42 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



breaks the stillness of the scene ; and nought save narrow pathways 

 over the portages, and rough wooden crosses over the graves of the 

 travellers who perished by the way, remains to mark that such things 

 were."* 



Such was our New Ontario under the regime of the trading 

 companies ; it had an early beginning as compared with the Ontario 

 of the south ; but the stronger of the companies absorbed or de- 

 voured the weaker, and while large profits were earned the country 

 was not in the faintest degree bettered in the end by their opera- 

 tions. It had always indeed been the policy of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company to keep up the primeval state of the forest, as the found- 

 ing of settlements was incompatible with the life of the fur trade. 

 Moreover, history teaches the lesson that a company organized with 

 powers of government and exclusive rights to carry on trade in a 

 country has for its first consideration the commercial idea, and every- 

 thing else is subordinate. The Hudson's Bay Company had no 

 other thought for the two centuries during which it held sway in north- 

 ern Canada than how the largest dividends could be earned for the 

 shareholders. So it was with the English East India Company, whose 

 over-ruling hand was felt in India lor more than two and a half cen- 

 turies, down to the close of the mutiny. And so we have just 

 seen it to be with the British South Africa Company, whose filibus- 

 tering raid into the Transvaal came perilously near to plunging Eu- 

 rope into war. The Hudson's Bay Company relinquished its au- 

 thority overy the territory of northern Ontario — the portion of it be- 

 yond the height of land — in 1S69 ; but it took twenty years to settle 

 the disputes which arose afterwards between the Dominion and Pro- 

 vincial Governments as to the true boundaries and the ownership of 



*E. M. Ballantyne's Hudson's Bay, pp. 279-80. As descriptive of the 

 kinds of canoes used by the fur traders, Mr. Ballantyne says: " A number 

 of Canutes de maitre, or very large canoes, are always kept in store here 

 (Fort William) for the use of the Company's travellers. These canoes are 

 of the largest size, exceeding the north canoe in length by several feet, be- 

 sides being much broader and deeper. They are used solely for the purpose 

 of travelling on lake Superior, being much too large and cumbersome for 

 travelling with through the interior. They are carried by four men instead 

 of two like the north canoe ; and besides being capable of carrying twice as 

 much cargo, are paddled by fourteen or sixteen men. Travellers from 

 Canada to the interior generally change their canotes de maitre for north 

 canoes at Fort William before entering upon the intricate navigation 

 throught which we had already passed ; while those going from the interior 

 to Canada change the small for the large canoe." pp. 287-8. 



