EAKLY HISTOEY OF 'WHEAT-GEOWING » 



history, had not merely to struggle with Nature to provide 

 themselves with their daily bread but also with their fellow 

 men. The JSTorth-West Company which, as fur traders, 

 was the great rival of the Hudson's Bay Company, resented 

 the establishment of a civilized community in the heart of 

 the Indian country : firstly, because it was planted directly 

 across their main line of communication between the 

 North- West and Montreal and, secondly, because it was 

 situated on the very plains from which they drew their 

 supplies of pemmican for their voyages from Fort William 

 to the posts of the fur trappers. The Company feared 

 that the Settlement might eventually destroy the fur trade, 

 and they therefore determined to destroy the Settlement.-"' 

 In the spring of 1815, the Selkirk settlers sowed their 

 wheat and barley ; but many were the hardships to be borne 

 before the crops could be reaped. In June, the North- 

 Westers with their half-breed adherents overawed the 

 colonists by a show of force. They trampled upon the 

 crops, stole the horses, and burnt Fort Douglas, the colony 

 mill, the stables and barns to the ground ; and Miles Mac- 

 donell, the Governor of the colony, surrendered himself as 

 a prisoner. Most of the settlers left in North-West canoes 

 for Upper Canada, and thirteen families made their way 

 up Lake Winnipeg to Jack Eiver and settled at a place 

 now known as Norway House. John McLeod and three 

 others, however, succeeded in weathering the storm and re- 

 mained at the Forks. They stored what property they 

 could in a single log-house and stoutly defended themselves 

 vsdth a three-pounder cannon fed with lengths of chain ob- 

 tained from the adjoining blacksmith's shop. Their half- 

 years ago, has informed me that he used to shoot Passenger Pigeons 

 on the banks of the Red River where the Winnipeg Grain Exchange 

 is npw situated. 



10 Cf. Donald Gunn, Report from the Select Committee on the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company, 1857, p. 382. 



