Story of West Lynn

West Lynne, Manitoba townsite, today.

The Story of West Lynne and the First Customs House in Western Canada 
by James McClelland

To  say that the oldest federal building in southern Manitoba had a diverse and chequered past would be an understatement. According to the old Winnipeg Telegram, this building was originally built in the 1850s. The design and architecture were similar to buildings found in the Acadian region of Canada. The article describes the building as "20x26, and made from hewn oak timbers, dove tailed at the corners." Later this building would serve as a symbol of Canadian sovereignty and a floodgate against Yankee commerce.

Today it sits just 500m north of the border it guarded for so long.

The line separating the United States from British territory had always been vague and tentative. Agreement that the 49th parallel would record the western boundary was established as early as 1818, but its exact location tended to shift each time a party had been sent out to survey it. Between 1823 and 1870 three different boundary lines had been drawn; all of them controversial.

In the 1840s, agitation began to develop along this line between the free traders from the Red River Settlement and the Hudson Bay Company officials at Fort Garry. In 1843, the first regular cart service between Pembina and St. Paul was opened. This provided easy access to the American markets. This bickering heightened as more Red River traders sought the higher American prices. It intensified in 1845 when Norman Kittson, an American Trader, opened a store just a scant 4km south of British Territory, at the junction of the Red and the Pembina Rivers.

The door of American commerce was beckoning. In fact, Kittson offered such good prices for fur that the ensuing rush of illegal trade from British Territory was referred to by the HBC as "Kittson’s Fever". As a counter-move in September of 1845, the Hudson Bay Company opened a post called North Fort Pembina. It was located on what they considered their side of the line. The Company put John Palmer Bourke, a retired officer living in the colony, in charge of this new frontier post.

During the winter of 1845-46, Robert Clouston, an employee from the Stone Fort visited this place. In his journal, he described these Spartan surroundings.

"Mr. Bourke has a rough log house, the walls of which, inside and outside are plastered with clay, and the roof covered with earth - it is floored with rough logs: the men live in the same house, with merely a partition between them - a mud chimney in each room and a door opening from Mr. B's apartment to his trading room"

The following day Clouston visited Kittson's store. The uncertainty of the exact spot where American and British authority met is noted in his diary:

"About quarter of a mile above the house (the HBC store) we saw a post planted by Major Long - marking the boundary at a place called Monroe’s Encampment some wag had pulled up the post of demarcation and placed Uncle Sam's initials toward British territory." 

Clouston later reported that Kittson's store was about 3 kms farther south. Here, between Kittson's store and the HBC post, the log house was originally located.

From these squalid beginnings the HBC post at the border continued to develop. A sketch from 1858, shows several log buildings surrounded by a sturdy log palisade.

However, the strip of land between North Pembina and Kittson’s store quickly developed into a "no-man's land." Other buildings sprang up and an unsavory frontier community known as Huron City was born. A few years later the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba would complain to Ottawa about the rowdy brawling atmosphere and the flourishing trade in whiskey smuggling that was going on in this "Whisky Post". By this time, the log building, had been turned into an inn.

Unquestionably, many travelers passed through the doors of this establishment, but two guests in particular played a very important role in the creation of Manitoba. In the autumn of 1869, the Hon. Wm. McDougall, the Governor designate of Rupert's Land, stayed here briefly after he was denied entry into the Red River Settlement by Louis Riel's metis guards. In December, McDougall would return to the deserted post and read a Proclamation declaring himself the official lieutenant-governor of the region. Ironically, in August of the following year, Louis Riel himself found momentary refuge in the same building after his hasty escape from Fort Garry.


On July 1, 1871, F. T. Bradley arrived to become Collector of Customs. The log building, empty at the time, became Manitoba's first regular Customs House. It also served as a telegraph, express and postal office. Yet, in October 1871, one of the most bizarre events in Canadian history had yet to unfold on these premises.