Special History:
The Environment and the Fur Trade Experience in
Voyageurs National Park, 1730-1870

Chapter One
The Rainy Lake Region in the Fur Trade (continued)

Historical Overview of the fur trade in the Rainy Lake Region

Rise of the North West Company, 1763-1793

The 1760s and 1770s were a time of transition in the fur trade. The area north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River became part of British America, while the area west of the Mississippi River (Louisiana) passed to Spanish dominion. Nevertheless, traders of French extraction (Canadians) still dominated the fur trade throughout this vast territory. Even after the former French forts were closed, traders continued to winter in the region, returning east or south each summer to sell their furs and obtain new provisions. [18]

An increasing number of independent British traders entered the business. Mostly of Scottish extraction, they were called "pedlars" by officials of the Hudson's Bay Company because they followed the French pattern of taking goods to the Indians rather than making the Indians travel to their trading posts. The competition between Canadian and British traders in this period has been documented through an examination of traders' licenses issued by the governor of Quebec.

While licensed Canadian traders outnumbered British by more than four to one, the British traders generally worked in partnerships or combinations, listed larger numbers of canoes per license, and operated farther west where the fur returns were greatest. "Probably the reason for the success of the British in these far fields," writes one historian, "lay in their ability to command more capital than the French traders." [19] A trip to the Northwest in this period was generally a three-year undertaking. Getting outfitted at Montreal or Michilimackinac, a trader transported goods in the first season by large canoe as far as the western end of Lake Superior, wintering either at Grand Portage or Rainy Lake. During the second summer, he might travel the waterways in the region around Lake Winnipeg or establish a post in some central location. Thus, he would not have furs to transport back to Montreal until his third season in the Northwest. Since the trader obtained his goods on credit, he required business connections with substantial creditors in order to reach so far into the interior. Creditors included people of rank in Montreal and Quebec–mostly British who enjoyed the patronage of British rule. [20]

These conditions laid the foundation for the rise of the North West Company. Historian W. Stewart Wallace, editor of Documents Relating to the North West Company (1934), chronicled the pedlars' activities beyond Lake Superior in this period. The first known trader to reach the Saskatchewan after 1763 was a Canadian known to Hudson's Bay Company officials as "Franceway." He was followed by James Finlay, who established "Finlay's House" on the Saskatchewan in the winter of 1768-69, and by Thomas Corry, who traded in the Saskatchewan country during 1771-73. Barthélemi Blondeau and William Bruce reached the Northwest in 1772, Joseph and Thomas Frobisher in 1773, James Tute, Charles Paterson, William Holmes, and Peter Pangman in 1774, and two men from the American colonies, Peter Pond and Alexander Henry, in 1775. [21] Henry left a journal of his travels, the earliest known written account by one of the pedlars. [22] After Pond and Henry, the number of pedlars increased each year.

The precise origins of the North West Company are obscure. Undoubtedly it began as an informal pooling of resources among certain traders and grew into a larger concentration. Wallace notes a single license in 1775 that was granted to James McGill, Benjamin Frobisher, and Maurice Blondeau for twelve canoes, with 78 men, bound for Grand Portage and beyond. Alexander Henry described this pool as follows:

Four different interests were struggling for the trade of the Saskatchewan, but, fortunately they had this year agreed to join their stock, and when the season was over, to divide the skins and meat. This arrangement was beneficial to the merchants; but not directly so to the Indians, who, having no other place to resort to, nearer than Hudson's Bay, or Cumberland House, paid greater prices than if a competition had subsisted. [23]

Wallace finds that this pool, while confined to the Saskatchewan and lasting only one winter, soon spawned similar combinations in Montreal and Michilimackinac. In 1779, eight different partnerships joined to form a sixteen-share concern. After four years this agreement was succeeded by another. Although no copy of the latter agreement survives, historian H. A. Innis reconstructed a list of the likely shareholders. Circumstantial evidence suggests that by 1783 the northwest trade was consolidated under the dominant partners of Simon McTavish and Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher. [24]

Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher were brothers who, with their younger brother Thomas, were engaged in the fur trade from 1764 until the death of Joseph, the last surviving brother, in 1810. Simon McTavish had entered the fur trade from Albany, New York, wintering at Detroit as early as 1773 and perhaps earlier. After the Quebec Act of 1774, which annexed the Indian territories to the province of Quebec, McTavish moved his base of operations to Montreal where he remained throughout the American Revolution. By 1775 he was engaged in the northwest trade in partnership with James Bannerman. Wallace concludes that McTavish initiated the reorganization of 1783 largely with the hope of obtaining monopoly control of the Northwest in exchange for withdrawing from the fur trade around Lake Michigan. McTavish would be the "guiding spirit" of the company until his death in 1804. [25]

North West Company Agreement, 1790 Articles of agreement entered into at the Grand Portage between McTavish Frobisher & Coy, Nicholas Montour, Robert Grant, Patrick Small, William McGillivray, Daniel Sutherland, John Gregory, Peter Pangman, and Alexander Mackenzie, for the purpose of carrying on a Trade on their joint Accounts, to that part of the Indian Country commonly called the North West, or elsewhere as the Parties may hereafter agree; to be divided into twenty shares of which McTavish Frobisher & Coy are to hold six twentieths, Nich Montour two twentieths, Will McGillivray one twentieth, Daniel Sutherland one twentieth, John Gregory, two twentieths, Peter Pangman two twentieths, and Alex. Mackenzie, two twentieths, in all profits and loss arising from thence; to commence with the first outfit for the year 1792, and to continue there after for the full and complete term of seven years... —Documents Relating to the North West Company, edited by W. Stewart Wallace, pp. 84-85.

After the agreement of 1783, the North West Company still had one significant challenger in the field, the firm of Gregory, McLeod and Company. During the winter of 1786-87, the two rival concerns occupied winter quarters in close proximity in the Athabaska country. There was a scuffle between the men of the North West Company under Peter Pond's command and the men of Gregory, McLeod and Company under the trader John Ross, one of the partners of 1779 who had been edged out in the reorganization of 1783. Ross was shot and killed, and when word of the murder eventually reached Montreal, Peter Pond was arrested, brought to trial, and acquitted. In the meantime, the partners in both concerns decided to combine so that there would be no reprisals. Thus, a new agreement in 1787 reorganized the North West Company on the basis of 20 shares, with the partners of Gregory, McLeod and Company included. That same year, McTavish, Frobisher and Company formed and soon positioned itself as the financial headquarters of the North West Company in Montreal. [26]

Perhaps the most important innovation by the North West Company, other than its securing of a near monopoly on trade, was to establish a great supply depot at Grand Portage. By outfitting the trader at the west end of Lake Superior instead of at Michilimackinac or Montreal, the trader could get far up the Saskatchewan or into the Athabaska region by his first winter, and return to Grand Portage with his packs of fur in the following summer. Peter Pond first demonstrated the advantage of such a forward supply base when he boldly outfitted from Grand Portage in 1776. Three years later he brought out more than 80,000 fine beaver skins from the Athabaska region, convincing the partners in the newly formed North West Company that opening up the Athabaska region should be their ultimate goal. [27]

After the establishment of a fort at Grand Portage, the next important development in this long-distance supply line was the establishment of an advance depot at Rainy Lake. The North West Company established a fort near the falls below the outlet of Rainy Lake in 1787. [28] Historian David Lavender has described the new relay system:

As soon as merchandise arrived at Grand Portage, clerks and voyageurs spread it out on long tables in the warehouses, sorted it according to the requests of the different inland posts, and bundled it into new canvas-wrapped, ninety-pound pièces. Handpicked crews labored with these bales up the nine-mile carrying place, loaded them into canots du nord, and hurried them through the winding streams and over the granite portages to Rainy Lake. There about August 1 they met the weather-blackened voyageurs who had left Athabaska late in May. The parties exchanged goods for furs, howled through a regale, and then started back toward their respective destinations. [29]

Sir Alexander Mackenzie describes the significance of Lac La Pluie Here the people from Montreal come to meet those who arrive from the Athabasca country, as has been already described, and exchange lading with them. This is also the residence of the first chief, or Sachem, of all the Algonquin tribes, inhabiting the different parts of this country. He is by distinction called Nectam, which implies personal pre-eminence. Here also the elders meet in council to treat of peace or war. —Alexander Mackenzie, Voyages from Montreal, p. lvi.

The rendezvous at Rainy Lake saved the men who were stationed in the interior three to four weeks of toil across the "height of land" separating the inland waterways of the Northwest from the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River basin. Since the rivers and lakes in the Athabaska region were only ice-free and navigable from the middle of May to the middle of October, this extra time effectively allowed the North West Company to station its wintering men that much farther north and west. [30] Consequently, two wintering partners, Peter Pond and Alexander Mackenzie, reorganized the Athabaska department in the winter of 1787-88. Henceforth, operations in the Athabaska region centered at Fort Chipewyan on the shore of Lake Athabaska. (From here, Mackenzie departed on his first great voyage of discovery down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean in 1789. Four years later in 1793, he undertook his second great journey up the Peace River and over the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.) [31]

As the North West Company consolidated its hold on the Northwest and reaped a huge reward in furs, Hudson's Bay Company men saw their own influence over Ojibwe, Cree, and Chipewyan groups grow increasingly tenuous. Looking for a weakness in their rival's operation, they found it in the North West Company's long supply line. Their point of attack was the country from Rainy Lake to Lake Winnipeg, which the Hudson's Bay Company could reach by way of the Albany and English rivers.

Table of Contents | Introduction | Rainy Lake Region | Fur Trade Experience | Material Culture | Natural Environment | Bibliography