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

Last Years of the Fur Trade, 1842-1870

In the period after 1842, the fur trade in the Rainy Lake Region was increasingly shaped by national developments on either side of the international boundary. On the American side, the growth of settlement and transportation gave independent traders greater ability to challenge the dominance of larger trading outfits. Generally this competition from independent traders acted to the detriment of the Indians and the resource because small traders preferred quick gains over steady returns. Moreover, U.S. Indian policy, which forced tribes to cede most of their lands in exchange for reservations and annuity payments, severely compromised the Indians' ability to hunt and trap. Meanwhile, on the Canadian side, the Hudson's Bay Company remained the only governing body for white-Indian relations throughout British America from the prairie to the Rocky Mountains, and it retained a virtual monopoly. It tried to make the most of its monopoly by implementing measures to conserve the fur resources. The growth of settlement and transportation eventually affected the fur trade north of the border, too, however. The forces of change accelerated as Canada moved toward confederation in 1867 and the creation of Manitoba in 1869.

Shortly before the American Fur Company filed for bankruptcy in 1842, it sold its interest in the old Western Department to Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company of St. Louis. Chouteau's partners were Hercules L. Dousman and Henry H. Sibley, and the new organization was called the Upper Mississippi Outfit. The line of demarcation between this outfit and the American Fur Company's Northern or Fond du Lac Department followed tribal territory; the former trading with the Sioux and Winnebago, the latter with the Ojibwe. This quickly broke down after the American Fur Company went bankrupt. By 1843, Dousman and Sibley were supplying a string of loosely allied traders in the Ojibwe country of northern Minnesota. [62]

In 1846, there was another reorganization. Dousman withdrew from the partnership. Seeing his Winnebago trading partners forced to accept a reservation in north-central Minnesota between the Sioux and Ojibwe, Dousman shifted his wealth into timber and railroads. Sibley, meanwhile, established a retail outlet in the burgeoning town of St. Paul which he called the "St. Paul Outfit," and made a separate arrangement with Chouteau to trade with the Sioux, which he called the "St. Peter's Outfit." A further consolidation of interests under Sibley in 1847 produced the "Upper Sioux Outfit." [63] Traders attached to these outfits operated as far north as Pembina in the Red River country, thereby annoying the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1848, a post was established at Red Lake, as near to Rainy Lake as the Americans would come after their withdrawal from the area in the early 1820s. [64]

Throughout this period, the Indians grew increasingly dependent on the fur trade for their livelihood. Instead of bartering furs for cash, they worked on a credit system. "In theory the Indian brought his winter's catch of fur to the trader's post and bartered it for the marginal luxuries that made his life in the wilderness easier," writes historian Rhoda R. Gilman. "In reality the Indian, in Aitken's words, 'had to submit to his trader.' Although masked by attitudes and terminology dating from an earlier era, the relationship was not too different from that of an employer who pays at piece rates and keeps his workers in debt to the company store." [65]

Traders got involved in federal treaty-making with the Indians. When Indians ceded lands, traders demanded compensation from the government on behalf of their Indian debtors. Sometimes they received direct payments, as when traders obtained a subsidy of $310,000 under the Sioux, Chippewa, and Winnebago treaties of 1837. Traders also profited indirectly through the government's payment of annuities, most of which went to the traders for the purchase of goods or the payment of debts. [66] Some traders such as Robert Stewart of the North West Company and William Aitken of the American Fur Company later served on treaty commissions or became agents of the Indian Office. Reformers argued that traders unjustly limited the federal government's interest in Indians to issues of trade. By the 1840s, Indian policy reform efforts were directed at reducing the traders' influence in Indian affairs. [67] Government officials slowly eliminated the practice of using treaty annuities to satisfy Indians' indebtedness to traders. In the long run, the reservation policy worked to the destruction of the fur trade, demoralizing the Indians and increasing the deadly toll from disease, starvation, and alcohol dependence. "Without exaggerating greatly," Gilman writes, "one might argue that the Upper Mississippi Valley fur trade in its final stages collapsed not from depletion of the wild game but for lack of Indians." [68]

North of the border, the Hudson's Bay Company faced different circumstances. Although there was little pressure from white settlement, the fur resources were depleted after years of struggle with the North West Company. As early as 1822, George Simpson sought to implement conservation measures to allow fur-bearer populations a chance to recover. These measures included extending the fur trade into new territories, eliminating posts in depleted areas, encouraging Indians to hunt species other than beaver, discouraging Indians from taking "summer" beaver, eliminating the use of steel traps and castoreum, and introducing a quota system for beaver. [69] These early efforts largely failed in the Rainy Lake Region because of competition with the Americans and métis. Moreover, Indians in the Rainy Lake Region and elsewhere in Canada tended to resist the company's conservation measures because they did not understand them. The Indians believed the abundance or scarcity of animals depended on various manitos, or spirits, who controlled the success of their hunts. They also lacked a system of land tenure that recognized property rights, and their political organization did not permit effective sanctions against trespass. [70]

The Hudson's Bay Company embarked on another conservation program in 1841. It was based on a strict quota system that set a limit on each post's fur returns. Any post trader who did not respect the quota would be retired from the company. Such a policy demonstrated the advantage of monopoly, and after a three-year trial period the quota system appeared to produce results. Beaver populations recovered in many areas, and the quotas were relaxed. [71]

Despite this success, the Hudson's Bay Company faced new difficulties by the mid-1840s. As the supply of beaver recovered, the price of beaver pelts fell. Silk replaced beaver felt as the material of choice for men's hats. Moreover, the Hudson's Bay Company was unable to prevent independent traders from making inroads in the Red River area. Improvements in transportation between Minnesota and the Red River settlements assured a vigorous independent trade in skins and furs, particularly buffalo robes. By 1856, shipments of furs from Pembina and Red River through St. Paul included, according to one statement, "64,292 rats; 8,276 minks; 1,428 martens; 876 foxes; 3,600 coons; 1,045 fishers; ...7,500 buffalo robes" and other furs, valued at $97,000. [72]

The growing commercial ties between the Red River settlements and American communities south of the border led to a Canadian expedition in 1857 aimed at locating an overland transportation route north of the international boundary from Upper Canada to the West. The expedition's leader was Henry Hind and its surveyor was Simon J. Dawson. The latter recommended a land and water route from a point on the north shore of Lake Superior near Fort William to the south shore of Lake Winnipeg at Fort Garry. The route would feature wagon roads at both ends and a 311-mile water route, including 10 portages across the middle section. Before anything more was done with this plan, the Panic of 1857 temporarily dampened the government's interest in it. [73]

Canadian nationalist concerns about the vulnerability of the Red River country persisted. After the Civil War, Irish-American "Fenians" staged raids across the border. In 1867, the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia gave Canadians further pause. In 1868, one year after confederation, the Canadian government organized a second expedition to develop a connecting road to the West, based on Dawson's plan. Dawson began work that year with a crew of 800 laborers. The following year, the government purchased Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company, clearing the way for the creation of the new province of Manitoba. [74]

Diary of a Private Soldier of the Red River Expedition Monday, 6th—At 7:30 we left Sandy Beach, as we called last night's camp ground, and continued our way through Lake Nameukan, passing in several places the camp grounds of other crews, where the fires were still burning, also, camps of Indians who stood on the shore watching the strange sight of boat loads of white soldiers passing by. The wind being favorable part of the time, we were able to use our sails, which was a great assistance. When we had rowed and sailed a distance of about 12 miles, we were met by three boats filled with voyageurs, who having accompanied the expedition as far as Kettle Falls were now returning... —Justus A. Griffin, From Toronto to Fort Garry, p. 32

The métis of the Red River country rebelled against this annexation, imprisoned the newly appointed governor, and elected one of their own, Louis Riel. The young Canadian government now faced its baptism by fire. In 1870, it sent the Red River Expedition, a mixed force of Canadian and British soldiers and voyageurs, over the uncompleted road to suppress the Red River rebellion. Under the command of Colonel Garnet Wolseley, the force of 1,200 troops traveled from Toronto to Fort Garry in 96 days, and the rebels scattered at its approach. [75]

The movement of so many men and supplies over the voyageur route was unprecedented. If the victory over the rebels lacked glory, participants in the Red River Expedition found a claim to fame instead in their swift march through the Canadian wilderness. Numerous accounts were published about the journey. This created an acrimonious debate over the actual condition of the road and the character of the military's achievement: was the road as deplorably primitive as the expedition members contended, or had the expedition leaders wasted time and resources on an excessive amount of logistical organization? The controversy is tangential to the history of the fur trade except for the fact that it produced a flood of descriptive travel accounts at the close of the fur trade era.

The road, as much as the expedition itself, marked a kind of conquest or death of the wilderness in the Rainy Lake Region. As such, it was a turning point in the fur trade. The road was opened to civilian traffic on June 15, 1871 and by October 1873 it had carried some 2,739 people, of whom 805 were settlers. [76] By 1871, a steam-powered tug was hauling passengers between Kettle Falls and Rainy Lake. [77]

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