Page:Littell's Living Age 1-1-5.gif

Rh. Sufficient proofs of this fact appear at the outset of Mr. Simpson’s volume, even in his description, though cursory, of the Red River settlement, from which he started for his journey.

The untiring efforts of the Company’s Church establishment, Protestant and Roman Catholic, extend from Labrador to the Pacific—from where the rattlesnake basks in the hot summer of climes westward of the Rocky mountains, to where the Indian ceases to roam, and the Esquimaux becomes the sole representative of humanity. These exertions are not the less creditable if, as Mr. Simpson, we fear truly, states, they are often unrewarded: not always however. In the maritime districts of the far West the Indian character is softened, as he states, by the influences of the Pacific; food is abundant, man congregates in villages, and here the labors of the missionaries promise every success. Even among the wandering hunters of the North the endeavors of the Company to check the supply of spirituous liquors and to instil morality, have not been unavailing. Mr. Simpson says:—

“No stronger proof of the salutary effect of the injunctions of the Company’s officers can be adduced than that, while peace and decorum mark the general character of the Northern tribes, bloodshed, rapine, and unbridled lust are the characteristics of the fierce hordes of Assiniboines, Pigeons, Blackfeet, Circees, Fall and Blood Indians who inhabit the plains between the Saskatchewan and Missouri, and are without the pale of the Company’s influence and authority.”—p. 19.

Mr. Simpson goes on to describe a reconciliation effected by the sole influence of the Company between the Saulteaux and Sioux nations, till lately inveterate and bloody enemies.

On the 1st of December, 1836, Mr. Simpson quitted the Red River settlement for Athabasca. This preliminary journey, of one thousand two hundred and seventy-seven statute miles, was completed with singular precision on the very day prefixed for its termination, the 1st of February. For the first three days, as far as the Manitobah Lake, the nature of the country and the state of the weather permitted the use of horses and wheel carriages. The remainder of the journey was performed on foot, the baggage being conveyed on sledges drawn by dogs. The author’s route enabled him to enjoy the seasonable hospitality of three of the Company's stations between the Red River and the Athabascan station, Fort Chipewayan, destined for his residence till the period when returning spring should enable him to effect the descent of the Coppermine River.

The first point decided on at this station was, that instead of building, according to the letter of their instructions, one large boat for their future expedition, they should construct two of smaller dimensions; a measure to which Mr. Simpson attributes the ultimate safety and success of the party. This portion of the author’s narrative exhibits further gratifying evidence of the influence of the Company on the character of the Chipewayan Indians; and of the establishment of friendly relations between this race and the Esquimaux. The wanton and relentless massacre of the latter, described by Hearne, is a specimen of the former habits of the natives, conspicuous by its contrast to the present state of things; and the regulations of the Company for the prevention of the sale of spirits, and for the supply of necessaries to the Indian, seem admirable in effect as well as intention.

The expedition set sail from Athabasca on the 1st of June. On the 10th it reached the Great Slave Lake, where, for eleven weary days, it suffered provoking detention by the ice, and it was not till the 29th that it entered the great River Mackenzie. Fort Good Hope, situated in lat. 66° 16’, the most northerly station of the Company, was reached on the 5th of July, and at 4 P. M. of the 9th, the Arctic Ocean burst on the view of the party. The expedition plodded its westward way along the coast surveyed by Franklin in 1826, meeting and overcoming the usual difficulties of such a route, and holding friendly but cautious intercourse with various families of Esquimaux, till it reached Franklin’s Return Reef on the 23d. The weather here became stormy, and the temperature such as to bring the winter-dresses of the party into requisition. The ice drove them occasionally almost beyond sight of the coast, but one happy run of twenty-five hours effected nearly half the distance between the point reached by Franklin and the Point Barrow, from which Captain Beechey’s barge returned in 1826. In this interval the mouths of two considerable rivers were discovered. Of one of these, named by the party the Colville, Mr. Simpson remarks (p. 171): “That it separates the Franklin and Pelly mountains, the last seen by us, and probably flows in a long course through a rich fur country and unknown tribes on the west side of the Rocky mountains.” Mr. Simpson thinks that it is probably identical with a river of which Mr. Campbell, one of the most adventurous of the Company’s servants, who has pushed its establishments into the Rocky mountains and to the confines of the Russian territory, received accounts from the natives; if so, it has a course of at least 1000 English miles. It appears that Mr. Campbell, in 1839, narrowly escaped massacre and starvation at the hands of the Nahanie indians, but that his future operations are likely to be facilitated by a transaction with the Russian Governor, the emninent Baron Wrangel, by which the Russian line of coast as far as Cape Spencer is leased to the Company. On the 28th they hauled up their boats on a cape, in longitude 1540, which they named after Governor Simpson. The ice now rapidly accumulated, and on the 31st Mr. Simpson writes:—“From the extreme coldness of the weather and the interminable ice, the further advance of our boats appeared hopeless. In four days we had only made good as many miles, and in the event of a late return to the Mackenzie, we had every