One interesting impression, begot of our environment, was that we
were now emphatically in what might be called "Mackenzie's country."
In his "General History of the Fur-Trade," published in London in
1801, Sir Alexander tells us that, after spending five years in Mr.
Gregory's office in Montreal, he went to Detroit to trade, and
afterwards, in 1785, to the Grand Portage (Fort William).
The first traders, he tells us, had penetrated to the Athabasca,
via Methy Portage, as early as 1791, and in 1783-4 the merchants
of Lower Canada united under the name of The North-West Company,
the two Frobishers--Joseph Frobisher had traded on the Churchill
River as early as 1775 and Simon McTavish being managers. The
Company, he says, "was consolidated in July, 1787," and became
very powerful in more ways than one, employing, at the time he
wrote, over 1,400 men, including 1,120 canoemen. "It took four
years from the time the good, were ordered until the furs were
sold;" but, of course, the profits, compared with the capital
invested, were very great, until the strife deepened between
the Montrealers. and the Hudson's Bay Company, whose first
inland post was only established at Sturgeon River, Cumberland
Lake, in 1774, by the adventurous, if not over-valiant, Samuel
Hearne. The rivalries of these two companies nearly ruined
both, until they got rid of them by uniting in 1821, when the
Nor'-Westers became as vigorous defenders of King Charles's
Charter as they had before been its defiers and defamers.
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