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Archibald Mcdonald's Letters from the Columbia River, 1822-44 Jean Murray Cole, Editor Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001

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Archibald Mcdonald's Letters from the Columbia River, 1822-44 Jean Murray Cole, Editor Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001 IOO BC STUDIES This Blessed Wilderness: Archibald McDonald's letters from the Columbia River, 1822-44 Jean Murray Cole, editor Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001. 297 pp. Illus., maps. $75 cloth. ARTHUR J. RAY University of British Columbia N 1821 ARCHIBALD MCDONALD It is the fourth section, covering the arrived on the Northwest Coast five years from 1845 to 1849, which is I as an officer in the Hudson's Bay unusual for a collection of this sort; it Company, which had just merged with is also a surprise, given the book's title. its arch rival, the North West Company. Here the editor has included letters He remained in the Columbia District McDonald wrote from his retirement for the next twenty-three years, first home in Lower Canada. This cor­ commanding Fort George (Astoria) respondence offers a rare insight into (1826-9), then Fort Langley (1829-33), the kinds of adjustments fur traders thereafter Fort Colvile (1833-44). had to make when they retired from McDonald retired in 1844 due to the "wilderness" to "civilization." failing health and settled at Lake of McDonald reveals that he had a keen the Two Mountains, Lower Canada interest in the local political scene, (Quebec), where he lived until his which was undergoing wrenching death in 1853. McDonald's career changes. As an example, in a letter, spanned a time when the European fur dated 3 February 1848, to a cor­ trade of the Pacific slope underwent respondent in London, England, major transformations. His position as McDonald wrote: "our late election­ a senior company officer gave him an eering excitement all over the two excellent vantage point from which to provinces is now about over &c a pretty view the changes that were under way. kettle of fish we conservatives made McDonald's letters from Forts George, of it. The reformers (or rather the Langley, and Colville, which comprise Rebels & Radicals) in the next House the first three parts of the collection of Assembly will be two to one - so Jean Murray Cole has put together much for good sound Constitutional from various archives (Hudson's Bay law & a lasting connexion with the Company Archives, British Columbia Mother Country" (260). Archives, Yale University Archives, Cole has followed all of the edi­ and Kew Gardens Library) touch on torial conventions that have become all aspects of the business. And, as is commonplace to publications of fur generally the case with fur traders' traders' papers. In a general intro­ correspondence, McDonald's letters duction she presents the reader with also provide many valuable first-hand a concise biography of McDonald, accounts of aspects of the local Native who first arrived in North America at economies and offer insights into the Fort Churchill in 1813 as the leader of relationships various First Nations the ill-fated second group of Red had with the company. River-bound settlers that the earl of Book Reviews 101 Selkirk had dispatched to his colony. She does not provide the reader with Subsequently McDonald became in­ any information about the First volved in the fur trade, and he served Nations, who owned the territory with George Simpson (later Sir George) where the company built its posts. in the Athabasca District just before This omission is most glaring on the his arrival in the Columbia District. map of the Columbia District (2), McDonald favourably impressed which shows only rivers and trading Simpson, and this helped his career posts. It conveys the no longer ac­ immediately afterward when Simpson ceptable impression that the land was assumed the governorship of the com­ vacant apart from the European pany. In addition to her biographical establishments. Also, by failing to introduction, Cole opens each of the refer readers to the appropriate an­ book's four parts with a succinct his­ thropological literature, those who are tory that aims to put the group of letters unfamiliar with the cultures of Pacific that follow in their proper context. In Slope First Nations are not provided footnotes throughout the work, she with the background information they also provides essential biographical in­ need to evaluate McDonald's de­ formation about the people who are scriptions and assessments of local mentioned in McDonald's corre­ Native customs. These shortcomings spondence. notwithstanding, Cole is to be con­ While Cole's adherence to editorial gratulated for pulling together an conventions is a strength of the col­ extremely valuable collection. lection, it also is one of its weaknesses. A Tour of Duty in the Pacific Northwest: E.A. Porcher and H.M. S. Sparrowhawk, 1865-1868 Dwight L. Smith, editor Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2000. 172 pp. Illus., maps. US$85 cloth RODERICK J. AND JEAN BARMAN University of British Columbia N THE MIDDLE YEARS of the as a nodal point in the web of steamship nineteenth century the colony of routes that bound the Atlantic and I British Columbia was a major Pacific Oceans into a single strategic producer of gold, and we tend to think and commercial system. This role is of it in those terms. British Columbia brought to life by the private journal played a second important role to which and water colours of Commander this book calls our attention. Thanks Edmund A. Porcher, captain of the to its sources of coal and its secure gunboat HMS Sparrowhawk during a harbour at Esquimalt, the colony served three-ear turn of duty. .
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