The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company. Bryce George
nothing more than the free privilege of the fur trade was granted the explorers.
In the following year Verendrye built a fort near Lake Ouinipegon, at the mouth of the Maurepas River (which we now know as Winnipeg River), and not far from the present Fort Alexander. The fort was called Fort Maurepas, although the explorers felt that they had little for which to thank the French Minister. Still anxious to push on further west, but prevented by want of means, they made a second appeal to the French Government in 1735. But again came the same reply of refusal. The explorers spent their time trading with the Indians between Lake Winnipeg and Grand Portage, and coming and going, as they had occasion, to Lake Superior, and also to Michilimackinac with their cargoes.
While at Fort St. Charles, on the shores of the Lake of the Woods, in 1736, a great disaster overtook the party. Verendrye's eldest son was very anxious to return to Kaministiquia, as was also the Jesuit priest, Anneau, who was in company with the traders. Verendrye was unwilling, but at last consented. The party, consisting of the younger Verendrye and twenty men, were ruthlessly massacred by an ambush of the Sioux on a small island some five leagues from Fort St. Charles, still known as Massacre Island.
A few days afterwards the crime was discovered, and Verendrye had difficulty in preventing his party from accepting the offer of the Assiniboines and Christinos to follow the Sioux and wreak their vengeance upon them. During the next year Fort Maurepas was still their farthest outpost.
The ruins of Fort St. Charles on the south side of the north-west angle of the Lake of the Woods were in 1908 discovered by St. Boniface Historical Society and the remains of young Verendrye's party found buried in the ruins of the chapel.
Though no assistance could be obtained from the French Court for western discovery, and although the difficulties seemed almost insurmountable, Verendrye was unwilling to give up the path open to him. He had the true spirit of the explorer, and chafed in his little stockade on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, seeking new worlds to conquer.
If it was a great event when Verendrye, in 1731, left the shores of Lake Superior to go inland, it was one of equal moment when, penniless and in debt, he determined at all hazards to leave the rocks and woods of Lake Winnipeg, and seek the broad prairies of the West. His decision being thus reached, the region which is now the fertile Canadian prairies was entered upon.
We are fortunate in having the original journal of this notable expedition of 1738, obtained by Mr. Douglas Brymner, former Archivist at Ottawa. This, with two letters of Bienville, were obtained by Mr. Brymner from a French family in Montreal, and the identity of the documents has been fully established.
This journal covers the time from the departure of Verendrye from Michilimackinac on July 20th, till say 1739, when he writes from the heart of the prairies. On September 22nd the brave Verendrye left Fort Maurepas for the land unknown. It took him but two days with his five men to cross in swift canoes the south-east expanse of Lake Winnipeg, enter the mouth of Red River, and reach the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, where the city of Winnipeg now stands.
It was thus on September 24th of that memorable year that the eyes of the white man first fell on the site of what is destined to be the great central city of Canada. A few Crees who expected him met the French explorer there, and he had a conference with two chiefs, who were in the habit of taking their furs to the English on Hudson Bay.
The water of the Assiniboine River ran at this time very low, but Verendrye was anxious to push westward. Delayed by the shallowness of the Assiniboine, the explorer's progress was very slow, but in six days he reached the portage, then used to cross to Lake Manitoba on the route to Hudson Bay. On this portage now stands the town of Portage la Prairie.
The Assiniboine Indians who met Verendrye here told him it would be useless for him to ascend the Assiniboine River further, as the water was so low. Verendrye was expecting a reinforcement to join his party, under his colleague, M. de la Marque. He determined to remain at Portage la Prairie and to build a fort. Verendrye then assembled the Indians, gave them presents of powder, ball, tobacco, axes, knives, &c., and in the name of the French King received them as the children of the great monarch across the sea, and repeated several times to them the orders of the King they were to obey.
It is very interesting to notice the skill with which the early French explorers dealt with the Indians, and to see the formal way in which they took possession of the lands visited. Verendrye states that the Indians were greatly impressed, "many with tears in their eyes." He adds with some naïveté, "They thanked me greatly, promising to do wonders."
On October 3rd, Verendrye decided to build a fort. He was joined shortly after by Messrs. de la Marque and Nolant with eight men in two canoes. The fort was soon pushed on, and, with the help of the Indians, was finished by October 15th. This was the beginning of Fort de la Reine. At this stage in his journal Verendrye makes an important announcement, bearing on a subject which has been somewhat discussed.
Verendrye says, "M. de la Marque told me he had brought M. de Louvière to the forks with two canoes to build a fort there for the accommodation of the people of the Red River. I approved of it if the Indians were notified." This settles the fact that there was a fort at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, and that it was built in 1738.
In the absence of this information, we have been in the habit of fixing the building of Fort Rouge at this point from 1735 to 1737. There can now be no doubt that October, 1738, is the correct date. From French maps, as has been pointed out, Fort Rouge stood at the mouth of the Assiniboine, on the south side of the river, and the portion of the city of Winnipeg called Fort Rouge is properly named.
It is, of course, evident that the forts erected by these early explorers were simply winter stations, thrown up in great haste.
Verendrye and his band of fifty-two persons, Frenchmen and Indians, set out overland by the Mandan road on October 18th, to reach the Mandan settlements of the Missouri. It is not a part of our work to describe that journey. Suffice it to say that on December 3rd he was at the central fort of the Mandans, 250 miles from his fort at Portage la Prairie.
Being unable to induce his Assiniboine guides and interpreters to remain for the winter among the Mandans, Verendrye returned somewhat unwillingly to the Assiniboine River. He arrived on February 10th at his Fort de la Reine, as he says himself, "greatly fatigued and very ill."
Verendrye in his journal gives us an excellent opportunity of seeing the thorough devotion of the man to his duty. From Fort Michilimackinac to the Missouri, by the route followed by him, is not less than 1,200 miles, and this he accomplished, as we have seen with the necessary delay of building a fort, between July 20th and December 3rd – 136 days – of this wonderful year of 1738.
Struggling with difficulties, satisfying creditors, hoping for assistance from France, but ever patriotic and single-minded, Verendrye became the leading spirit in Western exploration. In the year after his great expedition to the prairies, he was summoned to Montreal to resist a lawsuit brought against him. The prevailing sin of French Canada was jealousy. Though Verendrye had struggled so bravely to explore the country, there were those who whispered in the ear of the Minister of the French Court that he was selfish and unworthy. In his heart-broken reply to the charges, he says, "If more than 40,000 livres of debt which I have on my shoulders are an advantage, then I can flatter myself that I am very rich."
In 1741 a fruitless attempt was made to reach the Mandans, but in the following year Verendrye's eldest surviving son and his brother, known as the Chevalier, having with them only two Canadians, left Forte de la Reine, and made in this and the succeeding year one of the most famous of the Verendrye discoveries. This lies beyond the field of our inquiry, being the journey to the Missouri, and up to an eastern spur of the Rocky Mountains. Parkman, in his "A Half Century of Conflict," has given a detailed account of this remarkable journey.
Going northward over the Portage la Prairie, Verendrye's sons had discovered what is now known as Lake Manitoba, and had reached the Saskatchewan River. On the west side of Lake Manitoba they founded Fort Dauphin, while at the west end of the enlargement of the Saskatchewan known as Cedar Lake, they built Fort Bourbon and ascended the Saskatchewan to the forks, which were known as the Poskoiac. Tardy recognition of Verendrye's achievements came from the French Court in the explorer being promoted to the