Tlic Home of the Wolverene and Beaver. 3 5 



copper kettles and sheet iron ; silk and cotton 

 handkerchiefs ; hats, shoes, stockings, &c., &c. 

 Spirituous liquors and provisions were purchased 

 in Canada, but all the foregoing articles were for- 

 warded from England, and from that day to this no 

 alteration has taken place in the description of goods 

 required in the fur trade, and the above list would 

 apply as well to 1876 as to 1788, for which reason 

 I have here inserted it. 



In describing the Company's mode of working, I 

 cannot do better than make the following extract 

 from Sir Alexander Mackenzie, whose book, pub- 

 lished in the first year of the present ccntur)', has 

 become rare and is little known, though few records 

 of travel will better repay the reader. He says : — 

 "We shall now proceed to consider the number of 

 men employed in the concern, viz., fifty clerks, 

 seventy-one interpreters and clerks, one thousand 

 one hundred and twenty canoe men, and thirty-five 

 guides. Of these, five clerks, eighteen guides, and 

 three hundred and fifty canoe men, were employed 

 for the summer season in going from Montreal to 

 the Grande Portage, in canoes, part of whom pro- 

 ceeded from thence to Rainy Lake, as will be here- 

 after explained, and are called Pork-eaters or Goers 

 and Comers. These w^ere hired in Canada or Mon- 

 treal, and were absent from the ist of May to the 

 C 2 



