ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



And what a company is this ! with the power of a king- 

 and the consideration of a partner. A monopoly that 

 does not monopolize, it stands alone a unique figure in 

 the commercial history of the world. Given its charter 

 by the impecunious Charles II. in 

 1670, the pioneers of this " Governor 

 and Company of Adventurers of Eng- 

 land Trading into Hudson's Bay " 

 sailed for the southern shores of St. 

 James Bay, where they set up their 

 first post and took possession of the 

 new country in the name of Prince 

 Rupert. Here they found a rival 

 French company, with a previous 

 charter granted by Louis XIII., and 

 an equally keen sense of Indian bar- 

 ter, so that for many years there was 

 more fighting than trading. Through 

 all the long weariness of the French 

 and other continental wars, the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company lived a varied ex- 

 istence of prosperity and reverses, 

 but when Wolfe, on the Heights 

 of Abraham, crushed the power of France in Canada, 

 the French company entered upon a decline that finally 

 ended in dissolution. In their stead came numbers 

 of Englishmen, pushing their way westward, eager to 

 trade for the furs of which they had heard so much and 

 seen so little. Thus many trading-posts came into being, 

 and eventually (about 1780) combined to form the North- 

 west Fur Company, the longest- lived and most deter- 

 mined rival that ever disputed trade with the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. It is not my purpose to go deeply into 

 historical research, but a brief sketch of this company, 



WINNIPEG DRAGOON 



