Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  Wrote by thy Friend and loving daughter,

  Rachel

  1 Now shelved on the right hand side of the fireplace in this room, along with a goodly library of works relating to the Society of Friends.

  2 I should admit, though Friends might well question me on this, that I've never felt the call to minister to any who did not ask. We are known to the world by our plain dress and plain speech; thus we proclaim ourselves. It seemed to me, when I was a lad of fifteen, and my cousin John first took me to the wrestlers’ meet in the field by Derwentwater, that it was a courtesy in those country fellows to take no heed of what I wore or how I spoke, and to ask no questions. A young hobbledehoy, as I was then, dreads to be made kenspeckle. And a man stripped for wrestling is just a man; no calling him Quaker then (and indeed, although I learned to wrestle pretty well – and no doubt would still remember how if put to it – I always avoided asking myself if the practice were consistent with the principles of our Society). I've never been a minister in our Meeting, though I've served as elder these twenty years. But I have at times wrestled with the question, whether it be a worse thing to get alongside one's fellow man than to bear witness for the truth in all circumstances. I muddle along for a while. But if I think of such as Woolman, who was ever respectful and forbearing of men as he found them, and yet would not remain silent, knowing that he had truth to impart, I fear that I am no more than half a man, having not the courage of my conviction.

  3 I'm no mean fly fisher. I might have hoped the temptation to Vain Sports would have ceased to afflict me in my older age, but I cannot regret the practice. My private belief is that there are worse evils in the world than this.

  4 In the last thirty years there have been a great many maps made of my own country, and I've collected nearly all of them. I love to read them over of a winter evening, when the hills are closed to me.

  5 About five years after I left, Alan mentioned in his letter the founding of a Bank at Montreal. Not before time, I replied in my next letter. I've never had trouble casting accounts, but the chaotic mixture of currencies in Upper Canada would have defeated Adam Smith himself. The host at the inn in Quebec gave me my bill in dollars, and when I said I had only English guineas, he said two guineas would be sufficient. Green I might be, but I was never one to be easily fleeced, and I said I'd have none of it. I finally got some dollars from a shady-looking character in the London Coffee House, at a rate of exchange which was still pretty steep, but not risible.

  6 Whitehaven is also built on a steep hill with a scarp behind, and it too has an upper and a lower town. Of course it has no fortifications. When Alan and I discussed the point, he scoffed at my comparison, and said that Quebec City, if it were like any city, was the twin of Edinburgh. Both had a citadel set on a rock, and a glorious city clinging to the spine of an ice-cold hill. Both, he said, were civilised European cities, where the art of living was cultivated to the last degree, whereas there was nothing on the west coast of England that matched that description. I forbore to argue (though I was tempted). He never set foot in England, and I had never been in Scotland (nor have I, to this day); I could see no useful object in further debate.

  7 I soon learned that the French of Canada are more properly referred to as Canadiens.

  8 I have the specifications of the Accommodation jotted down in my notebook; I'm looking at the roughly pencilled figures, and I see myself as if from a great distance: a young fellow all in grey, freshly shaved and trimmed by the barber in Quebec City, but still wearing his farmer's boots and salt-stained coat.

  CHAPTER 4

  NINTH MONTH, 1811 OUR JOURNEY ENDED AT MONTREAL: a city of stone houses like Quebec, but this time set among wooded islands, with Mount Royal rising behind. No one on the shore seemed to speak English, but when I said ‘North West’ I was immediately directed to a warehouse in St Gabriel Street, just across the road from the wharf. From there it was easy to find the main Company Offices, in a high-gabled building with double doors adorned with an excess of polished brass. A brightly painted shield was carved above the lintel. I squinted up at it, and made out a picture of a canoe, with two crosses and a stag's head arranged beneath it, and beneath all a strange boat that might have been a canoe with a sail. A tree grew above the shield, with a little creature at its foot that I took to be a beaver. I read the legend over it: perseverance. I pulled my hat down hard on my head, adjusted my knapsack on my shoulders, and went bravely in.

  I'd never before been in the counting house of a great Company. I thought of the small receiving office in Keswick, or even of the shipping offices of Maryport or Whitehaven, where Friends’ plain clothes spell worth and honesty in business. In the counting house of the North West Company in Montreal my plain coat and broad-brimmed hat brought me nothing but stares, and a few sniggers. When I saw the rows of clerks sitting at their high desks, I quailed inside. The men nearest the door laid down their pens to stare and grin, and frankly listen when the clerk at the front counter asked me my name and business. But whatever I felt, I showed it not, and stepped up to him briskly and looked him in the eye as I stated my errand.

  I was told to wait, then passed from the first fellow to another, to whom I had to state my business all over again. He took me upstairs beyond the rows of high desks and stools where the lower sort sat totting up their accounts – I could see the long columns of figures in the ledgers as I was led past – to where the senior clerks sat each one at his own great desk, with piles of papers and ledgers stacked around him. These men were not dressed in the wool and corduroy of the lower clerks, but so much like gentlemen that at first I thought they must be partners in the firm. I had not then seen the magnificence of a North West agent. My guide led me into a small office that looked over the street. In it was a great desk with a white blotter, where a little bald fellow sat writing a letter. ‘Mr Mackenzie, sir’ – thee may imagine my heart leapt when I heard that, but I was shocked too. Surely Rachel would not have fallen in love with this little grey balding fellow with wire-rimmed spectacles?1 – ‘This . . . gentleman . . .’ – I did not like the way he hesitated over the appellation, looking down his nose at me as he did so – ‘is seeking a Mr Alan Mackenzie, whom he has reason to believe is an employee of the Company. He . . . says . . . he has come from England in order to have a . . . word . . . with this Mr Mackenzie.’

  I didn't like his tone, so I addressed Mackenzie directly. ‘Good day to thee. My name is Mark Greenhow. I come from Cumberland in England to seek my brother-in-law, Alan Mackenzie. I understand him to be employed by the North West Company in the far west of Upper Canada.’

  The senior clerk looked me over, then held out his hand. ‘I grew up in New York State,’ he said. ‘You're a Quaker, aren't you? First I've met since I came to this country, and that's nearly thirty years ago.’

  Truly the hand of the Lord was in it, that my surly guide took me to William Mackenzie out of all the Company agents in that great office. For not only did he search among lists containing more Mackenzies than I'd ever have guessed came out of Scotland, but he enquired among his fellows, until he'd found out everything for me that he could. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘If you wait a couple of weeks, maybe three, the first canoes will be coming back, and we'll get the news from Fort William.’ I must have looked blank, because he clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. ‘You've all to learn, Mr Greenhorn, have you not? The whole of Montreal is waiting for the new season's furs to start coming in. You'll see the canoes arriving at Lachine; fifteen hundred miles they'll have come – you know all our trade is done by canoe?’

  ‘I saw some big canoes on the river.’

  ‘Ay, they're built at Trois Rivières. But you won't see brigades downriver from Lachine, or ships west of Montreal, come to that. The St Lawrence rapids lie between, as you'll see if you ride out that way. As you will, for the canoes are due back at Lachine any day now. That's when we may get news of your brother-in-law. But meanwhile we'll look in the books and see what we can fi
nd.’

  He was as good as his word. The North West Company first employed Alan Mackenzie as a clerk in the month they record as September, 1803. The following year, in the month they name May, he left with the canoe brigades to go west to Fort William. From there, according to the record, my Alan Mackenzie was sent as clerk to a wintering partner in the country around the Lake Athabasca. He served his apprenticeship there, coming down every winter to Fort William with the furs, and travelling back with trade goods before the rivers froze.

  I had no notion of what these names meant. William Mackenzie was the first to open the door a little way and give me a glimpse of the great wilderness beyond the western frontier. But I was more interested in finding out about Alan Mackenzie. For five years he over-wintered in Athabasca, and then in 1809 he vanished from the records. ‘He would have been due for Montreal leave . . . Hoping for promotion no doubt . . . Our clerks do their time out west, and naturally they're looking for partnerships . . . And the winterers stay at their posts until they grow too old . . . You could call it a bottleneck, if you take my meaning ... A bright young clerk wants nothing more than to become a partner, but there are only so many posts to be manned.’

  I bethought me of the name Michilimackinac that headed Alan's letter. It was Judith who had told us Alan was in the North West Company. I could not remember the outlandish name, so I took Judith's letter out of my wallet, and unfolded it.

  ‘Michilimackinac! That's it then. If he went to the South West in ‘09 . . . that'll be when we joined up with Astor's people. God knows what'll happen to that now. Let me see . . .’

  ‘What is Michil . . . Michil . . .’

  ‘You've not heard of Michilimackinac? And yet in London . . . Michilimackinac is the fur trading company based at Mackinac.2 We don't operate over the border now in our own name, but we still have a major interest.’

  ‘And Mackinac? Is that a Scotch place? Thee must understand, William Mackenzie, that everything thee speaks of is new to me.’

  ‘Ah, well, sir, all I can tell you of Mackinac is hearsay. The British had to leave the island in ‘96. But me, I was an hivernant in the high country – when I say hivernant, I mean the gentlemen of our Company who winter west of Fort William, which is the North West rendezvous. You have heard of Lake Superior? No? The wildest and coldest lake of all. I must have been younger than you when I first went out. I joined the company in ‘91 – there were as many of us Scots as French being hired as clerks by then – I went out from Montreal in May with the canoe brigades – those are the big canoes – les canots du maître – which take the trade goods as far as Fort William. Then after Fort William it was into the west in a smaller canoe – un canot du nord – to winter in the wild. I was seven years a winterer in the pays d'en haut, young man, seven years. Ay, I did my time. Then fifteen hundred miles back again to Montreal. There's just time to do the round trip from here to Fort William between the spring thaw and the fall freeze. I should know; I've done it often enough.

  ‘But you were asking about Mackinac. I was never in Mackinac. Officially it was handed over to the Yankees after the War, but our garrison – you'll note, young man, that I'm a Loyalist – stayed until ‘96. Then the British had to go. Yes, we had to give up all our garrisons in American territory, and much of the south-west trade went with them. And now we have this new South West Company . . . But who knows . . . Things have changed at Mackinac . . . In any case, the best furs are up north. Up north where this young fellow Mackenzie of yours has served his time, same as I did, only it seems he went way further north, right into Athabasca country.’

  Before I left he took me privily into the agents’ Council Chamber. I was struck by the splendour of the polished table with the chairs – one for every agent in the Company – drawn up around it. William Mackenzie showed me a map on the wall, with many spaces in it, that showed the whole territory beyond Upper Canada with the posts of the North West Company, as far as the Pacific Ocean. I could not take in the distances. If it were true that from where we now were in Montreal to Fort William it was fifteen hundred miles, then by the map it was as much again to the territory of Athabasca. This was almost twice the span of the ocean I had crossed. I felt quite giddy. And what was more, this was all done by canoes, and where there was not a river the men must get out and carry the cargo, and the boat itself withal. William Mackenzie showed me the canoe routes that the fur traders took to the far west. He took out a six-inch rule and used it as a pointer, showing me the courses of the rivers, the Outaouais and the Mattawa, the La Vase Portage and the French River, the Lake of the Nippissing, and the great Lake Superior. I looked at the shape of the Lakes, and then at the far west, the rivers and portages, and far-flung outposts of the North West Company in the empty wilderness. ‘Truly,’ I said to my companion. ‘This must be the greatest Company in the world.’ He clapped me on the shoulder for that. ‘Well said, sir! Well said! Never a doubt of it! Never a doubt!’

  He let me look at the map as long as I would, and answered my questions patiently. Then I saw him take out his watch and look at it. I said I'd take my leave.

  ‘Where are you staying, eh? None of your sect in Montreal, unless I'm mistaken . . . You have a lodging? No? Where's your trunk . . . ? That knapsack is all you've got? That won't get you through the winter. Wehere are you going now?’

  That was how I came to stay at the house of William Mackenzie, who, though no known relation of my brother-in-law, said that Mackenzies were all one clan, and that made us connections somewhere along the line. He said he'd not had the chance to call a Quaker cousin before.

  I had the rest of the day to wait until he was ready to go home, which I employed in exploring the city. Not far from the Company offices I came upon a new monument, with scenes of naval battles round its base. It was dedicated to Horatio Nelson, who terminated his career of naval glory at the memorable battle of Trafalgar on the 21st of Octr 1805 after inculcating by signal a maxim that can never be forgotten by his country – ‘England expects every man will do his duty.’ This monumental pillar was erected by a subscription of the inhabitants of Montreal in the year 1808.3 I knew not what to make of it: Friends in no way condoned the military monuments which were then becoming so prevalent. I was puzzled too because so far I seemed to be about the only Englishman in the place. I wandered through the busy streets, feeling tired and confused, while the jabber of incomprehensible French assaulted my poor ears. The houses of Montreal were built close together, fronting on to narrow streets, but here and there I saw through an arched gateway to an inner courtyard where little scraps of private lives were being enacted: washing left to bleach, two little lasses playing with their dolls, a cat washing itself in a sunny spot among pots of kitchen herbs. I had nowhere private to go, so I walked the length of St Paul's Street, until I found myself in a crowded market place where I bought a meat pie and an apple – for it was well past noon – and as I chewed I crossed a bridge and followed a little river inland. In five minutes I'd left the streets behind, and was walking past scattered cottages and fields of ripening vegetables, along an open road that led towards the mountain. The noise of the city died away behind me, and I breathed more freely.

  I passed a couple of impressive mansions in modern landscaped grounds, before the road turned to a mountain path, winding between precipices and clinging oaks, and eventually taking me to the summit of Mount Royal. From there I could see I was on an island – one among a multitude – with the huge river curving round its southern shore. An expanse of open water gleamed in the north-west, and I wondered if it could be the lake Ontario I'd seen in Thomas Wilkinson's atlas, but then I remembered the immensity of distance which the map had revealed to me, and realised I had not come half far enough. Away to the south lay distant hills, a vast unknown country. Below me I could see the city, with its red metal roofs and steeplehouse spires, a sharp speck of definition in the hazy wilderness.

  I returned reluctantly to the busy streets, but it turned out that W
illiam Mackenzie lived in a pleasant modern house with a walled garden, about ten minutes’ walk from the city, at the western end of Jean-Baptiste Street. In his elegant dining-room that evening, I did justice to the first home-cooked dinner I'd had for seven weeks: river trout followed by beef dumplings followed by plum duff.

  After I'd left him my new friend had taken a wee dander, as he put it, and had a quiet word with one or two fellows from McTavish and McGillivray. ‘The North West doesn't operate in Mackinac these days, but we keep our interests there, alongside the Yankees. The old Michilimackinac Company became the South West Company – what would it be? – a year or so ago. The clerks at the Mackinac house would have been transferred automatically.’

  ‘So Alan Mackenzie's employed by this South West Company now?’

  ‘Yes, but the devil's in it that last year's records . . . well. . . the fact is they hardly exist. Last year the Yankees brought in their damned Non-Intercourse Act. No goods to cross the border. All the trade goods from Montreal last year were held up at Fort St Joseph, on our side of the border from Mackinac. And of course the Indians in the south-west were stuck with the year's furs, and ripe for murder when they couldn't sell them on. Everything was at a standstill. According to the records here in Montreal, all trade stopped. But my informant reckons Alan Mackenzie is still at Mackinac.’

  I took a long drink, thinking this over, and savouring the good clean water after my weeks at sea. In the face of my abstinence my host had fairly managed to empty the decanter of what he declared to be a fine Rhineland wine. I didn't like to think how it had come here, when all the ports of Europe were closed. I said as much, and my host winked, and said that Orders in Council were one thing, and Yankee enterprise another, and the one would never take heed of the other, though all the world should go to war for it.