THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
The presence of the English company upon the shores of Hudson Bay was from the outset a serious menace to French Canadian influence in the Northwest. The newcomers were draw.
ing off the trade of the northern tribes. Eng lish and French were face to face in a struggle for commercial supremacy in the West, and their rivalry was bound sooner or later to break into a clash of arms. The Hudson's Bay Com pany had strengthened its position by the estab lishment of four trading-posts: one upon the west shore near the Nelson, and the other three, Forts Albany, Hayes and Rupert, on the south arm of the bay. In the spring of 1686 the progress of trade was rudely interrupted. Chevalier De Troyes and a company of 80 ad venturous Frenchmen, ascending the Ottawa, worked their way slowly by stream and lake over the height of land to the neighborhood of James Bay. So sudden was their coming, and so spirited their attack, that the three lower forts fell almost without resistance.
In 1697 Pierre le Moyne D'Iberville, who had been De Troyes' right-hand man, entered Hud son Strait, under orders from Quebec, to attack Fort Nelson, the most important trading-post on the bay. The Pelican, which carried the com mander, became separated from the rest of the fleet and fell in with three English ships ing to the Hudson's Bay Company. In the en, counter which followed the Pelican sank one of the company's ships and disabled a second, while the third made off under full sail. Rejoined by his missing ships, D'Iberville soon forced Fort Nelson to surrender. In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht put an end to hostilities and left the English traders in undisturbed possession of their posts.
Meanwhile French Canadian traders were extending their trade beyond Lake Superior. With these there was ever present the desire to find La Mer de l'Ouest, which they thought could not be far distant. The ambition to dis cover this "Western Sea° possessed the mind of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Veren dry; the commander of a little post on Lake Nepigon. It was late in August 1731 that •Verendrye and his party passed over Le Grand Portage leading over the height of land to the waters flowing toward Lake Winnipeg. The mouth of the Maurepas (Winnipeg) River had been reached when troubles began to crowd upon the unfortunate explorer. The merchants who were to forward supplies failed to do so; his nephew died; and, as a climax to his misfortunes, 21 of his company, includ ing his eldest son, were butchered by a band of murderous Sioux. It was not until six years later that Verendrye again turned his face westward. The course of his travels was
marked by a series of trading-posts built at successive stages. Among these were Fort La Rein; near the site of the present town of Portage la Prairie, and Fort Rouge, whose name still clings to a suburb of the city of Winnipeg.
During the last century of the French regime the Hudson's Bay Company had held its own throughout the dangers of war and the competition of trade. Its forts had fallen into the hands of De Troyes or D'Iberville, but had been restored by the Treaty of Utrecht (q.v.). Though the dangers of war were past, the rivalry of the Canadian traders had still to be met. Despite the long overland journey, the latter penetrated to the neighborhood of Hudson Bay, attracting the Indians with showy trinkets, and too often with brandy. The ma• jority of the natives, however, were not easily drawn away from the old company's forts. Every spring the rivers and lakes were dotted with fur-laden canoes making their way to Lake Winnipeg, the meeting place of the hun dreds of natives who journeyed annually to Hudson Bay. As many as 500 canoes in a year made the long and toilsome journey to York Factory. Here they exchanged their dearly earned furs for •oats, kettles and tobacco, or for necessities of the hunt, such as powder-horns, shot, hatchets and ' rn es. The conquest of Canada by Great Britain brought about an immediate and complete change in the fur trade. With the passing of the French regime, monopoly and' icenses dis appeared. The officers of the French company withdrew from the country rather than live under the British flag. The coureurs de bois, suddenly cast adrift, lacked the capital necessary to continue the fur•trade.- New employers, how ever, were soon at hand. The old route from the East, up the Ottawa and across Lake Superior to Grand Portage, had scarcely for gotten the passing of the French traders when it was traversed afresh by British merchants from Montreal. Alexander Henry, Thomas Curry, James Finlay and the Frobisher broth ers were the hardy forerunners of a new race of traders, whose enterprise and daring soon carried them into the Saskatchewan and Atha basca districts. In order to compete the more successfully with their long-established rivals, the newcomers, who at first traded individually, decided upon union, a decision which led to the founding in 1783 of the Northwest Company. Under the stimulus of competition the opera tions of both companies quickly extended north ward to Lake Athabasca and westward to the foot-hills of the Rockies.