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RODERICK CAMPBELL,
F.R.G.S.
Dedicated
BY SPECIAL PERMISSION
TO THE
RIGHT HON. LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL,
HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR CANADA IN LONDON.
PREFACE.
It was said long ago,
that “of the making of books there is no end.” I, too, wisely or
unwisely, have made a book. In the fag-end of a weary century we have
attained to the prosaic faculty of being able to measure sunshine, weigh
winds, and analyse stars, yet the primitive instincts of humanity are
still unconquered, still unconquerable. A sun-worshipper by nature and
early training, I have loved dearly a life in the open air. Is it then
folly, ignorance, or presumption that tempts me to become an author? My
audacity stares me in the face. Yet “one must accomplish something,”
says Goethe, “nay, fail in something, to learn to know one’s own
capacities and those of others.” We discover an unsuspected vein in us,
only in beginning to work it. And so work grows out of faith, and it
takes both to make a man. It is by toil alone that we arrive at our true
selves. Only by polishing do we reach the peculium of a diamond— its
light-giving faculty; and only by the same process do we discover the
hidden powers of a man, his peculiar office and function in the world,
which none other can exactly fill.
The following pages
contain a personal narrative—the history of my early years and ol my
travels and adventures, strange and thrilling enough, in the territories
around Hudson Bay. I have dealt little in geography and ethnology.
Recent works on these matters have added greatly to the knowledge we
possessed when I made my youthful journey from Stornoway to Hudson Bay
and the Red River of the North. In the account of that and subsequent
journeys I am able to give the first complete picture of these
scarce-known regions and their primitive inhabitants as they were when
first the white trader ventured among them. I have made it my care to
tell my story with absolute truthfulness, and have yielded to no
temptation to embellish it. If I can induce some youth, conscious of
energy, ability and force of will, to ponder over and profit by the
lessons of a unique career, I shall be happy; for, according to an
ancient saying, to receive is only a single pleasure, but to give is a
threefold one. Let me only say, further, that, in the words of Burns, “I
am determined to make these lines my confidant. I will sketch every
character that in any way strikes me to the best of my observation, with
unshrinking justice.” Thus he whom these pages do not interest will have
only himself to blame should he read further, and if he weary himself
over them I can only desire him to recollect that for him they were not
written.
Bushy Heath,
April, 1901.
Contents
Introductory
Chapter I
Birth - Church Schism - General Remarks
Chapter II
My Parentage and Family History - School Days
Chapter III
I run away from Home - The Return of the Prodigal - Death of my
Mother -Bantrach Dhomhniull Roy
Chapter IV
From Lewis to Hudson Bay
Chapter V
Fort York in 1859
Chapter VI
Fort York to the Red River of the North
Chapter VII
History of the Settlement - First Impressions - Characteristics of the
People
Chapter VIII
General Events during 1860 - 1868
Chapter IX
End of the Charter
Chapter X
Two Years on the Saskatchewan Prairies
Chapter XI
"Red Cloud" and "Sitting Bull" - Indians - A Winter in the Woods
Chapter XII
A Trip to the Further West
Chapter XIII
The Return Journey
Chapter XIV
A Visit to Scotland, England, France and the United States
Appendix |
