Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  ‘To war?’ I repeated. ‘The war with France, thee means? But the Americans – the Yankees – they're not part of that, surely?’

  I must have shown my dismay quite plainly. I seemed to have come so far from my own war-impoverished England, to this house of wellbeing and prosperity overlooking the flourishing little colony and busy harbour. William Mackenzie did not live simply, and I'd never before been entertained amidst such ostentatious comfort. His wife was not like the matrons of Cumberland. Although it was a cold night her dress was cut very low, and was of a rich red colour with a sheen on it for all the world like a ripe plum, the kind that splits its skin for very tightness if not harvested quick. She plied me kindly with victuals, commiserating with me on the diet of ship's biscuit and salted pork I'd endured these many weeks. Their family were all away: the daughters married, and the sons working for the Company in the west. It was a peaceful, comfortable house, worn by years of family life, and filled with the grace of many things accomplished. My host said a blessing over our meat in what I take to be the Episcopal fashion; his manner was perfunctory but there was a tenderness in it to which I could find no objection.

  Mrs Mackenzie – I was not told her given name – replied to my question with more animation than she had shown all evening. ‘War!’ she repeated. ‘What man is not involved with war! They speak of nothing else. You'll find that out soon enough, Mr Greenhow, if you use your eyes and ears in this city.’

  But William Mackenzie leaned forward and tapped his fist on the table to emphasise his words. ‘Ah, my lad, you English think only of Napoleon. But I'm telling you there's another war coming. In England they don't see what they don't choose. Not when it's far away over the sea, out of sight and mostly out of mind. You mark my words; there'll be war between the Yankees and the British before the year's out. High time, I say. When the last war ended I was a lad of twelve. My father fell at Green Springs. I was the eldest of the family, and it was my mother and I got the six of us out of the new so-called Republic. We took a ship from New York to the Bay of Fundy – a terrible cold journey that was; my little sister took sick and nearly died of it – then up the St John River to Frederick's Town in an open bateau. We had nothing, and there were thousands like us. We had to fight to get land allotted to us, for I was but a lad, but we got our farm, and we made do, just. I spent my growing up years near Frederick's Town. Then my brother took on the farm, and I came to Montreal and joined the Company. I'm a Loyalist and a North West man. And I tell you that in Canada we want this war; we're ready for it.

  ‘The Company saw it coming long ago, when we lost Michilimackinac and the south-west trade. I'm telling you, if we don't turn and fight, all this land of ours will end up in the Yankee Republic. And not just this land here. The Company has its posts out west from here to the Pacific. Back in England they don't even know there's a frontier out there. But I tell you there is, thousands of miles of it, and the American Fur Company on the other side of it – that's Astor's men – just waiting to move in. God knows what's going on now in Mackinac. Oh yes, laddie, there's going to be a war all right. There's more at stake than shipping rights, though that's all your English papers ever mention. This will be a Company war. The government doesn't know it – Simcoe was the best governor we ever had in Upper Canada, but he's been gone a long time – the English back home don't know it, but the Company knows it. And the Company will win it, when it happens. And mark my words, lad, it'll be soon.’

  I was silent while I gathered my thoughts, and then I said, ‘Thy words fill me with dismay, friend. I can't believe that war will mend anything, or that anything but evil can come of it. What of the settlers on both sides of thy frontier? What of the wild Indians, who as I understand it have suffered much, and might profit by a Christian example? What of the young men in thy Company, thine own sons even, who love life, and might serve the Company all their days, who may have to die for this? We're in a new country, where all things might be made new. Does thee really wish that it may come to ruin and bloody war?’

  My host stood up abruptly. ‘Come, lad, this is no talk for the ladies.’ (My mother and sister would have had something to say to that, but Mrs Mackenzie just simpered, and laid her napkin on the table.) ‘We'll go into the bookroom. There's a deal you must know if you're serious about heading west. I can't have you go in this raw state; it wouldn't be human. Come on through, and if you won't take a glass of port you can watch me have one.’

  So it came about that though outwardly it would seem I could have no communion with this man, his way of life and his sentiments being so very far removed from mine, I found such tenderness in him that presently I told him Rachel's story. I made him see why it was that I had to follow my brother-in-law, and find him, wherever he might be, in the far wilderness of this new country.

  William Mackenzie blew his nose hard when I had finished, and when I looked at him in the candlelight, I was startled to see that he'd shed several tears. ‘It's a sad tale, lad,’ he said apologetically, ‘and I wish I could see a happy ending to it.’ He sighed gustily, and reached for the decanter. ‘I wish I could. Truth is, he should never have taken her out there. Never have married her, in fact. There's no place for a white woman in the Company. A man needs a country wife – an Indian to you – it's the system. It wouldn't work any other way. Your Alan Mackenzie should've known that. He did know it. More sorrow to him. He'd been out five years. No, no, let a man have a wife in Montreal, why not? But out there – it's out of the question. There's many a man has one of each, or more, and needs must when the devil drives, I reckon, but to mix up the one and the other, that's going against the whole system. Can't be done. No, no, it's flying against the whole custom of the country. He'd never have kept her, any road.’

  ‘But surely,’ I stammered, horrified by his words, ‘surely the settlers have wives? Judith's letters talked of women and men, both, at Yonge Street.’

  ‘Ay, but the north-west is a far cry from Yonge Street. Your sister was lost deep in Indian country, a long way from any settlers. Ay, well. There have been cases of women who were kidnapped by the Indians and came back. I've heard of it back in the States. But for all that were found, more than twice as many were lost, I reckon. And not just lost . . . That is to say . . . And now there's like to be a war on . . . Not that the Michigan Territory . . . Your brother-in-law must have his contacts . . . The fur traders and the Indians are natural allies, always have been . . . whereas the settlers . . . My poor young fellow, I feel for you. Are you sure you won't take a small glass of this excellent port? For medicinal purposes? It can be a very present help in times of trouble, I assure you.’

  ‘I thank thee, friend, but no. What was thee about to say about the settlers?’

  He leaned back in his leather armchair, and studied his glass reflectively. The drink was a lush purple which winked and blinked in the candlelight. The light from the fire picked out the same deep colour in the Persian hearthrug where I stretched out my feet, clad in borrowed Moroccan slippers, to the blazing log fire. I was sleepy; I realised that in all the weeks at sea I had not once felt quite warm, or quite dry.

  My host seemed to be dropping asleep, but he caught himself up on a small snore, and sat up abruptly. ‘Settlers, you say?’ He loosened his cravat, and reached for the decanter again. ‘No, no, laddie. I'm speaking of land way out west where there en't no settlers. Nor should be, that's the long and the short of it. Now if there's a white woman in it, you're talking settlement. A white woman couldn't stand aught else. But the Company don't want settlers.’ I watched him pour out another glass. He only spilled a little bit, for all that his manner of speech had broadened to something which I guessed went much further back than his snug bookroom and his Company office. ‘Now, we – the Company, that is – we're here to trade, and the Indian is a trader too, always has been. Trade goods for furs . . . Everybody gains. But the settlers . . . Clearing the forest . . . wiping out hunting grounds . . . The way your settler wants his land, no
one else can share it. What's more they're all bloody Yankees, your settlers. Damned Yankees down in American territory, and damned Yankees right there in Upper Canada. Bloody Yankees think the whole bang shoot is their god-given country. Simcoe let ‘em in, the devil take him – and yet I liked him well. But, God forgive him, he gave the damn Yankees the same deal as the Loyalists in Upper Canada, no questions asked. You Quakers too, settling our frontier – Yankees, too, the whole damn lot of you. Not you, lad, not you. You're an Englishman born, I ken that well, and if I differ from you there, why that's old history, and not to be thought of between us here. Not in this country. No, no, laddie, I like you well, and we'll not think on that.

  ‘Now Upper Canada . . . Our last governor there: Simcoe . . . A fine man, that, a true Loyalist . . . he encouraged the Quakers to come up from the States. Not that I've aught against ‘em, laddie. On the contrary; ay, but ye ken I like you folk. Quakers make good settlers, that's a fact. They won't touch the drink, sithee, however tough it gets. Don't need to, they've got their God to keep them going. Out there on the frontier you have to have one or the other. Believe me, you need something, making a farm out of nothing, with the wilderness howling round you and the Indians itching for your scalp. But you Quakers get along with the Indians. The Indian's a fighting man himself, and yet he'll respect a fellow who won't fight because his God says not to . . . Sees the courage in it, I guess. But for all that, the settlers, Quakers or no, aren't good news for the Indians . . . might not be good news for the Nor'-Westers in the end either, and that's a fact.’

  ‘There are more settlers in the United States than there are here, though?’

  ‘Oh, ay, yes, yes. The Ohio valley . . . But the south of the Michigan Territory is all swamp . . . the settlers can't go into Michigan . . . Plenty of Indian allies there for us . . . The Indians love the Company a lot more than they love the American settlers . . . Not to say . . . the Michigan Territory is over the border, but not settled . . . virtually not settled . . . Indians friendly . . . But your brother-in-law, Alan Mackenzie, he must know; he's been into that country. It's no good us guessing; you'll need to talk to him.’

  ‘That's what I want to do most of all.’

  ‘So you have to find him, eh? Well, I've been thinking on that, laddie. Ay, I've been thinking for you. You can't do anything this winter. You realise that? The canoes will be home in a week or so, and nothing goes west then until the spring. May, when the ice melts, that's when you set out.’

  ‘May? That's Fifth Month next year! I can't kick my heels here till then!’

  ‘Well, laddie, kicking your heels or not is up to you. But I'm telling you, it'll be freezing up north already, and there's no way you can get to Mackinac now until the spring. No one's trying to stop you; it's the dispensh-ation of God. Winter’ ll be rolling in like a tide any day now, and it won't go out again till May. There's nothing you nor any man can do till then.’

  I frowned at him, thinking hard. ‘But in Fifth Month – in May – thee could arrange for me to go west with the traders?’

  ‘That's not so easily done as you might think. But I'll put in a word in the right place, for I've a fancy to see you on your way. Tomorrow . . .’

  But tomorrow brought different news: Mrs Mackenzie (I never did learn her name so must needs give her the worldly title) was at the door as I came in from a stroll. ‘The first brigade is back! Mr Mackenzie sent word that you should take the grey mare, and ride to Lachine. I can give you the direction.’

  ‘Is that where he's gone?’ I asked, bewildered.

  ‘Bless you, no! He's seen the canoes come in a hundred times’ – this could hardly be so, for they come but once a year, but I let that pass – ‘but you should not miss the sight, indeed you should not. The next brigade is due in any time, so they said. You can ride, Mr Greenhow?’

  ‘Of course I can ride!’ She was an ignorant old woman, but I was young, and over-quick to take offence. How could she know I'd ride pretty much anything that had a back to sit on, ay, and I was the lad who galloped over Moricombe sands from Skinburness to Cardunnock between the tides, not for a wager, which is against the principles of our Society, but because the wheelwright at Silloth said he would take his oath (for he was not a Friend) that the thing could not be done. That was on my own sweet mare Mollie, and much I missed her, for William's Petal was about the greatest slug I ever crossed, and unwilling even to overtake the empty oxcarts that were already rumbling along the high road to Lachine, raising a dust that covered the hedgerows like untimely snow. For all that, I reached Lachine in time to see the next brigade come in.

  I had not in those days visited any of the great manufacturing towns of England. I'd never seen so many great warehouses, or so many manufactories crowded together. Neither had I seen such a motley collection of folk as those that thronged the shore road: not only the sorts of men (and loose women too) a man would find in Whitehaven, but fellows dressed like Jacobin revolutionaries4 in coloured caps and woven sashes, and Indians – the first I ever saw – who seemed outlandish enough to me then, dressed as they were in deerskins and moccasins, all adorned with claws and feathers.

  I left the mare in charge of the ostler at the Henley Inn while I looked round. The town of Lachine fronted on to a great natural harbour, where two long inlets provided perfect shelter for any number of craft. There were no ships, though, only flocks of big canoes drawn up close together like the hundreds of seals that bask on Solway shore at this time of year. Clouds of scavenging gulls cried overhead, and to the west I could see little islands protecting the harbour mouth.

  My first sight of the great canots du maître in action stirred me – and yet I could not know what was to come. The canoes seemed to slide so easily through the water, and were brought so swiftly to the shore, where the men leapt into shallow water and unloaded and beached their craft in less time than it takes to man a capstan. Every ship I'd seen before seemed clumsy, ay, even the steamer that had won my heart on the St Lawrence River. The paddles moved so fast, all in time, and then when they came to the shore all stopped as one, and the voyageurs lifted their paddles and leaped into the shallow water. The men themselves were as brightly coloured as male chaffinches in springtime. They were little dark fellows, but with great shoulders on them like wrestlers. It was a sight to see them bring the great bales of fur ashore, two at a time – and one alone weighs ninety pounds, William told me – and even more of a sight to see them swing their beaver-hatted bourgeois – the Company agent – aloft from his place in the canoe, and dump him dryshod on the shore. Ashore there was as much merriment as at a Penrith fair.5

  I walked, and I watched, but there was nothing for me to do here. I wasn't used to crowds, and all at once I felt dowy and lonesome. The noise and jostle all about me aroused in me a melancholy which I believe afflicts folk from the great world amidst our quiet grey hills. For me it's the other way around. All of a sudden I could bear Lachine no longer. I went back to the Henley, tipped the ostler, and hotfooted it back to Montreal. William's Petal laid back her ears, and tried to throw me by a sudden stall, but I would have none of it. When she put her mind to it her paces were not so bad. The oxcarts were still trundling westward. I paid no heed. My small victory over William's lazy and overfed mount put new heart into me. By the time I had Petal stabled and rubbed down (there was a groom somewhere, but I'm a farmer's son, and I needed him not) I felt better, my confidence flowing back like the tide over the Solway mudflats. I was ready to go on.

  1 My wife tells me now that spectacles can lend a man a scholarly sort of dignity, which is not unattractive, but at three-and-twenty I had no notion of that.

  2 He called it Mackinaw, and I amended my own pronunciation thereafter.

  3 I read recently – it must have been in the Manchester Guardian – that there is a proposal to build a similar (but much larger) Memorial column for Horatio Nelson in the new Trafalgar Square in London. This is not how Friends would wish to see their taxes allocated.


  4 I later discovered this to be an unwarrantable assumption which would have appalled the voyageurs.

  5 When I went to the fairs with my father, we sold our stock and did what business we had to do, and went home soberly in daylight. But I had also been to the fair twice with my cousin John Bristo and the lads I met at wrestling, and that was another matter altogether. I was once severely eldered by Joseph Priestman, because word reached him I'd wrestled with the Grasmere champion before a public audience. He came to our house with John Nicholson, carrying a minute from London Yearly Meeting of 1795, and read to me solemnly: In reviewing the answers to that query which respects Vain Sports, we have had good unity with the case of one Quarterly Meeting in noticing . . . the practice of some Members of Hunting and Shooting for diversion. We clearly rank these practices with Vain Sports . . . My parents were greatly distressed that the Meeting had cause to reprove me, but I protested that I'd never gone hunting in my life, for all that the Caldbeck hounds met almost at our door, and John Peel himself used to hail me when I met them on Blencathra in the winter. I also silently noted that there was no mention of wrestling, and I was not above a specious argument, in those days.

  CHAPTER 5

  WILLIAM MACKENZIE OFFERED TO KEEP ME AT HIS house over the winter, which was exceeding kind in him, but I had no fancy to remain idle in Montreal for eight months. When one field lies fallow, it's time to cultivate another. It wasn't too late to get to Yonge Street, and I was beginning to long for the solace of my Society. Before I left home I hadn't passed a day and a night together out of the society of Friends. At first William protested that the distance was greater than I knew, the winter in Upper Canada far worse, the lake would soon be frozen &c &c &c. To distract my mind, perhaps, he insisted that I come and see the new furs unpacked in the warehouses by St Gabriel Street. ‘For this is what it's all about, laddie! None of us would be here if it wasn't for this.’