University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Summer 1983 Transportation And Transformation The Hudson's Bay Company, 1857-1885 A. A. den Otter Memorial University of Newfoundland Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons den Otter, A. A., "Transportation And Transformation The Hudson's Bay Company, 1857-1885" (1983). Great Plains Quarterly. 1720. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1720 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSFORMATION THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY, 1857 .. 1885 A. A. DEN OTTER Lansportation was a prime consideration in efficiency of its transportation system enabled the business policies of the Hudson's Bay Com­ the company to defeat all challengers, includ­ pany from its inception. Although the company ing the Montreal traders, who were absorbed in legally enjoyed the position of monopoly by 1821. Starving the competition by slashing virtue of the Royal Charter of 1670, which prices, trading liquor, and deploying its best granted to the Hudson's Bay Company the servants to critical areas were other tactics the Canadian territory called Rupert's Land, this company employed to preserve its fur empire. 1 privilege had to be defended from commercial The principal means by which the Hudson's intruders. From the earliest days the company Bay Company defended its trade monopoly, developed its own transportation network in nevertheless, was to maintain an efficient trans­ order to maintain a competitive edge over its portation system into Rupert's Land. opponents. During its first century, when By the 1850s the company's policy of con­ business ventured hardly beyond the shores of trolling access to its fur preserve faced an the Hudson Bay, the company perfected its entirely new and potentially fatal challenge. transatlantic shipping. Later, when competitors Settlement, with technology based on an ex­ from Montreal moved into the western interior, panding agricultural-industrial economy, was the Hudson's Bay Company countered by open­ rapidly approaching the undeveloped plains. ing several inland rivers, developing a unique The economic activities of this encroaching wooden craft, the Y orkboat, and constructing civilization foretold death for the fur trade. rollered passage ways around several rapids. The Several fur empires in other parts of North America had already yielded to the relentless advance of settlement; company officials knew that theirs would also eventually succumb. As A. A. den Otter is associate professor of history early as 1849 Peter Skene Ogden, the chief at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. factor in Oregon, wrote George Simpson, the He has published several articles on western Canadian energy and transportation issues, as resident governor of the Hudson's Bay Com­ well as Civilizing the West: The Galts and the pany, "You are I presume fully aware that the Development of Western Canada (1982). fur trade and civilization can never blend 171 172 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1983 together and experience teaches us that the enough support to construct an efficient, pro­ former invariably gives way to the latter.,,2 fitable system of transportation. Of all the Understanding that the fall of the fertile projects, only the North West Transportation, portion of Rupert's Land to agricultural settle­ Navigation, and Railway Company was put into ment was inevitable, the Hudson's Bay Com­ operation. In summer 1858 the firm inaugu­ pany developed a strategy to retain its hold rated an agonizingly slow mail and transport over the fur trade wherever possible and to link between Canada and the prairies. But the dominate the commercial potential of the new next year, when the Hudson's Bay Company economic order.3 Accessibility was the key to withdrew its cooperation, the attempt col­ the survival plan; realizing that transportation lapsed.7 The eastern approach to the company's was the vanguard of the new civilization, the empire was safe for the time being. company once again decided to control this On the southern flank, however, the situa­ technology within its domain and to develop tion was radically different. In the United it to the company's own advantage. States, entrepreneurs had backed the new The most obvious legal threat to the com­ steampower technology with enough capital pany's charter came from the province of to fuel a transportation revolution. Throughout Canada. This British colony could claim histor­ the 1850s innovative promoters utilized steam­ ical, imperial, and juridical ties with Rupert's boats and railways to open the interior of the Land. During the 1850s, however, the provin­ continent. Early in the decade, after American cial government did not press claims to the railways reached the Mississippi River, mer­ territories. The editor of the Toronto Globe, chants in Saint Paul, Minnesota, began to com­ George Brown, tried to rally his readers to the bine river and rail to transport their merchan­ cause of western annexation-for years his dise. In this way they doubled the length of the strident editorials praised the Northwest as a shipping season and, by using carts north of panacea for the stagnating economy of Upper the city, penetrated deep into the territory Canada-but his proposal remained a minor monopolized by the Hudson's Bay Company. issue even in his own Clear Grit party and was By 1854 they were at the gates of the rich dismissed as unimportant by the Montreal Athabasca district.8 press.4 In 1857 a legislative committee, estab­ The company responded by improving the lished to investigate the worrisome emigration river route from York Factory on the Hudson of young Canadians to the United States, com­ Bay, but by 1857 the northern route was too pletely ignored the prairies as a haven for pro­ slow and the required labor too expensive to spective farmers and urged instead that they be compete with the Saint Paul approach. More­ retained in Canada by means of a vigorous over, it could not manage the rapidly increasing industrialization policy. 5 That same year traffic load. Consequently, in 1858, Governor Canada's position at the British parliamentary George Simpson authorized a trial shipment of inquiry into the Hudson's Bay Company license soap and sugar via Saint Paul. The experiment was timid and noncommittal. Canada simply was successful and saved the company consider­ could not afford to buyout the company's able time and money.9 charter and trading rights nor could it finance The company's move spurred the Saint Paul the administration of such a vast domain.6 merchants to greater efforts. In 1859 the newly Overshadowing these political considerations formed Saint Paul chamber of commerce of­ was a formidable geographical barrier. Eight fered one thousand dollars to the first captain hundred miles of uninhabitable swamps, forests, to steam a vessel down the Red River of the and hills separated Canada from the fertile North to Fort Garry. Captain Anson Northup prairies. Although several Canadian enthusiasts took up the challenge: he carted a dismantled proposed grandiose schemes to bridge the stern-wheeler from the Mississippi to the Canadian Shield, none were able to gather Red River, reassembled it inside a new hull, TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSFORMATION 173 No"", -"'sf. qt('~ ~"- .;.., Prince ." Albert Carlton House '-- .'"'"-,.................. Medicine H:::att-.....-.,,-- .... ~=::::.:.~~ .--.-._------- ·-·--c;.~ADA Fort Benton us;..-·-·- RAIL AND RIVER ROUTES ON THE NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS 1857-1885 _0~--10,ro_2~9_0~~ __4~00~Kllornetres o 200 300 Miles christened the vessel the Anson Northup, and this law, the company worked out a secret on 10 June 1859, reached Fort Garry.10 The partnership with the Saint Paul firm of R. C. settlement bells and cannons that welcomed the and J. C. Burbank. The Minnesota company Anson Northup signalled a serious breach in the agreed to carry Hudson's Bay Company goods transportation monopoly of the Hudson's Bay overland with carts from Saint Paul to George­ Company. town on the Red River, and with two steamers The company responded to the threat by (the Anson Northup, refurbished and renamed buying Northup's steamer. Possession of his the Pioneer, and the International) to Fort vessel, however, did not mean complete control Garry. The Burbanks retained the right to carry over the Red River, because American law free-trade goods, but at substantially higher prohibited foreign companies from owning prices.l1 Governor Simpson reported on what property in the United States. To circumvent appeared to be a satisfactory arrangement: 174 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1983 FIG. 1. The Anson Northup, first steamer on the Red River, from an engraving in The Win­ nipeg Country, 1859. Manitoba Archives. Our overland transport is likely to work the companies broke their pact.13 A subse­ quite a revolution in the business & be at­ quent contract with another American firm tended with economy & other advantages­ also failed and so the company undertook its By getting in abundant supplies, with dis­ own freighting operations under the name of its patch & at a reduced rate we are able to agent, Norman W. Kittson. Low waters allowed drive the free traders & Americans out of the only intermittent use of the steamers, but even field, & to turn our position to account, by when the boats were supplemented with Red effecting large sales at remunerative rates. With proper energy in our arrangements, I River carts, the company realized significant feel satisfied we can hold the command of savings. By the end of the decade, the Minne­ the trade against all the world.