254 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



always with that passion for executive and mastery of difficulty 

 which exults most when the conflict is keenest. 



Pioneers face the unknown when circumstances push them 

 into it. Adventurers rush into the unknown for the zest of con- 

 quering it. It has been to the adventuring class that fur traders 

 have belonged. 



Radisson and Groseillers, the two Frenchmen who first brought 

 back word of the great wealth in furs round the Far Northern sea, 

 had been gentlemen adventurers — "rascals," their enemies called 

 them. Prince Rupert, who leagued himself with the Frenchmen 

 to obtain a charter for his fur trade, had been an adventurer of 

 the high seas — "pirate," we would say — long before he became 

 first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. And the Duke 

 of Marlborough, the company's third governor, was as great an 

 adventurer as he was a general. 



Latterly the word "adventurer" has fallen in such evil repute, 

 it may scarcely be applied to living actors. But using it in the 

 old-time sense of militant hero, what cavalier of gold braid and 

 spurs could be more of an adventurer than young Donald Smith 

 who traded in the desolate wastes of Labrador, spending seventeen 

 years in the hardest field of the fur company, tramping on snow- 

 shoes half the width of a continent, camping where night overtook 

 him under blanketing of snow-drifts, who rose step by step from 

 trader on the east coast to commissioner in the west ? And this 

 Donald Smith became Lord Strathcona, the governor of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company. 



Men bold in action and conservative in traditions have ruled 

 the company. The governor resident in England is now represented 

 by the chief commissioner, who in turn is represented at each of 

 the many inland forts by a chief factor of the district. Nominally, 

 the fur trader's northern realm is governed by the Parliament of 

 Canada. Virtually, the chief factor rules as autocratically as he 

 did before the Canadian Government took over the proprietary 

 rights of the fur company. 



