There are descendents of this man in the area, and for these people I am putting any information I have about Vautrin in this blog, for all to read.
Source -- Fort Alexandria Post Journals, 1842-43, B.5/a/5, HBCA
Thursday Dec. 1, 1842 -- "Rather cold. The snow of yesterday is hardened. Men employed at house, carting and two (Dubois & Vautrin) begin sawing." Vautrin was at Fort Alexandria when Anderson arrived in Nov. 1842, possibly coming north with him from Thompson's River (Kamloops). Vautrin is involved in this chore for the next few days.
Tuesday January 3rd, 1843 -- "The weather is again milder, with snow. Mr. Demers went off; accompanied by Antoine on a visit to the Atnahs. Dubois & Vautrin sawing." Mr. Demers is the missionary Modeste Demers who lived in the gentleman's quarters at Fort Alexandria when Anderson arrived there.
In February 1843 Anderson took over the charge of Fort St. James in Ogden's absence, and remained there until April 1843; this note comes from the Fort Alexandria journals, but is written before Anderson returns to the post:
Tuesday April 25 -- "Weather clear and pleasant, employments varied. About noon the long looked for party from Colvile made their appearance (Marineau, Vautrin, & an Indian) -- the express had not reached Colvile when they left 7th inst. Marineau informs me that the missing horse from the land had reached Thompson's River." Vautrin accompanied the New Caledonia express from Fort Alexandria to Colvile, something that Marineau did every spring and fall!
The brigade went out immediately after the express returned, and Vautrin is not mentioned in the post journals for the few months after -- I assume he accompanied the brigade to Fort Vancouver that summer. Even when the brigade returned Vautrin is not mentioned as being at Fort Alexandria. He may have gone all the way to Fort St. James, or stopped off at Thompson's River. He is not mentioned again in this section of the Fort Alexandria journals.
Source: Fort Alexandria Journal, 1843-1845, B.5/a/6, HBCA.
Vautrin does not appear in this journal until, on Monday November 18th, 1844, "Today [to my] very great surprise, Vautrin cast up from Thleuz-cuz, having a letter from Mr. Todd dated inst. notifying that the [fall] fishery [failed], that he had killed a horse (Rapide) some time previously for food..." So Vautrin has been at the new post in the north Chilcotin, on today's Alexander Mackenzie's Heritage Trail, all this time, I assume.
Tues. 3rd December -- "This evg. the party from Thleuz-cuz arrived, their 9th day hence. Mr. Todd is with him, having been [intended] to proceed direct to S,. Lake, owing to Delonais' absence -- the cause of their detention was their having waited at Thleuz-cuz till Vautrin arrived there." The Mr. Todd mentioned here is not John Tod of Kamloops, but a clerk new to the territory.
Saturday 4th January, 1845 -- "Fine weather. Vautrin arrived yest'y from Thleuz-cuz with acs of that post, his 9th day thence." He must have returned to Thleuz-cuz. This journal ends July 1845, the next begins in the middle of a sentence in September 1845.
Source: Fort Alexandria Journal, 1845-1848, B.5/a/7, HBCA.
In this journal Pere Nobili appears and is visiting Natives in areas surrounding Fort Alexandria, accompanied by his novice and a man named Francois who acted as interpreter.
Wednesday 18th March 1846 -- Vautrin is still at the Thleuz-cuz post. "Mr. Charles arrived from Thleuz-cuz. He set out with horses to bring the returns hither, but finding too much snow in the mountains, he has left Vautrin & wife with the packs, and is come for assistance to convey the [latter.]" By this time Mr. Charles has taken over the post from Mr. Todd.
Friday 27th March 1846 -- "Linneard began to repair the harnesses &c yesterday -- Michel with the lads arrived with the furs together with Vautrin."
Tuesday 31st March -- "Linneard, Vautrin & Lacourse having prepared the ploughs, made a beginning to plough this evening in the home field."
Wed. 1st July 1846 -- "Nothing new occurs. Gendron, Vautrin & Roi employed about the new house &c. Linneard laid up with a painful whitlow." During this summer Vautrin and Linneard remained at the fort and did not accompany the brigade to Fort Vancouver.
Thursday 16th July -- "Linneard & Vautrin thrashed some wheat for grinding, as we have not quite sufficient flour to complete the quantity (50 bags) intended for the interior."
Vautrin obviously went up to Stuart's Lake with the incoming brigade in August, because on the 9th October, 1846 -- "Yesterday evening the long expected boat from S. Lake arrived, and this morning Marineau & Ignace, with Mr. Willm. Todd on his way to Vancouver, set out to meet the East side express. Four men, Crete, Fallardeau, Vautrin, & Roi are come down to winter here."
Monday October 16th -- "Lacourse cutting wood for Charcoal. Crete & Roi laying floor &c in dwelling houses. Vautrin laid up."
Saturday 31st -- "Vautrin (who has been sick during the greater part of the week) commenced yesterday the care of a coal furnace previously built & fired by Gendron."
Monday 9th November 1846 -- "Fine. Yesterday evening the wife of J. Bte. Vautrin (a daughter of Lolo's) was taken ill, and shortly after gave birth to a still born child. She afterwards fell into a state of exhaustion, and I was applied to for assistance. I accordingly administered, with proper caution, some wint & water & a little laudanum, which had a salutary effect, and on my going to bed a little after midnight, the woman was much better & breathed with freedom. Towards morning, however, I was again summoned, & found her in a dying state. It appears that after sleeping tranquilly some time, she awoke and conversed a little, but ere long again relapsed. Internal flooding I suspect to have been the cause of the poor woman's death; for little appeared externally. Her bodily functions, however, were altogether much disordered and enfeebled, and the [can't read words] was in a state that indicated that it had ceased to exist for some time previously.
"On several accounts I have thought it well to give a blanket to wrap the corpse in, for internment; the deceased being powerfully connected both here & at Kamloops."
Tuesday 19th -- "Roi made coffins & a cross."
Thursday 12th -- "Strong gale from South. The internment took place today, a large concourse of Inds. attending."
Tuesday 8th December 1846 -- "I have to record that today I was under the disagreeable necessity of chastising one of the servants under my command -- the more disagreeable to me, I may add, since it is the first occasion of my having to do so for some years past; and the only one since my sojourn in N.C. Having occasion to reprimand J. Bte. Vautrin for disrespectful language, which I did quietly in my sitting room, the man replied in so improper a manner that I was compelled to strike him a couple of blows, in order to maintain that authority without the possession of which one's efficiency in this country is more than doubtful." This last paragraph will shock some of you.
Saturday 26th December 1846 -- Yesterday being Christmas day, the men had a treat of meat & other dainties as usual. Today at 10am. Allard & Vautrin with Marten the Indn. set out to convey the packet to Ft. George."
Saturday January 16th 1847 -- "Vautrin returned from Ft. George, having left two men (Charbonneau & Desautels) on the way -- the former being sick & unable to travel."
Wednesday January 27th -- "Vautrin, Ignace & two lads have been employed since Monday (the former still), visiting & collecting the horses that are about."
Thursday 28th -- "Vautrin returned without having found the horses. It will therefore be necessary to continue the search."
Monday 1st February -- "Vautrin & his lads will accordingly proceed below in the search, tomorrow."
Thursday March 25th, 1847 -- "Weather continues raw & ungenial. Today Pere Nobili set out for Kamloops, accompanied by his man & Baptiste Lolo, together with Vautrin. The last, whose time was expired & who was on his way out, had my sanction to make an arrangement to accompany Mr. Nobili till the spring, when he will be disposable for the summer Brigade, &c. He has therefore renewed his agreement with HBC for another year. His wages during the interval of his serving P. Nobili will be settled in the a/c of the latter at Vancouver."
It is interesting to take a peak at one man's life and see what happened to him. Vautrin retired to Fort Vancouver and eventually Fort Victoria, where he again met Anderson after 1858.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Similkameen chief, Blackeye
This will be a posting asking for information rather than a posting giving information.
I would like to know a lot more about Blackeye and his son (or son-in-law), and I hope that someone out there has information to give me.
Anderson met the Similkameen chief the fur traders knew as Blackeye when he followed the Tulameen River canyon in a long, curving loop from the top of the Coquihalla plateau to the present town-site of Tulameen, B. C.
Somewhere close to where Tulameen now stands, the exploring party met two Native men well-known to them -- "Blackeye, the Similkameen, and his son-in-law, on their way to visit their deer snares."
Blackeye told Anderson that a good Native trail led across the height of land they had just passed over, ending at the meadow where the rhododendrons grew (Rhododendron Flat, see earlier posting).
Blackeye agreed to show the company men the trail to the top of the mountains later in the summer, when the snow had melted.
The meeting above took place in late summer 1846, but by the time Anderson had set off on his 1847 expeditions, he had made arrangements to meet Blackeye at the west end of Lac de Nicholas (Nicola Lake).
But the Native man had not arrived when Anderson made his journal entry for the day.
However, before Anderson and his party reached the Native village of Squa-zowm, where Boston Bar now stands, both Blackeye's son (or son-in-law) and Tsilaxita, the nephew of Chief Nicolas after whom Nicola Lake was named, joined his party.
Now these two Native men showed Anderson the beginnings of their newly opened road to Lac de Nicholas (Nicola Lake).
This is the trail that eventually became the new brigade trail in 1848, and is now known as the Anderson River trail.
I want to know a little more about Blackeye and his son or son-in-law.
In Anderson's journal, he referred to Blackeye and his son-in-law, but other fur traders only spoke of Blackeye's son.
I suspect that they were one and the same, but I would like to confirm that.
I would also like to know Blackeye's Native name, and that of his son, or son-in-law.
I suspect that Blackeye is the name the fur traders gave him, but it might be a translation of his Native name.
A Sto:lo website suggests that Blackeye might be the Native chief they knew as Yo:a'la, but even they don't know for sure.
Does anyone out there have this information?
Can anyone tell me the names of Blackeye, and his son or son-in-law?
I would like to know a lot more about Blackeye and his son (or son-in-law), and I hope that someone out there has information to give me.
Anderson met the Similkameen chief the fur traders knew as Blackeye when he followed the Tulameen River canyon in a long, curving loop from the top of the Coquihalla plateau to the present town-site of Tulameen, B. C.
Somewhere close to where Tulameen now stands, the exploring party met two Native men well-known to them -- "Blackeye, the Similkameen, and his son-in-law, on their way to visit their deer snares."
Blackeye told Anderson that a good Native trail led across the height of land they had just passed over, ending at the meadow where the rhododendrons grew (Rhododendron Flat, see earlier posting).
Blackeye agreed to show the company men the trail to the top of the mountains later in the summer, when the snow had melted.
The meeting above took place in late summer 1846, but by the time Anderson had set off on his 1847 expeditions, he had made arrangements to meet Blackeye at the west end of Lac de Nicholas (Nicola Lake).
But the Native man had not arrived when Anderson made his journal entry for the day.
However, before Anderson and his party reached the Native village of Squa-zowm, where Boston Bar now stands, both Blackeye's son (or son-in-law) and Tsilaxita, the nephew of Chief Nicolas after whom Nicola Lake was named, joined his party.
Now these two Native men showed Anderson the beginnings of their newly opened road to Lac de Nicholas (Nicola Lake).
This is the trail that eventually became the new brigade trail in 1848, and is now known as the Anderson River trail.
I want to know a little more about Blackeye and his son or son-in-law.
In Anderson's journal, he referred to Blackeye and his son-in-law, but other fur traders only spoke of Blackeye's son.
I suspect that they were one and the same, but I would like to confirm that.
I would also like to know Blackeye's Native name, and that of his son, or son-in-law.
I suspect that Blackeye is the name the fur traders gave him, but it might be a translation of his Native name.
A Sto:lo website suggests that Blackeye might be the Native chief they knew as Yo:a'la, but even they don't know for sure.
Does anyone out there have this information?
Can anyone tell me the names of Blackeye, and his son or son-in-law?
The Okanagan chief, Tsilaxitsa
Alexander Caulfield Anderson left Kamloops for the last time, as a fur trader at least, in 1848 when he took over the charge of Fort Colvile.
He returned to Kamloops in 1877, when he represented the Dominion of Canada's government as their Indian Reserve Commissioner.
Fellow commissioners were Archibald McKinley, a retired fur trader who farmed at Lac la Hache, and Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, an immigrant from England.
The three Commissioners could not have had more differing views of the Natives they worked with than these three men.
Archibald McKinlay thought all Natives were savages; Sproat referred to some as "doublefaced Indian chiefs."
Anderson referred to the coast Natives as "miserable fish eaters," but he admired these Interior Natives for their beauty and nobility.
But he knew Tsilaxitsa personally, and wrote in his journals that he had ridden many miles with this man.
Tsilaxitsa's name is written in various ways -- Silhitza, Chilliheetza, Chillihutza -- Anderson spelled it Sela-heetza.
Tsilaxitsa was one of the most important Okanagan chiefs of his time; his father was an Okanagan man, and his mother Chief Nicola's favorite sister who died when she was giving birth to him.
Chief Nicola adopted the infant, and Tsilaxitsa grew up in Chief Nicola's residence on Nicola Lake.
On Nicola's death, Tsilsxitsa became the nominal head of the northern branches of the Okanagan tribes and played an active role in the politics of the time, especially in relation to the land question.
Most of this information comes from 42nd Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1978, p. 59.
Interestingly enough, the author of this short biography did not connect Tsilaxitsa with the brigade trails.
In July 1877, Anderson wrote from Kamloops to say that "Sela-heetza, the Chief of the Okinagans, who when a young man travelled with me a good deal, and who has now attained great influence, came recently to Kamloops and visited our camp to pay his respects to the Commissioners.
"He afterwards visited me privately at my tent, and after a good deal of conversation imparted to me [some] of what has recently transpired among the natives at the General Councils that have been had."
Anderson finished his report with "Sela-heetza, I may add, is a man of much influence. Like the rest he is astute, and his words must be accepted with caution. Nevertheless, under the influence of old friendship, he has probably been as frank with me, privately, as his nature will admit."
(RG10, Volume 3651,File 8540, General Correspondence to and from the British Columbia Reserve Commission regarding reserves, 1877-1878, Canada, Dept. of Indian Affairs, Black Series, Library and Archives Canada).
From Anderson's journals: "Today Selixt-asposem (Five Hearts, also Moise), the Chief of this section of the Okinagans, and Sel-a-heetza, the Chief of the Nicolas Lake, his co-adjutor, sent a message asking for a private interview. We received them in the afternoon...
"Sel-a-heetza acting as chief spokesman, began by saying that they had come thus privately in order to talk of bygone things and of matters as they now stand. He referred to the late Chief, Nicholas, who as we well knew had always been the firm friend of the whites, and who, by all the white chiefs, including some of ourselves, had been regarded as a brother. That Nicholas on his death bed had spoken to Selixt-asposem, his son, and to him, Sel-a-heetza, his Nephew, urging upon them the observance of the same friendly line of conduct, and told them that when they looked at these medals at any time of difficulty, they must recall his dying words."
Anderson described the two medals: one, a very beautiful work of art, had on the front the head of King George III, and on the reverse side the arms of the HBC; the second medal was a coronation medal of Queen Victoria.
This was 1877 -- the first medal was probably given to Chief Nicola in 1824 by Governor George Simpson (See: Frederick Merk, Fur Trade and Empire, p. 132). I wonder where it is now?
At the end of the long meeting the two Native chiefs departed, and something special happened.
"We should here mention that up to this time (among the Okinagans) we have made it a point to offer nothing in the shape of the present, even so much as a pipe of tobacco, lest we might be slighted by a refusal; the Chiefs having intimated that they and their people were averse to accepting anything in the shape of a gratuity until their land question was in train of settlement... Today, however, Sela-heetza, of his own accord, before leaving us, asked for tobacco. This was of course at once given to him, as well as to his companion, and they left us in great good humour."
(RG10, Volume 3659, File 9500, Journal of the proceedings of the Commission for the settlement of the Indian Reserves in the Province of B. C., 1878, Canada, Dept. of Indian Affairs, Black Series, LAC)
Tsilaxitsa fascinated me, and I was fortunate enough to uncover his portrait in the Provincial archives, filed under landscapes! It can now be viewed online at the archives.
The original is hanging upstairs in the Archives in a darkened room, and when I was being shown the original of Anderson's 1867 map, I turned around to see Tsilaxitsa's portrait behind me.
The book was mostly written before I discovered how Anderson knew Tsilaxitsa so well!
Anderson was at Fort Alexandria when, in April 1847, clerk Montrose McGillivary arrived with dispatches from Fort Vancouver.
Anderson was to find a second route to Fort Langley from Kamloops, this time through the rugged canyons and rapids of the Fraser River.
Anderson set off from Kamloops on May 19, 1847, and shortly afterward set up camp at the west end of Nicola Lake, where he expected to meet his Native guide -- Blackeye's son-in-law.
Their guides were not yet there, but joined the fur traders where the Nicoamen River flowed into the Thompson.
In his journals Anderson said that: "Pahallak, the chief engaged by C.T. Yale, made his appearance shortly after our arrival accompanied by a large concourse of Indians of every age and sex."
But Tsilaxitsa must have been there too, or he joined the party later. Tsilaxitsa and Blackeye's son -- not Pahallak -- guided Anderson up the hills behind Boston Bar to the Nicola Valley on their return Journey.
At the top of the hills the parties separated, with McGillivray taking the Native guides to help bring the brigade in, while Anderson rode to Kamloops and Fort Alexandria.
It is in Anderson's written instructions to McGillivray that we discover that the Natives who accompanied the party included Blackeye's son and Tsilaxitsa.
He returned to Kamloops in 1877, when he represented the Dominion of Canada's government as their Indian Reserve Commissioner.
Fellow commissioners were Archibald McKinley, a retired fur trader who farmed at Lac la Hache, and Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, an immigrant from England.
The three Commissioners could not have had more differing views of the Natives they worked with than these three men.
Archibald McKinlay thought all Natives were savages; Sproat referred to some as "doublefaced Indian chiefs."
Anderson referred to the coast Natives as "miserable fish eaters," but he admired these Interior Natives for their beauty and nobility.
But he knew Tsilaxitsa personally, and wrote in his journals that he had ridden many miles with this man.
Tsilaxitsa's name is written in various ways -- Silhitza, Chilliheetza, Chillihutza -- Anderson spelled it Sela-heetza.
Tsilaxitsa was one of the most important Okanagan chiefs of his time; his father was an Okanagan man, and his mother Chief Nicola's favorite sister who died when she was giving birth to him.
Chief Nicola adopted the infant, and Tsilaxitsa grew up in Chief Nicola's residence on Nicola Lake.
On Nicola's death, Tsilsxitsa became the nominal head of the northern branches of the Okanagan tribes and played an active role in the politics of the time, especially in relation to the land question.
Most of this information comes from 42nd Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1978, p. 59.
Interestingly enough, the author of this short biography did not connect Tsilaxitsa with the brigade trails.
In July 1877, Anderson wrote from Kamloops to say that "Sela-heetza, the Chief of the Okinagans, who when a young man travelled with me a good deal, and who has now attained great influence, came recently to Kamloops and visited our camp to pay his respects to the Commissioners.
"He afterwards visited me privately at my tent, and after a good deal of conversation imparted to me [some] of what has recently transpired among the natives at the General Councils that have been had."
Anderson finished his report with "Sela-heetza, I may add, is a man of much influence. Like the rest he is astute, and his words must be accepted with caution. Nevertheless, under the influence of old friendship, he has probably been as frank with me, privately, as his nature will admit."
(RG10, Volume 3651,File 8540, General Correspondence to and from the British Columbia Reserve Commission regarding reserves, 1877-1878, Canada, Dept. of Indian Affairs, Black Series, Library and Archives Canada).
From Anderson's journals: "Today Selixt-asposem (Five Hearts, also Moise), the Chief of this section of the Okinagans, and Sel-a-heetza, the Chief of the Nicolas Lake, his co-adjutor, sent a message asking for a private interview. We received them in the afternoon...
"Sel-a-heetza acting as chief spokesman, began by saying that they had come thus privately in order to talk of bygone things and of matters as they now stand. He referred to the late Chief, Nicholas, who as we well knew had always been the firm friend of the whites, and who, by all the white chiefs, including some of ourselves, had been regarded as a brother. That Nicholas on his death bed had spoken to Selixt-asposem, his son, and to him, Sel-a-heetza, his Nephew, urging upon them the observance of the same friendly line of conduct, and told them that when they looked at these medals at any time of difficulty, they must recall his dying words."
Anderson described the two medals: one, a very beautiful work of art, had on the front the head of King George III, and on the reverse side the arms of the HBC; the second medal was a coronation medal of Queen Victoria.
This was 1877 -- the first medal was probably given to Chief Nicola in 1824 by Governor George Simpson (See: Frederick Merk, Fur Trade and Empire, p. 132). I wonder where it is now?
At the end of the long meeting the two Native chiefs departed, and something special happened.
"We should here mention that up to this time (among the Okinagans) we have made it a point to offer nothing in the shape of the present, even so much as a pipe of tobacco, lest we might be slighted by a refusal; the Chiefs having intimated that they and their people were averse to accepting anything in the shape of a gratuity until their land question was in train of settlement... Today, however, Sela-heetza, of his own accord, before leaving us, asked for tobacco. This was of course at once given to him, as well as to his companion, and they left us in great good humour."
(RG10, Volume 3659, File 9500, Journal of the proceedings of the Commission for the settlement of the Indian Reserves in the Province of B. C., 1878, Canada, Dept. of Indian Affairs, Black Series, LAC)
Tsilaxitsa fascinated me, and I was fortunate enough to uncover his portrait in the Provincial archives, filed under landscapes! It can now be viewed online at the archives.
The original is hanging upstairs in the Archives in a darkened room, and when I was being shown the original of Anderson's 1867 map, I turned around to see Tsilaxitsa's portrait behind me.
The book was mostly written before I discovered how Anderson knew Tsilaxitsa so well!
Anderson was at Fort Alexandria when, in April 1847, clerk Montrose McGillivary arrived with dispatches from Fort Vancouver.
Anderson was to find a second route to Fort Langley from Kamloops, this time through the rugged canyons and rapids of the Fraser River.
Anderson set off from Kamloops on May 19, 1847, and shortly afterward set up camp at the west end of Nicola Lake, where he expected to meet his Native guide -- Blackeye's son-in-law.
Their guides were not yet there, but joined the fur traders where the Nicoamen River flowed into the Thompson.
In his journals Anderson said that: "Pahallak, the chief engaged by C.T. Yale, made his appearance shortly after our arrival accompanied by a large concourse of Indians of every age and sex."
But Tsilaxitsa must have been there too, or he joined the party later. Tsilaxitsa and Blackeye's son -- not Pahallak -- guided Anderson up the hills behind Boston Bar to the Nicola Valley on their return Journey.
At the top of the hills the parties separated, with McGillivray taking the Native guides to help bring the brigade in, while Anderson rode to Kamloops and Fort Alexandria.
It is in Anderson's written instructions to McGillivray that we discover that the Natives who accompanied the party included Blackeye's son and Tsilaxitsa.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Lives Lived West of the Divide
For those of us who are descendents of fur traders west of the Rocky Mountains, there is a newly published book available.
I have heard for years of the work being done by Bruce Watson, a Vancouver based historian who has been collecting the stories of all the fur traders west of the Rocky Mountains.
This collection will include the story of Alexander Caulfield Anderson and his father-in-law, James Birnie.
Will it also include my g.g.g.grandfather Beaulieu's story? I cannot wait to find out.
The 3 volume book is titled "Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858," and the author's full name is Bruce McIntyre Watson.
The publisher is Lulu.com, and the book must so far be ordered through them.
If you have an ancestor in the fur trade, rush out and purchase this 3 volume book -- I will be ordering my copy today!
I have heard for years of the work being done by Bruce Watson, a Vancouver based historian who has been collecting the stories of all the fur traders west of the Rocky Mountains.
This collection will include the story of Alexander Caulfield Anderson and his father-in-law, James Birnie.
Will it also include my g.g.g.grandfather Beaulieu's story? I cannot wait to find out.
The 3 volume book is titled "Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858," and the author's full name is Bruce McIntyre Watson.
The publisher is Lulu.com, and the book must so far be ordered through them.
If you have an ancestor in the fur trade, rush out and purchase this 3 volume book -- I will be ordering my copy today!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Why is this book important?
Fifteen years before the 1858 Fraser River gold rush, a Hudson's Bay Company clerk threaded his way through mountain passes and down rapid-filled rivers in search of a route through the mountains that separated the HBC fort at Kamloops, from Fort Langley on the Pacific Coast.
Half a century earlier, Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser had separately explored the Fraser and its tributaries in search of a safe canoe route to the Pacific, and both had failed.
More than fifty years after Mackenzie's exploration, and almost forty years after Fraser's downriver expedition, Alexander Caulfield Anderson succeeded in finding four routes to the lower Fraser, all of which bypassed the canyons and rapids that had foiled the earlier North West Company explorers.
In the end, only one of Anderson's four trails served as the HBC's brigade trail to Fort Hope for the next fifteen years.
However, in the years that followed, all four of Anderson's trails carried thousands of gold miners around the same rapid-filled canyons into the upper Fraser River gold fields.
This blog -- and my book -- tells the story of the fur trader whose four cross-country expeditions helped to carve modern-day British Columbia from the wilderness that surrounded Fort Langley, Kamloops, and Fort St. James.
Because Anderson was so interested in the early NWC explorers whose trails he followed, his story touches on Alexander Mackenzie's venture west to Rascal's Village in 1793.
It follows Simon Fraser's chaotic descent of the river later named for him.
It continues through the turbulent years after 1843, when the HBC men are forced to abandon old brigade trails and open new ones.
It also describes the 1858 gold rush and James Douglas' creation of the colony of Vancouver's Island which changed the HBC's old domain beyond recognition.
The story also tells of the arrival of the Royal Engineers, who built roads through the canyons the fur traders had been unable to negotiate in safety.
Those trails later carried British-born settlers into the wilds the fur traders had occupied for the previous fifty years.
I can't think of another fur trader whose story covers these important years of the fur trader after 1843, when most of the changes that created British Columbia occurred.
Donald Manson played an active role through these years, but retired to the Columbia and never came north to the new British colony.
John Tod played an active role in opening trails near Kamloops but had nothing to do with any trails to the coast.
Because of Anderson's important work during these years, this book becomes an immensely important addition to the history of British Columbia.
His story ties the history of New Caledonia to that of the colony of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia during the gold rush, and finally to the formation of a province.
This book will sell to local historians who want to know what happened in the fur trade after 1843, where Richard Mackie's Trading Beyond the Mountains: the British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1794-1843 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000) ends. If Richard Mackie wrote a second volume covering the years after 1843, Alexander Caulfield Anderson would be a major character in his history.
James R. Gibson's The Lifeline of the Oregon Country: the Fraser-Columbia Brigade System, 1811-47 (Vancouver, UBC Press, 1997) covers only the history of the Okanagan and Thompson plateau brigade trails. Those who want to know more about the history of the Cariboo, Anderson's River, and Coquihalla brigade trails would purchase this book.
Local historians who purchased Marie Elliott's recently published Fort St. James and New Caledonia: Where British Columbia Began (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing: 2009) would pick up this book to gain further information on the many changes that occurred in this territory.
So, too, would readers of Stephen Hume's Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia (Harbour Publishing, 2008). Like others in this list, this book tells the story of the early fur trade and ends long before the pivotal years after 1843.
Readers with an interest in the gold rush of 1858 probably purchased The Trail of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past, by Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson (Harbour Publishing, 2007).
Or they may have bought an older book, Netta Sterne's Fraser Gold 1858! (Pullman, WA: WSU Press, 1998). These same readers might purchase this book to learn more about the trails that carried the miners into the Fraser River gold fields.
Anderson had later careers after his fur trade career ended, and those careers are covered in two books -- Douglas C. Harris's Fish, Law and Colonialism: the Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), and Cole Harris's Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002). Students of history in the fields of fisheries management or settlement of Native Reserves might purchase this book to learn more about the man whose work is talked of (and sometimes criticized) in those books.
And people who like maps will purchase this book. Anderson was an artist who drew maps of the territory he lived in and explored, and historians consider that Anderson's 1867 map of British Columbia is one of the most significant maps in British Columbia's history.
Derek Hayes, author of numerous books on historical maps, will be featuring Anderson's 1867 map in his next publication, due out in 2010. Hopefully my book will also include parts of this map, and others.
Half a century earlier, Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser had separately explored the Fraser and its tributaries in search of a safe canoe route to the Pacific, and both had failed.
More than fifty years after Mackenzie's exploration, and almost forty years after Fraser's downriver expedition, Alexander Caulfield Anderson succeeded in finding four routes to the lower Fraser, all of which bypassed the canyons and rapids that had foiled the earlier North West Company explorers.
In the end, only one of Anderson's four trails served as the HBC's brigade trail to Fort Hope for the next fifteen years.
However, in the years that followed, all four of Anderson's trails carried thousands of gold miners around the same rapid-filled canyons into the upper Fraser River gold fields.
This blog -- and my book -- tells the story of the fur trader whose four cross-country expeditions helped to carve modern-day British Columbia from the wilderness that surrounded Fort Langley, Kamloops, and Fort St. James.
Because Anderson was so interested in the early NWC explorers whose trails he followed, his story touches on Alexander Mackenzie's venture west to Rascal's Village in 1793.
It follows Simon Fraser's chaotic descent of the river later named for him.
It continues through the turbulent years after 1843, when the HBC men are forced to abandon old brigade trails and open new ones.
It also describes the 1858 gold rush and James Douglas' creation of the colony of Vancouver's Island which changed the HBC's old domain beyond recognition.
The story also tells of the arrival of the Royal Engineers, who built roads through the canyons the fur traders had been unable to negotiate in safety.
Those trails later carried British-born settlers into the wilds the fur traders had occupied for the previous fifty years.
I can't think of another fur trader whose story covers these important years of the fur trader after 1843, when most of the changes that created British Columbia occurred.
Donald Manson played an active role through these years, but retired to the Columbia and never came north to the new British colony.
John Tod played an active role in opening trails near Kamloops but had nothing to do with any trails to the coast.
Because of Anderson's important work during these years, this book becomes an immensely important addition to the history of British Columbia.
His story ties the history of New Caledonia to that of the colony of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia during the gold rush, and finally to the formation of a province.
This book will sell to local historians who want to know what happened in the fur trade after 1843, where Richard Mackie's Trading Beyond the Mountains: the British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1794-1843 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000) ends. If Richard Mackie wrote a second volume covering the years after 1843, Alexander Caulfield Anderson would be a major character in his history.
James R. Gibson's The Lifeline of the Oregon Country: the Fraser-Columbia Brigade System, 1811-47 (Vancouver, UBC Press, 1997) covers only the history of the Okanagan and Thompson plateau brigade trails. Those who want to know more about the history of the Cariboo, Anderson's River, and Coquihalla brigade trails would purchase this book.
Local historians who purchased Marie Elliott's recently published Fort St. James and New Caledonia: Where British Columbia Began (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing: 2009) would pick up this book to gain further information on the many changes that occurred in this territory.
So, too, would readers of Stephen Hume's Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia (Harbour Publishing, 2008). Like others in this list, this book tells the story of the early fur trade and ends long before the pivotal years after 1843.
Readers with an interest in the gold rush of 1858 probably purchased The Trail of 1858: British Columbia's Gold Rush Past, by Mark Forsythe and Greg Dickson (Harbour Publishing, 2007).
Or they may have bought an older book, Netta Sterne's Fraser Gold 1858! (Pullman, WA: WSU Press, 1998). These same readers might purchase this book to learn more about the trails that carried the miners into the Fraser River gold fields.
Anderson had later careers after his fur trade career ended, and those careers are covered in two books -- Douglas C. Harris's Fish, Law and Colonialism: the Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), and Cole Harris's Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002). Students of history in the fields of fisheries management or settlement of Native Reserves might purchase this book to learn more about the man whose work is talked of (and sometimes criticized) in those books.
And people who like maps will purchase this book. Anderson was an artist who drew maps of the territory he lived in and explored, and historians consider that Anderson's 1867 map of British Columbia is one of the most significant maps in British Columbia's history.
Derek Hayes, author of numerous books on historical maps, will be featuring Anderson's 1867 map in his next publication, due out in 2010. Hopefully my book will also include parts of this map, and others.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Time and the Fur Trade in British Columbia
Fifteen years before the gold miners invaded Fort Victoria in 1858, a Hudson's Bay Company clerk threaded his way through mountain passes and down rapid-filled rivers in search of a route through the mountains that separated the HBC fort at Kamloops from Fort Langley, on the coast.
Alexander Caulfield Anderson knew that the North West Company explorers Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser had already failed to find a route to the ocean for the export of furs.
But Anderson succeeded where they had failed, and opened four trails to Fort Langley -- though only one successfully served as the Company's brigade trail for the next fifteen years.
But in the years immediately after summer 1858, all four of Anderson's trails guided thousands of gold miners around the rapid-filled canyons of the Fraser River into the gold fields of the Cariboo.
Anderson's four cross-country expeditions helped to carve modern-day British Columbia from the wilds that surrounded Fort Langley, Kamloops, and Fort St. James.
Because Anderson was so interested in the early North West explorers whose trails he followed, his story begins in the years that Alexander Mackenzie ventured west to Rascal's Village and a view of the open North Pacific Ocean.
It includes the years when Simon Fraser followed a river later named for him to the open waters of today's Salish Sea (Georgia Strait).
The story continues as the Hudson's Bay Company abandons its old trails and opens new.
It swings through the 1858 gold rush and James Douglas' creation of the colony of Vancouver's Island.
Only a few years later, the Royal Engineers arrived to build roads through the canyons the fur traders had been unable to travel through in safety, and these roads carried British-born settlers into wilderness that the fur traders had occupied for only fifty years.
One of the discoveries that most surprised me as I researched and wrote this book was how quickly the fur trade changed.
North West Company explorer Alexander Mackenzie descended the Fraser River in search of a route to the west coast for the export of furs.
At about the place where the North Westers later built Fort Alexandria, Mackenzie was advised by the Natives to turn back and follow another river trail to the Pacific Ocean.
Mackenzie followed the Natives' advice and paddled down his West Road River, reaching his Rascal's Village and the salt waters of the Pacific Ocean in July.
He considered his exploration unsuccessful, and left the territory.
In 1833 -- forty years after Mackenzie's visit to the coast at Rascal's Village -- Anderson helped to built Fort McLoughlin in the estuary of the waters Mackenzie had visited, and read Mackenzie's newly published journals.
Fifty years after Mackenzie visited the place where Fort Alexandria was later built, Anderson took charge of the fort the North Westers had named for Alexander Mackenzie.
In 1844 Anderson set up a new fur trade post at Thleuz-cuz, a lake on Alexander Mackenzie's historic West Road River.
In 1881 -- ninety years after Mackenzie's visit to the coast and fifty after Anderson helped to build Fort McLoughlin -- Anderson visited Mackenzie's Rascal's Village, and listened while the Natives told him the story of Mackenzie's visit to their waters.
The North West Company fur traders, Simon Fraser and John Stuart, entered the territory they named New Caledonia in 1805, and set up their first fur trade fort.
In 1808 the two North Westers descended the Fraser River to its mouth and, considering their exploration unsuccessful, returned to Stuart's Lake.
In 1831 the apprentice-clerk Anderson met Simon Fraser at Lachine, and a few months later met John Stuart at the stone fort at Red River.
In 1836 Alexander Caulfield Anderson arrived at Stuart's Lake -- thirty years after Fraser and Stuart established their first posts in New Caledonia.
In 1847 -- forty years after Fraser's descent of the river named for him -- Anderson led his first expedition down the Fraser River through its canyons and rapids.
The old brigade trail over the Thompson plateau north of Kamloops was constructed about 1824, and used for about twenty years -- not a long stretch of time at all!
In 1843 this trail was replaced by a new brigade trail south of Fort Alexandria and passing through Loon Lake and Green Lakes.
Twenty five years after Anderson first led the first Fort Alexandria brigade over the new brigade trail to Kamloops, the new Cariboo wagon road replaced the company's brigade trail and ploughed past road-houses, cattle ranches, and settlements all the way to Barkerville.
The brigade trail through the Okanagan has a longer history; it was first used by John Stuart when he made his way south to the fur trade post at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1812.
When the fur traders of New Caledonia adopted a new trail to Fort Langley in 1848, the Okanagan trail was more or less abandoned and only used as a route to Fort Colvile on the Columbia River.
The various brigade trails through the Okanagan used several routes; the early trail followed the chain of rivers and lakes closely but a later trail was constructed in the hills to the west of the lakes.
But it did not matter what famous person rode the trails, nor does it matter which Okanagan trail we speak of -- their total life span as brigade trails was less than forty years!
In 1848 the fur traders came out over a new brigade trail down Anderson's River to Fort Yale.
Within a year or two they replaced this difficult trail with another that went over the Coquihalla mountain range to Fort Hope.
The Anderson's River trail had a life span as a brigade trail of only two years.
But in the years after 1858, thousands of gold miners trudged over the trail into the gold fields on the Thompson and Fraser river.
When in the 1860's, the Royal Engineers carved a good road out of the cliff faces between Yale and Boston Bar, above the rapids and falls that had so troubled the brigaders of the HBC in 1848 and 1849, the Anderson's River trail was no longer needed.
Probably the only people who used this trail after the construction of the Cariboo Road were the Nlaka'pamux people who occupied the banks of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers and the Nicola Valley.
The trail over the Coquihalla Mountains was first explored by Alexander Caulfield Anderson in 1846.
In all of his other expeditions he was guided by Natives across Native trails.
On this occasion he and his men travelled with Native men who supposedly were to guide them, but none of them had travelled over the mountain range from the west.
Anderson met a Thompson's River Native trapper who showed him the beginnings of his pathway up the mountainside, but that man did not guide him across the mountain.
The fur traders stumbled across the mountaintop on the frozen snow, and followed the narrow Tulameen River valley in a curving route down the north side of the mountain.
Anderson knew that this could never be a brigade route, and thought he had failed.
But the fur traders met a Similkameen Native named Blackeye, who told them there was a good Native road up the north side of the mountains.
In 1847 Blackeye's son (or son-in-law) guided a HBC clerk across the mountains by a different route than the one Anderson had followed.
In 1849 the fur traders followed this new route on their return from Fort Hope, and though no work had been done to make this trail a brigade trail, they had no difficulties in making their way over the mountains.
By 1851 the fur traders had completed the trail, building bridges over boggy land, falling trees to widen the trail, and carving long switch-backs up steep slopes.
But this trail also had a short shelf life -- only ten or so years.
In 1858 the Fraser River gold rush brought miners northward up the Okanagan brigade trail into the Similkameen; in 1859 they discovered gold at Rock Creek; by 1860 hordes of Americans mined there.
Governor James Douglas moved quickly to ensure that this territory remained British, and hired civil engineer Edgar Dewdney to build a wagon road across the Coquihalla to Rock Creek.
The trail passed through modern-day Princeton and followed the north bank of the Similkameen River east toward Osoyoos Lake (along the path of the brigade trail from Fort Colvile to Tulameen).
Beyond Osoyoos Lake it climbed Anarchist Mountain and crossed that plateau to Rock Creek, on the mountain's east side.
By the end of 1861 the trail was complete, replacing the brigade trail.
But by the time, even the fur traders no longer used their old brigade trail.
After he left the fur trade in 1854, Anderson never again rode over the trails that he had known as a fur trader.
But in 1877 he was carried to Kamloops by stage-coach over the roads that replaced those trails; he travelled by steamboats up rivers he had formerly followed on horseback; he might have followed the remnants of the new brigade trail to the Bonaparte River Native reserve.
The one brigade trail he did ride in 1877 was the Okanagan brigade trail, which still served as the colonists' route up and down the Okanagan valley.
When he took to horseback at Osoyoos to visit the Native chief who lived at Avona, on the old brigade trail between Fort Colvile to the Coquihalla, he might also have followed the old Kettle Valley brigade trail (I will speak of this trail in a later posting).
He was sixty three years old when he revisited this part of the world; he had last ridden these trails twenty five years earlier.
In writing Alexander Caulfield Anderson's story I find I am writing the entire history of the fur trade in British Columbia, from Alexander Mackenzie's time to its end.
Anderson's story covers most of the history of early British Columbia, from the time the first fur traders entered the territory they called New Caledonia; through the many changes that occurred when the HBC took over the NWC and as they replaced old brigade trails with new.
Time moved even more quickly once the gold miners entered the territory, and the Royal Engineers built roads that enabled British settlers to claim and settle on lands that, in the past, only the Natives had lived in.
The fur traders occupied the Natives' territory for only fifty years, yet the fur trade is so important to British Columbia's history.
I cannot think of another man, other than Alexander Caulfield Anderson, whose story encompasses so much of the early history of British Columbia.
Alexander Caulfield Anderson knew that the North West Company explorers Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser had already failed to find a route to the ocean for the export of furs.
But Anderson succeeded where they had failed, and opened four trails to Fort Langley -- though only one successfully served as the Company's brigade trail for the next fifteen years.
But in the years immediately after summer 1858, all four of Anderson's trails guided thousands of gold miners around the rapid-filled canyons of the Fraser River into the gold fields of the Cariboo.
Anderson's four cross-country expeditions helped to carve modern-day British Columbia from the wilds that surrounded Fort Langley, Kamloops, and Fort St. James.
Because Anderson was so interested in the early North West explorers whose trails he followed, his story begins in the years that Alexander Mackenzie ventured west to Rascal's Village and a view of the open North Pacific Ocean.
It includes the years when Simon Fraser followed a river later named for him to the open waters of today's Salish Sea (Georgia Strait).
The story continues as the Hudson's Bay Company abandons its old trails and opens new.
It swings through the 1858 gold rush and James Douglas' creation of the colony of Vancouver's Island.
Only a few years later, the Royal Engineers arrived to build roads through the canyons the fur traders had been unable to travel through in safety, and these roads carried British-born settlers into wilderness that the fur traders had occupied for only fifty years.
One of the discoveries that most surprised me as I researched and wrote this book was how quickly the fur trade changed.
North West Company explorer Alexander Mackenzie descended the Fraser River in search of a route to the west coast for the export of furs.
At about the place where the North Westers later built Fort Alexandria, Mackenzie was advised by the Natives to turn back and follow another river trail to the Pacific Ocean.
Mackenzie followed the Natives' advice and paddled down his West Road River, reaching his Rascal's Village and the salt waters of the Pacific Ocean in July.
He considered his exploration unsuccessful, and left the territory.
In 1833 -- forty years after Mackenzie's visit to the coast at Rascal's Village -- Anderson helped to built Fort McLoughlin in the estuary of the waters Mackenzie had visited, and read Mackenzie's newly published journals.
Fifty years after Mackenzie visited the place where Fort Alexandria was later built, Anderson took charge of the fort the North Westers had named for Alexander Mackenzie.
In 1844 Anderson set up a new fur trade post at Thleuz-cuz, a lake on Alexander Mackenzie's historic West Road River.
In 1881 -- ninety years after Mackenzie's visit to the coast and fifty after Anderson helped to build Fort McLoughlin -- Anderson visited Mackenzie's Rascal's Village, and listened while the Natives told him the story of Mackenzie's visit to their waters.
The North West Company fur traders, Simon Fraser and John Stuart, entered the territory they named New Caledonia in 1805, and set up their first fur trade fort.
In 1808 the two North Westers descended the Fraser River to its mouth and, considering their exploration unsuccessful, returned to Stuart's Lake.
In 1831 the apprentice-clerk Anderson met Simon Fraser at Lachine, and a few months later met John Stuart at the stone fort at Red River.
In 1836 Alexander Caulfield Anderson arrived at Stuart's Lake -- thirty years after Fraser and Stuart established their first posts in New Caledonia.
In 1847 -- forty years after Fraser's descent of the river named for him -- Anderson led his first expedition down the Fraser River through its canyons and rapids.
The old brigade trail over the Thompson plateau north of Kamloops was constructed about 1824, and used for about twenty years -- not a long stretch of time at all!
In 1843 this trail was replaced by a new brigade trail south of Fort Alexandria and passing through Loon Lake and Green Lakes.
Twenty five years after Anderson first led the first Fort Alexandria brigade over the new brigade trail to Kamloops, the new Cariboo wagon road replaced the company's brigade trail and ploughed past road-houses, cattle ranches, and settlements all the way to Barkerville.
The brigade trail through the Okanagan has a longer history; it was first used by John Stuart when he made his way south to the fur trade post at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1812.
When the fur traders of New Caledonia adopted a new trail to Fort Langley in 1848, the Okanagan trail was more or less abandoned and only used as a route to Fort Colvile on the Columbia River.
The various brigade trails through the Okanagan used several routes; the early trail followed the chain of rivers and lakes closely but a later trail was constructed in the hills to the west of the lakes.
But it did not matter what famous person rode the trails, nor does it matter which Okanagan trail we speak of -- their total life span as brigade trails was less than forty years!
In 1848 the fur traders came out over a new brigade trail down Anderson's River to Fort Yale.
Within a year or two they replaced this difficult trail with another that went over the Coquihalla mountain range to Fort Hope.
The Anderson's River trail had a life span as a brigade trail of only two years.
But in the years after 1858, thousands of gold miners trudged over the trail into the gold fields on the Thompson and Fraser river.
When in the 1860's, the Royal Engineers carved a good road out of the cliff faces between Yale and Boston Bar, above the rapids and falls that had so troubled the brigaders of the HBC in 1848 and 1849, the Anderson's River trail was no longer needed.
Probably the only people who used this trail after the construction of the Cariboo Road were the Nlaka'pamux people who occupied the banks of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers and the Nicola Valley.
The trail over the Coquihalla Mountains was first explored by Alexander Caulfield Anderson in 1846.
In all of his other expeditions he was guided by Natives across Native trails.
On this occasion he and his men travelled with Native men who supposedly were to guide them, but none of them had travelled over the mountain range from the west.
Anderson met a Thompson's River Native trapper who showed him the beginnings of his pathway up the mountainside, but that man did not guide him across the mountain.
The fur traders stumbled across the mountaintop on the frozen snow, and followed the narrow Tulameen River valley in a curving route down the north side of the mountain.
Anderson knew that this could never be a brigade route, and thought he had failed.
But the fur traders met a Similkameen Native named Blackeye, who told them there was a good Native road up the north side of the mountains.
In 1847 Blackeye's son (or son-in-law) guided a HBC clerk across the mountains by a different route than the one Anderson had followed.
In 1849 the fur traders followed this new route on their return from Fort Hope, and though no work had been done to make this trail a brigade trail, they had no difficulties in making their way over the mountains.
By 1851 the fur traders had completed the trail, building bridges over boggy land, falling trees to widen the trail, and carving long switch-backs up steep slopes.
But this trail also had a short shelf life -- only ten or so years.
In 1858 the Fraser River gold rush brought miners northward up the Okanagan brigade trail into the Similkameen; in 1859 they discovered gold at Rock Creek; by 1860 hordes of Americans mined there.
Governor James Douglas moved quickly to ensure that this territory remained British, and hired civil engineer Edgar Dewdney to build a wagon road across the Coquihalla to Rock Creek.
The trail passed through modern-day Princeton and followed the north bank of the Similkameen River east toward Osoyoos Lake (along the path of the brigade trail from Fort Colvile to Tulameen).
Beyond Osoyoos Lake it climbed Anarchist Mountain and crossed that plateau to Rock Creek, on the mountain's east side.
By the end of 1861 the trail was complete, replacing the brigade trail.
But by the time, even the fur traders no longer used their old brigade trail.
After he left the fur trade in 1854, Anderson never again rode over the trails that he had known as a fur trader.
But in 1877 he was carried to Kamloops by stage-coach over the roads that replaced those trails; he travelled by steamboats up rivers he had formerly followed on horseback; he might have followed the remnants of the new brigade trail to the Bonaparte River Native reserve.
The one brigade trail he did ride in 1877 was the Okanagan brigade trail, which still served as the colonists' route up and down the Okanagan valley.
When he took to horseback at Osoyoos to visit the Native chief who lived at Avona, on the old brigade trail between Fort Colvile to the Coquihalla, he might also have followed the old Kettle Valley brigade trail (I will speak of this trail in a later posting).
He was sixty three years old when he revisited this part of the world; he had last ridden these trails twenty five years earlier.
In writing Alexander Caulfield Anderson's story I find I am writing the entire history of the fur trade in British Columbia, from Alexander Mackenzie's time to its end.
Anderson's story covers most of the history of early British Columbia, from the time the first fur traders entered the territory they called New Caledonia; through the many changes that occurred when the HBC took over the NWC and as they replaced old brigade trails with new.
Time moved even more quickly once the gold miners entered the territory, and the Royal Engineers built roads that enabled British settlers to claim and settle on lands that, in the past, only the Natives had lived in.
The fur traders occupied the Natives' territory for only fifty years, yet the fur trade is so important to British Columbia's history.
I cannot think of another man, other than Alexander Caulfield Anderson, whose story encompasses so much of the early history of British Columbia.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Pere John Nobili, James Birnie, and Alexander Anderson
Although in his writings, Anderson wrote nothing of Pere John Nobili, it is obvious that this Roman Catholic priest was an important man in Anderson's personal history.
Moreover, Nobili is one of the few men who knew both Alexander Caulfield Anderson and his father-in-law, James Birnie.
In this posting, I will tell you both stories, and Nobili's as well.
Pere John Nobili was born in 1812 in Rome, and baptized Giovanni Pietro Antonio Nobili. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in November 1828 and took his first vows in 1835. After his inordination in 1843, Nobili volunteered for the Jesuit missions and joined a group of missionaries who was sailing on the Infatigable, in January 1844, for Fort Vancouver.
In early August,the missionaries spent several days in crossing the dangerous bar at the mouth of the Columbia River, and this is where they encountered James Birnie who was then in charge of Fort George, at the mouth of the river.
The following information is based on information I uncovered in a book by Sister Mary Dominica, "Willamette Interlude" (Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books, 1959). This book tells the story of the missionaries arrival at Fort Vancouver, and has an excellent description of James and Charlot Birnie.
This was not the first time that James Birnie had to rescue missionaries from their own foolishness, but these missionaries were more foolish than most.
The Infatigable's captain sailed into the Columbia on the wrong side of the channel, over dangerous sandbars.
Birnie attempted to guide the ship into the safe channel with bonfires, cannon-fire, and flag-waving, but the captain ignored him and somehow made it safely over the bar.
At Baker's Bay, Birnie boarded the ship and agreed with the Catholic missionaries that "God had saved them .. but in order that a second miracle might not be necesary he would ... guide them through the banks that lay between them and the fort [Vancouver]."
Birnie also told the missionaries that "Mrs. Birnie would be expecting all the passengers as soon as they landed."
The Notre Dame Sisters found "Mrs. Birnie and her seven fine-looking daughters waiting to receive them. One in all, the girls were quite captivated by the Sisters, who in turn were delighted with the cordiality of this Protestant family."
The missionaries, including Pere Nobili, enjoyed two meals at the Birnie house, and commented on Birnie's "hospitable Canadan wife, whose French was very good."
But they were surprised by one custom; the Birnie women declined to drink wine, and the Sisters, unwilling to offend, also denied themselves their usual wine.
These missionaries went on to Fort Vancouver, and John Nobili began his trip to New Caledonia in June 1845, replacing Father Modeste Demers who had left the territory in 1843.
On the incoming New Caledonia brigade, Nobili and a second missionary separated John Tod and Donald Manson, two fur traders who hated each other so much they got into a fist-fight at Kamloops.
In 1845, Nobili noted the many landslides along the Fraser and Nechako Rivers, with the river banks constantly caving in and forcing the boatmen to instantly chart a new course upriver.
Anderson's son, James, wrote of such a landslide:
"The land slide whereof mention is made, occurred below the fort where the bank was carried bodily into the river completely blocking its course and flooding all the lands adjacent to the river.
"So sudden was the occurrence that an Indian village was swept away entirely.
"My recollection is that it occurred at night as I remember my father coming into my room in the early morning wet and his coat, a cotton one, torn beyond recognition, he having torn bandages from it to bind up the wounds of those natives most badly hurt.
"I do not remember that there was any great loss of life, one or two only I think, but I do remember the story told by my father to the effect that a child who was missing was found after the subsidence of the water, suspended by its clothes in a tree, safe and sound." (Source: James Robert Anderson, Notes and Comments on early days and events in British Columbia..., Mss. 1912, box 9, folder 1, BCA).
Pere Nobili told a similar story, but he said the child had died.
I suspect that Anderson told his son a white lie, to comfort him and protect him from the cruelties of life in New Caledonia.
Nobili spent the winter of 1845-46 at Fort Alexandria, and Anderson took advantage of Nobili's constant presence to practice his Latin, especially important to him since he now owned a Bible written in that classical language.
But Nobili was an Italian speaker, and Anderson also studied the Italian language under him.
In later years, his son James reported that Anderson spoke Italian well, and Pere Nobili is the only man he could have learned this language from.
Pere Nobili also baptized two of Anderson's children in August 1845, and the witnesses to that baptism were Peter Skene Ogden and Donald Manson.
What an important collection of individuals at Fort Alexandria! Peter Skene Ogden, Donald Manson, Alexander Anderson, and Pere Jean Nobili.
One of the two children baptized on that day became famous in his own right -- Henry Anderson grew up to become Constable Henri "Harry" Anderson of the British Columbia Police and was well known in the British Columbia Kootenays.
Perhaps it is appropriate that I tell his story in my next posting.
Nobili left Alexandria with the outgoing express to Fort Colvile, and returned to spend the late summer and winter of 1846-47 at Fort St. James with Donald Manson.
But the missionary had a stubborn streak that frustrated the fur traders.
In March 1847 he left Fort St. James against Manson's advice, and travelled on snowshoes down the frozen rivers to Fort Alexandria.
Nobili and his novice arrived on Anderson's doorstep so exhausted that the fur trader removed Nobili's tattered leggings and shoes.
Anderson arranged that a retiring Fort Alexandria employee accompany Nobili on the rest of his journey, and when the missionary left Fort Alexandria he was accompanied by the French-Canadian, Jean Baptiste Vautrin.
Nobili later reported to his superiors that Donald Manson and Alexander Anderson had always treated him with kindness.
Nobili remained in the Okanagan district and set up a mission at Talle d'Epinettes, on Okanagan Lake.
He wintered there in 1847-48, when he left the district for Fort Vancouver, travelling out with Anderson's 1848 brigade over the new Anderson River route.
When he returned with the incoming brigade, he said a brief prayer over the body of a man who had committed suicide rather than return over the mountain with the brigade.
This man was Jacob Ballenden, and his grave is still in the little graveyard just to the south of the Alexandra lodge, which stands at the foot of the hills that the brigade travelled over.
This lodge has nothing to do with Fort Alexandria; it stands at the eastern end of the Alexandra bridge which crosses the Fraser River north of the modern-day town of Yale.
Nobili said that he made Anderson's promise that the site of Ballenden's grave would be preserved for posterity.
It's preserved, and all the hikers that follow the old brigade trail stop to visit the gravesite and learn its history.
Much of the information for this posting comes from the book, "Fort St. James and New Caledonia; where British Columbia Began," by Marie Elliott (Harbour Publishing, 2009). Some information comes from "Willamette Interludes," the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, and the Fort Alexandria journals in Hudson's Bay Company Archives.
Moreover, Nobili is one of the few men who knew both Alexander Caulfield Anderson and his father-in-law, James Birnie.
In this posting, I will tell you both stories, and Nobili's as well.
Pere John Nobili was born in 1812 in Rome, and baptized Giovanni Pietro Antonio Nobili. He entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in November 1828 and took his first vows in 1835. After his inordination in 1843, Nobili volunteered for the Jesuit missions and joined a group of missionaries who was sailing on the Infatigable, in January 1844, for Fort Vancouver.
In early August,the missionaries spent several days in crossing the dangerous bar at the mouth of the Columbia River, and this is where they encountered James Birnie who was then in charge of Fort George, at the mouth of the river.
The following information is based on information I uncovered in a book by Sister Mary Dominica, "Willamette Interlude" (Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books, 1959). This book tells the story of the missionaries arrival at Fort Vancouver, and has an excellent description of James and Charlot Birnie.
This was not the first time that James Birnie had to rescue missionaries from their own foolishness, but these missionaries were more foolish than most.
The Infatigable's captain sailed into the Columbia on the wrong side of the channel, over dangerous sandbars.
Birnie attempted to guide the ship into the safe channel with bonfires, cannon-fire, and flag-waving, but the captain ignored him and somehow made it safely over the bar.
At Baker's Bay, Birnie boarded the ship and agreed with the Catholic missionaries that "God had saved them .. but in order that a second miracle might not be necesary he would ... guide them through the banks that lay between them and the fort [Vancouver]."
Birnie also told the missionaries that "Mrs. Birnie would be expecting all the passengers as soon as they landed."
The Notre Dame Sisters found "Mrs. Birnie and her seven fine-looking daughters waiting to receive them. One in all, the girls were quite captivated by the Sisters, who in turn were delighted with the cordiality of this Protestant family."
The missionaries, including Pere Nobili, enjoyed two meals at the Birnie house, and commented on Birnie's "hospitable Canadan wife, whose French was very good."
But they were surprised by one custom; the Birnie women declined to drink wine, and the Sisters, unwilling to offend, also denied themselves their usual wine.
These missionaries went on to Fort Vancouver, and John Nobili began his trip to New Caledonia in June 1845, replacing Father Modeste Demers who had left the territory in 1843.
On the incoming New Caledonia brigade, Nobili and a second missionary separated John Tod and Donald Manson, two fur traders who hated each other so much they got into a fist-fight at Kamloops.
In 1845, Nobili noted the many landslides along the Fraser and Nechako Rivers, with the river banks constantly caving in and forcing the boatmen to instantly chart a new course upriver.
Anderson's son, James, wrote of such a landslide:
"The land slide whereof mention is made, occurred below the fort where the bank was carried bodily into the river completely blocking its course and flooding all the lands adjacent to the river.
"So sudden was the occurrence that an Indian village was swept away entirely.
"My recollection is that it occurred at night as I remember my father coming into my room in the early morning wet and his coat, a cotton one, torn beyond recognition, he having torn bandages from it to bind up the wounds of those natives most badly hurt.
"I do not remember that there was any great loss of life, one or two only I think, but I do remember the story told by my father to the effect that a child who was missing was found after the subsidence of the water, suspended by its clothes in a tree, safe and sound." (Source: James Robert Anderson, Notes and Comments on early days and events in British Columbia..., Mss. 1912, box 9, folder 1, BCA).
Pere Nobili told a similar story, but he said the child had died.
I suspect that Anderson told his son a white lie, to comfort him and protect him from the cruelties of life in New Caledonia.
Nobili spent the winter of 1845-46 at Fort Alexandria, and Anderson took advantage of Nobili's constant presence to practice his Latin, especially important to him since he now owned a Bible written in that classical language.
But Nobili was an Italian speaker, and Anderson also studied the Italian language under him.
In later years, his son James reported that Anderson spoke Italian well, and Pere Nobili is the only man he could have learned this language from.
Pere Nobili also baptized two of Anderson's children in August 1845, and the witnesses to that baptism were Peter Skene Ogden and Donald Manson.
What an important collection of individuals at Fort Alexandria! Peter Skene Ogden, Donald Manson, Alexander Anderson, and Pere Jean Nobili.
One of the two children baptized on that day became famous in his own right -- Henry Anderson grew up to become Constable Henri "Harry" Anderson of the British Columbia Police and was well known in the British Columbia Kootenays.
Perhaps it is appropriate that I tell his story in my next posting.
Nobili left Alexandria with the outgoing express to Fort Colvile, and returned to spend the late summer and winter of 1846-47 at Fort St. James with Donald Manson.
But the missionary had a stubborn streak that frustrated the fur traders.
In March 1847 he left Fort St. James against Manson's advice, and travelled on snowshoes down the frozen rivers to Fort Alexandria.
Nobili and his novice arrived on Anderson's doorstep so exhausted that the fur trader removed Nobili's tattered leggings and shoes.
Anderson arranged that a retiring Fort Alexandria employee accompany Nobili on the rest of his journey, and when the missionary left Fort Alexandria he was accompanied by the French-Canadian, Jean Baptiste Vautrin.
Nobili later reported to his superiors that Donald Manson and Alexander Anderson had always treated him with kindness.
Nobili remained in the Okanagan district and set up a mission at Talle d'Epinettes, on Okanagan Lake.
He wintered there in 1847-48, when he left the district for Fort Vancouver, travelling out with Anderson's 1848 brigade over the new Anderson River route.
When he returned with the incoming brigade, he said a brief prayer over the body of a man who had committed suicide rather than return over the mountain with the brigade.
This man was Jacob Ballenden, and his grave is still in the little graveyard just to the south of the Alexandra lodge, which stands at the foot of the hills that the brigade travelled over.
This lodge has nothing to do with Fort Alexandria; it stands at the eastern end of the Alexandra bridge which crosses the Fraser River north of the modern-day town of Yale.
Nobili said that he made Anderson's promise that the site of Ballenden's grave would be preserved for posterity.
It's preserved, and all the hikers that follow the old brigade trail stop to visit the gravesite and learn its history.
Much of the information for this posting comes from the book, "Fort St. James and New Caledonia; where British Columbia Began," by Marie Elliott (Harbour Publishing, 2009). Some information comes from "Willamette Interludes," the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, and the Fort Alexandria journals in Hudson's Bay Company Archives.
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