NO.1405. MAMMALS OF NORTHWEST TERRITORIES— MACFARLANE. 759 



The .statement of the company's London fur sale.s from 1853 to 1877, 

 inclusive, so frequently quoted and referred to in these notes, was 

 given to me many years ago by my old friend, the late Chief Factor 

 Robert Campbell, F. R. G. S., the discoverer and explorer of the 

 Upper Yukon, with its important tributaries, the Lewis, Pelly, and 

 Stewart rivers. 



Mr. Campbell was a man of great integrity of character, whose name comes close 

 to the end in a long list of active and undaunted men who, from the days of Sir 

 Alexander Mackenzie and the earlier times of the French Canadian and English 

 explorers, traversed mountains, ascended rivers, and trod the then unknown wilds 

 of North America. It would certainly be impossible to find their superiors, and not, 

 proportionally, very many their peers in any service. From 1838 to 1848 Mr. Camp- 

 bell made many remarkable explorations, the result of which, though scarcely 

 appreciated at the time even by the company for which he worked, can never be 

 forgotten in the history of northwestern Canada. He died in Manitoba in the month 

 of April, 1892, aged 80 years. 



This is neither the time nor the place for dilating- on the great serv- 

 ices rendered to Canada and the British Empire by her own splendid 

 Northwest Compan}^ of Montreal, as well as by the United Com- 

 panies, since 1821, but the writer must, however, be pardoned for 

 making one or two out of numerous published references thereto. 

 Bancroft, the American historian, writes that in his opinion: 



Of all associations formed at any time or place for the purpose of obtaining the skins 

 of fur-bearing animals, the Northwest Company of Montreal was the most daring, 

 dashing, audacious, and ultimately successful. Its energy was only surpassed by 

 the apathy of its great chartered rival, which had been in existence one hundred 

 and thirteen years. Canada had been twenty years in British possession when it 

 was organized, without assistance, pi'ivileges, or government favors, by a few Scottish 

 Canadians for the better prosecution of a business with which they were all more or 

 less familiar. 



Simon Dawson, chief surveyor of the Hind Expedition of 1857-58, 

 who had visited Forts Garry, Ellice, Swan River, and many other 

 Hudson's Ba}" Compan^^'s posts, has put himself on record thus: 



It is impossible not to admire the order and system which are everywhere observed 

 in the management of the company's jiosts and trade. It is a vast system of economy, 

 carried out with the utmost sagacity and foresight in all its details, and a system, too, 



