304 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XXYIII. 



THE FUR-TRADE OF THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORIES. 



The Coureur des Bois. — The Voyageur. — The Birch-bark Canoe. — The Canadian Fur-trade in the last 

 Century. — The Hudson's Bay Company. — Bloody Feuds between the North-west Company of Can- 

 ada and the Hudson's Bay Company. — Their Amalgamation into a new Company in 1821. — Recon- 

 struction of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1863. — Forts or Houses. — The Attihawmeg. — Influence 

 of the Company on its savage Dependents. — The Black Bear, or Baribal. — The Brown Bear. — The 

 Grizzly Bear. — The Raccoon. — The American Glutton. — The Pine Marten. — The Pekan, or Wood- 

 shock.— The Chinga.— The Mink.— The Canadian Fish-otter.— The Crossed Fox.— The Black or 

 Silvery Fox. — The Canadian Lynx, or Pishu. — The Ice-hare. — The Beaver. — The Musquash. 



\ S the desire to reach India by the shortest road first made the civilized 

 -^-^ world acquainted with the eastern coast of North America, so the exten- 

 sion of the fur-trade has been the chief, or rather the only, motive which origi- 

 nally led the footsteps of the white man from the Canadian Lakes and the bor- 

 ders of Hudson's Bay into the remote interior of that vast continent. 



The first European fur-traders in North America were French Canadians — 

 coitreiirs des bois — a fitting surname for men habituated to an Indian forest- 

 life. Three or four of these " irregular spirits " agreeing to make an expedi- 

 tion into the backwoods would set out in their birch-bark canoe, laden with 

 goods received on trust from a merchant, for a voyage of great danger and 

 hardship, it might be of several years, into the wilderness. 



On their return the merchant who had given them credit of course received 

 the lion's share of the skins gathered among the Hurons or the Iroquois ; the 

 small portion left as a recomi3ense for their own labor was soon spent, as sailors 

 spend their hard-earned wages on their arrival in port ; and then they started 

 on some new adventure, until finally old age, infirmities, or death prevented 

 their revisiting the forest. 



The modern " voyageur ^"^ who has usurped the place of the old " coureur s^"* 

 is so like them in manners and mode of life, that to know the one is to become 

 acquainted with the other. In short, the voyageur is merely a coureur subject 

 to strict law and serving for a fixed pay ; while the coureur was a voyageur 

 trading at his own risk and peril, and acknowledging no control when once 

 beyond the pale of European colonization. 



The camel is frequently called the " shij) of the desert," and with equal jus- 

 tice the birch-bark canoe might be named the " camel of the North American 

 wilds." For if we consider the rivers which, covering the land like a net-work, 

 are the only arteries of communication ; the frequent rapids and cataracts ; the 

 shallow waters flowing over a stony ground whose sharp angles would infalli- 

 bly cut to pieces any boat made of w^ood; and finally the surrounding deserts, 

 where, in case of an accident, the traveller is left to his own resources, we must 

 come to the conclusion that in such a country no intercourse could possibly be 



