CHAPTER XXI

A FEW CANADIANS

O do even scant justice to all Canadians who have

To contributed much towards the conquest of the

Dominion, to its political creation, its development, and who have marked out clearly the pathway along which The Coming Canada shall progress to even greater things than those which have been, so completely exceeds the possible in one short chapter as to make the small effort upon which I venture seem ridiculous. If I shall be so fortunate as to secure some Canadian readers, I beg that they will not consider the omission of very many names which should be here, as altogether a sign of ignorance, but attribute it to the limitations of space.

I shall say no more of the French pioneers, both lay and clerical, but pass on to the time when British policy asserted itself, and then to the time when the conduct of affairs was left entirely in the hands of Canadians themselves. Naturally, then, the men who first made known to their fellow countrymen something of the magnitude and economic possibilities of the vast estate which had fallen to them, claim precedence, and in Mr. J. Castwell Hopkins' Encyclopædia, I find abundant material from which I have, in part, drawn.

Alexander Mackenzie (the name is sometimes im

properly given as McKenzie) was probably born at Inverness, Scotland, about 1755. He must have been still very young when he yielded to the temptation to leave home, because in 1779 he appears to have been in Canada, for he entered the offices of the North West Fur Company at Toronto in that year. In 1787 he was entrusted with a small stock of goods which he took to Detroit, and he was given permission to trade, provided he penetrated into the Indian territory, beyond that frontier, in the spring of the next year. He succeeded in establishing barter with the Indians, although they were disposed to resent his efforts.

In 1789, Mackenzie was sent to explore the unknown region far to the North West, which was even at that time supposed to be bounded by the Frozen Sea. This expedition, which was much condemned at the time, was looked upon as an exploit of sheer hardihood. He accomplished it in less than three and a half months, most of the time he and his companions being in birchbark canoes. He made his way to Great Slave Lake and thereafter discovered the river which bears his name. Having descended this noble stream to its mouth, he returned to Toronto, where, for a short period, he attended to post-trading.

In 1792, he began the expedition across the prairies and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, which has already been mentioned. From the Pacific shores, he once more retraced his steps and again settled down for a short taste of comfortable home life. The narrative of his explorations in the North West, which he published in 1801 and dedicated to King George III, is most fasci

nating reading. The next year the King conferred upon him the honour of knighthood.

Sir Alexander continued to be a partner in the North West Company; yet with somewhat curious ideas of commercial ethics, he organised a rival firm which was called Sir Alexander Mackenzie & Co. The competition did not last long, for in 1805 the firm was absorbed by the older company. Like so many successful Britons, Sir Alexander became possessed with a desire to sit in Parliament, and for some years he represented Huntingdon County, in the Provincial Parliament for Canada East (now Quebec). During this time he was involved in much litigation with Lord Selkirk concerning the Red River Settlement in what is now the Province of Manitoba. In 1812, Sir Alexander returned to Scotland, where he purchased an estate at Avoch in Ross-shire. On a journey to Edinburgh in 1820, he was suddenly taken ill and died at Mulnain, near Dunkeld.

The narratives of Sir Alexander's two great expeditions may be read by all who care to do so. The details show the character of the man as an explorer, and as an adept in accommodating himself to circumstances until he could compel those circumstances to conform to his wishes. They also indicate a remarkable capacity for dealing with all classes of men; his own determined fellow countrymen, Europeans of various nations, the fickle voyageurs and coureurs des bois, or the wily, cunning, often tricky Indian. But another phase of this man's character appears in the fact that he was made a partner in the North West Company when comparatively young. As Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal says:

"It was not an easy matter to obtain admission into this partnership. It could be accomplished only by long and arduous service; money was no object, ability was everything. It was what the candidate could perform, not his relationship, which secured him the position." It is little wonder that Canada pays high honour to the memory of Sir Alexander Mackenzie.

At the same time that Mackenzie was cutting that inscription on the rock at Dean Inlet, mentioned in a previous chapter, another venturesome explorer, Capt. George Vancouver, was making his way up the Pacific coast of North America, less than two hundred miles north of where the first Briton to cross the continent had reached the strand. Vancouver had already visited the very same spot that Mackenzie subsequently reached; but he seems to have left no sign, and it is a strange thing that these two explorers did not meet each other in that remote region.

Thirteen years after Mackenzie reached the Pacific, Simon Fraser crossed the Rocky Mountains, south of Mackenzie's trail, and reached the river which was named after him. It is hardly correct to claim that he was its discoverer, but there is little doubt that he was the first white man to descend it. As one gazes upon the foaming rapids and boiling whirlpools of that wild river, one can readily believe that Fraser's exploit has not been repeated by many, even Indians.

One Canadian, however, George Simpson, Governor in Chief of Rupert's Land and General Superintendent of the Hudson's Bay Company's offices in North America, who was afterwards knighted, took canoe at York

Factory on Hudson Bay, in 1828. He went up Nelson and Churchill rivers, reached Lake Athabasca, went up the Peace River as far as possible, then carried his light craft to the great northern bend of the Fraser, down which he made his way safely to the Pacific. Simpson made another famous journey in 1841. He went up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, across Lakes Nipissing, Huron, and Superior to the portage between the affluents of the last and those of Lake Winnipeg. Then he went up the Saskatchewan to its headwaters, crossed over the Rockies, and descended the Kootenay to the Columbia River. Of Simpson "It is stated that he was the first Hudson's Bay Governor who fulfilled, on behalf of the Company, the duty imposed upon them by its charter - the task of exploration and geographical discovery."

Turning from the brave explorers whose labours laid the foundations of the Dominion, that is almost an empire in itself, I mention the name of one who added to that foundation a stone of great importance. I do not know that I can correctly call the Hon. Sir Francis Hincks the father of the Canadian banking system, but he was assuredly an important factor of it. Nor would it be truthful to say that the very foundations of that system have never been severely shaken; for they have, and sometimes the shock has been one from which the recovery was slow and discouraging. When such financial disasters have come, they were always traceable to causes which showed that Sir Francis' principles had been departed from.

Canada presents to the observing American a combi