THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 183 



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 Parlia 

 ment of Canada. Virtually, the chief factor rules as 

 autocratically to-day as he did before the Canadian 

 Government took over the proprietary rights of the fur 

 company. 



How did these rulers of the wilds, these princes of 

 the fur trade, live in lonely forts and mountain fast 

 nesses? Visit one of the northern forts as it exists 

 to-day. 



The colder the climate, the finer the fur. The far 

 ther north the fort, the more typical it is of the fur- 

 trader s realm. 



For six, seven, eight months of the year, the fur- 

 trader s world is a white wilderness of snow; snow 

 water-waved by winds that sweep from the pole; snow 

 drifted into ramparts round the fort stockades till the 

 highest picket sinks beneath the white flood and the 

 corner bastions are almost submerged and the entrance 

 to the central gate resembles the cutting of a railway 

 tunnel; snow that billows to the unbroken reaches of 

 the circling sky-line like a white sea. East, frost-mist 

 hides the low horizon in clouds of smoke, for the sun 

 which rises from the east in other climes rises from 



