Keeping the Mind Alive: Literary Leanings in the Fur Trade

Keeping the Mind Alive: Literary Leanings in the Fur Trade JEAN MURRAY COLE Poignant pleas for fresh reading material form a constant refrain in fur trade correspondence, from one lonely outpost to its nearest neighbour, from Ile a la Crosse to Montreal, from the Pacific coast to Hudson Bay. "Have you Newspapers or anything of that Nature you could lend us?" John Charles wrote from Oxford House to James Hargrave at York Factory in 1835.1 ''Could you not send us something worth reading · on the News & politics of the province...?"2 Archibald McDonald, at Fort Colvile in the Columbia distric.t in 1837, begged Edward Ermatinger, his old friend who had retired to Upper Canada after ten years in the fur trade. "Perhaps you could favour me with the perusal of some late Papers or new publications,"3 Colin Robertson wrote to headquarters when en route to Fort Chipewyan in 1819. Any news, recent or long since stale, was welcome, and many the complaints of the shortage of information about the outside world in the correspondence of the nineteenth century fur traders. James McMillan wrote to Hargrave from Lake of Two Mountains in 1835. that "Orders are very strict this year that our Governor won't allow us to send even a newspaper into the country, this is carrying things to rather a pitch that can hardly be agreeable to poor fellows in the country who wish for news... ."*4 Apparently the weight of a file of newspapers was too great to be allowed in the annual Outfit heading west. As Cuthbert Cumming remarked * No attempt has been made to regula rize spelling o r grammatical construction in quotations in this a rticle. Form a nd style in fur trade correspondence reflects the range of educationa l background a nd literary talents of the individua l writers. In some insta nces, error' crept in because of the haste with which letters were written or copied . In itself this provides insight into the ways o f the fur trade. Frequent use o f French words a nd phrases in letters written primarily in English illustrates the ease with which the traders moved from o ne la nguage to ano ther, when bo th were in commo n use on all the HBC posts. Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 16, No. 2 (Ete 1981 Summer) to Hargrave, "anything of bulk is rejected sans ceremony by the light canoe.'' s Some years were better than others, but even as late as 1843 Archibald McDonald was writing from the Columbia to Hargrave at York Factory: As you will most likely be at Red River [for the annual meeting of the Northern Council] this spring and will have something to say in the distribution of the Canada newspapers I hope you will think of us - Strange that not one of us individuals can be allowed a single . paper by the Lachine canoes....6 · McDonald was one of the most voracious readers to record his sentiments, and somehow he managed to get his hands on a variety of public prints, frequently through the good offices of his friend Ermatinger. Removed as he was from the scene of action, even at his isolated station west of the Rocky Mountains, he wanted to be kept up to date on political affairs in Upper Canada. His letters to Ermatinger never fail to dwell in passing upon the personalities and events of the period. He even drew himself a large map of the two provinces, marking out the electoral ridings and their incumbents to assist him in keeping it all straight in his mind..7 All the fur traders looked for news of British and American affairs too. Even at the distant posts in the Columbia district, papers and magazines filtered through by way of the English ships or across the continent by the Express canoes, to be shared and passed around from one fort to another. One finds mention of their reading the London Times, the London Herald, the Edinburgh Post and the Dundee papers. Various popular reviews and periodicals such as Blackwood's Magazine, Chambers Journal, the Edinburgh Review and the A thenaeum provided them with literate commentary...