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Updated: June 4, 2025
For eight-and-twenty long hours did the bored locomotive trail us through a flat and hairy land, powdered, ribbed, and speckled with snow, small snow that drives like dust-shot in the wind the land of Assiniboia. Now and again, for no obvious reason to the outside mind, there was a town.
It is a notable fact which emerged in the great School Contention of twenty years ago in Manitoba, that not a dollar had been given to schools as aid by the old Government of Assiniboia. To-day the glory of Manitoba is its school system.
Cameron was jubilant. With the loyal settlers worsted and almost defenceless, and the governor of Assiniboia his prisoner, he could dictate his own terms. He issued an explicit command that the settlers must vacate the Red River without delay. A majority of the settlers decided to obey, and their exodus began under Cameron's guidance.
In March he commissioned a part of his followers to advance into the territory of Assiniboia to restore order. The veterans whom he sent artfully arranged their journey so that they should approach 'the Forks' from the south. The Nor'westers in Fort Douglas were wholly unaware that a foe was advancing against them.
The offices in London were united, and thus the affairs of the fur trade were provided for and outward peace at least was guaranteed. We are, however, chiefly dealing with the affairs of Assiniboia as Lord Selkirk called it, or with what was more commonly called Red River Settlement. This belonged to Lord Selkirk's heirs. The executors were, of course, Hudson's Bay Company grandees.
In the presence of this odd company Governor Macdonell read the Earl of Selkirk's patent to Assiniboia. About him was drawn up a guard of honour, and overhead the British ensign fluttered in the breeze. Six small swivel-guns, which had been brought with the colonists, belched forth a salute to mark the occasion. The Nor'westers were visibly impressed by this show of authority and power.
He was, however, offering a challenge to the fur traders, for his policy meant in effect that these had no right in Assiniboia, that it was to be kept for the use of settlers alone. Such a mandate could not fail to rouse intense hostility among the traders, whose doctrine was the very opposite. The Nor'westers were quick to seize the occasion to strike at the struggling colony.
One hundred and twenty Canadian voyageurs had been recently engaged to go to Assiniboia in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. Possibly these canoemen accompanied Selkirk on the first stages of his journey. On Drummond Island, at the head of Lake Huron, was situated the most westerly military station maintained by the government of Upper Canada.
In his eyes the Hudson's Bay Company was endowed with all the virtues; and he never properly analysed the motives or recognized the achievements of its great rival. Had he but ordered his representatives in Assiniboia to meet the Nor'westers half-way, distress and hardship might have been lessened, and violence might very probably have been entirely avoided.
Notwithstanding the writer's perfect sympathy with both of these opinions, it is but fair to state that the Council of Assiniboia did in ordinary times do many things which were most beneficial and helpful to the Red River Community. Its most distressing failures were in those things which are very essential.
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