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Surveyors of the Past Pany, a Montreal-Based Canadian Com­ Pany, Who Soon Discovered the Weakness by CHARLES FAIRHALL Portion of Lake Athabasca

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Surveyors of the Past Pany, a Montreal-Based Canadian Com­ Pany, Who Soon Discovered the Weakness by CHARLES FAIRHALL Portion of Lake Athabasca the Hudson’s Bay Company was serious­ ly challenged by the North West Com­ Surveyors of The Past pany, a Montreal-based Canadian com­ pany, who soon discovered the weakness BY CHARLES FAIRHALL portion of Lake Athabasca. Peter Fidler in the system, and set out to exploit it by establishing forts along the trade PETER FIDLER — 1769-1822 is truly one of Canada’s “Forgotten Surveyors”, yet the accomplishments of routes and intercepting the Indians. By Two of the greatest surveyor-explor- this man are amazing. He was the first doing so, they cut deeply into the profits ers in Western Canada during the second white man to write about cactus in Cana­ of the Hudson’s Bay Company and wax­ half of the 18th century were David da, of coal in the prairies, and of the ed rich themselves. Thompson and Peter Fidler. The careers Athabaskan tar sand deposits. His journ­ of these two men ran side by side. Both As a countermeasure, the Hudson’s als provide clear insight into the life and Bay Company decided to increase the men were brought to Canada and trained social conditions of the prairie Indians as surveyors by the Hudson’s Bay Com­ number of their forts and beat their rivals as they came into contact with the white at their own game, but they were hamp­ pany, and between them, carried out the man. initial surveys of some 16,000 miles of ered by the lack of accurate maps of the waterways. In the 32 years he spent in the trade routes, namely the lakes and rivers. While every school boy knows the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, In 1778, Philip Turner, an English ­ name of David Thompson and is familiar he travelled over 48,000 miles by canoe, man from Middlesex, was the first sur­ with his exploits, only a few historians dog sled, horseback, or on foot. He veyor employed by the Hudson’s Bay have ever heard of Peter Fidler. The wintered with the Piegan Indians, learned Company. When the decision was made former has had a great river named after their language, saw first-hand evidence to expand the survey operation, Thomp­ him, as well as a town in Manitoba, of their tribal wars, learned of the hor­ son and Fidler were placed under the schools and other public buildings, while rible ravages of smallpox among them, tutelage of Turner and learned the art the latter’s name is borne only by an viewed the incredible buffalo herds and of taking astronomical observations and obscure lake in Manitoba, a bay hidden experienced the beginnings of the Metis of map making. For the next 30 years, in Wollaston Lake in Saskatchewan and uprisings. Fidler was to survey over 4,700 miles a scarcely noticeable cape on the Alberta He married an Indian woman, of lakeshore and river in Manitoba, Sas­ Mary, sired 14 children, 10 of whom katchewan and Alberta. Among his many PIRANHA^ survived him, left an estate of nearly accomplishments was the mapping of Continued from Page 33 £3,000 and one of the strangest wills in most of the North and South Saskatchew­ Canadian history. He bequeathed his an Rivers. Carrying his sextant and his reaches the valve, and, just as Jill is at artificial horizon of quicksilver wherever 99V2, turns it. Away goes the speed-boat, journals and maps to the Hudson’s Bay Company, his library of 500 books and he went, he determined by precise ob­ and, still holding his breath, he is dragged servations the latitude and longitude of back through the building, causing severe his surveying instruments to the Governor of the Red River Colony, and after any point, and this laid the framework contusions to even his head. Half a mile for future maps of Western Canada. down the lake, Jill finds the stop button, making provisions for his wife and child­ and hauls in the rope, but there’s no ren, deposed of the residue of his estate In 1796, four years after Turner Jack at the end of it, so, with a mutter­ in the statement “All my money to be retired, Fidler was appointed Chief Sur­ ed “Oh, rats!” — for she has come to placed in public funds, the interest an­ veyor and Map Maker of the Hudson’s love him — she gets ready to look for nually added to the capital, and to con­ Bay Company, carrying on in these capa­ the starting button. But, 50 feet astern, tinue so until August 16, 1969 (the cities until the Company united with the an arm and hand appear above the sur­ 200th anniversary of his birth), when the North West Company in 1821. Flis maps face, which, from all that hair, and the entire amount will be placed at the dis­ were sent to A. Arrowsmith in London man’s wrist-watch, she suspects may posal of the next male heir in direct to aid in the delineation of North Ameri­ belong to Jack. Taking a chance, she descent from my son, Peter Fidler”. This ca. hauls him in — only just in time, too, request was never accomplished. because a whole school of piranhas is When Lord Selkirk established a Born in Bolsover, Derbyshire, Eng­ colony on the Red River in 1813, Fidler attacking him, and besides he can’t hold land, he signed on in London in 1788 as his breath much longer. was employed to make the first formal a labourer with the Hudson’s Bay Com­ property surveys in Western Canada. He So the picture ends happily, with pany and was sent to York Factory. At surveyed 36 lots along the Red River Jill bandaging Jack until he looks like this date, the Hudson’s Bay Company and subdivided Point Douglas into lots King Tut, and the lake so polluted that was already 118 years old and by Royal not even a mercury-loaded Wabisoon in 1817. Fidler was recommended per­ Charter had exclusive trading rights in manent surveyor for the colony and ser­ p;ke can live in it, never mind a piranha. all the area covered by the watershed But is the crisis really over? How can ved for a time on the Council of Assini- draining into Hudson Bay. When Fidler boia. it be, when the writers are already busy arrived there, York Factory relied mainly on Piranha 2? The fade-out shows an on furs brought in by Cree Indians and It would be wrong to suppose that ocean beach, and a fisherman casting considerable rivalry existed between this Fidler’s role with the Company was con­ into the surf, to the accompaniment of outpost and Fort Churchhill, the other fined to only that of a surveyor-explorer. music so menacing that you just know Company outpost 150 miles away to He was also actively engaged in the that he is about to catch one of those the north. Hudson’s Bay Company policy of ex­ finder-lickin’ piranhas. They have es­ pansion necessitated by the intrusion of caped, and even now are heading for These outposts collected furs the North West Company into the fur the easy pxkin^s of the Florida beaches! brought across half a great continent trading business. The latter faced up to We left, consumed by apathy, and from the Rocky Mountains and the shor­ this action bv building rival trading posts, certainly are planning to go and see the es of the Arctic Ocean by Indians who usually within sight of the Hudson’s seauel. unless we have some really ex­ wanted the whiteman’s goods. Despite Bay Company posts and although there citing knitting to do. their indisputable legal right to the area, were times when the niceties of civilized 34 THE ONTARIO LAND SURVEYOR, WINTER 1979 white men, faced with a hostile environ­ ed in their attempts to trade wth the Hud­ our men looking on the whole time with­ ment, were observed, generally speaking, son’s Bay Company. out giving me any assistance — Mr. their tactics were those of harassment. Black and Ogden yet followed me into In 1810, Fidler was assigned the my room with their guns and daggers For a time, the Northwesters en­ task of maintaining an outpost at Ile-a-la- and abused me very much while my countered considerable opposition from Cross. Here he was confronted again by thumb was dripping. other traders from Montreal, namely, the the Northwesters, who employed a vil­ XY Company. In the fierce struggle that lainous young Highlander of huge stature, Throughout it all, Fidler maintained ensued between these rivals, the princi­ named Black, to continue the antics of a bulldog-like tenacity and remained ples of fair play and honesty played no bullying the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fiercely loyal to the Hudson’s Bay Com­ part. No action was too brutal, no deed men. pany, unlike his contemporary, David too despicable, to work on the enemy, Thompson, who left their services and To their everlasting shame, liquor was One day in October, Black and his joined their rivals. the tool used by these unscrupulous men compatriot, Ogden, came over to the post to debauch the Indians. In 1804, the decked out with a gun, two pistols and a At Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, XY and the North West Companies coal­ dagger. Fidler records the event in his there is a National Historical Sites plaque esced and stopped the stupid competition. journal as follows: . “I told them inscribed: “Peter Fidler, Meteorologist This meant the Hudson’s Bay Company both to return the same way they came and Surveyor.
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