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Updated: June 25, 2025
To-day it is he, the missionary famous in the north land, who passing back and forward between his lonely mission in the Athabasca and the headquarters of his order, comes to us and occupies the guest-chamber in our little, old-fashioned, vine-grown cottage. The retaking of Fort Douglas virtually closed the bitter war between Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers.
The Assiniboine enters the Red at something like a right angle and in this angle was the Nor'-Westers' fort, named after an old-world stronghold, because we imagined our position gave us the same command of the two waterways by which the voyageurs entered and left the north country as Gibraltar has of the Mediterranean.
Also, if his intent were hostile, would not Seven Oaks massacre afford him the very pretence he wanted for chastising Nor'-Westers out of the country?
In the year of their arrival James Sutherland, the Presbyterian chaplain of the Selkirk Colonists, was taken by the Nor'-Westers to Upper Canada, whither his son, Haman Sutherland, had gone in 1815 with Duncan Cameron. The Earl of Selkirk had promised to send to his Scottish Colonists a minister of their own faith. On his death in France his agent in London was Mr. John Pritchard.
Men who would gladly have devoted all their energies to the arts of peace, became more or less belligerent in spirit, if not in act, and many were forced to take sides in the controversy some siding with the Nor'-Westers and others with the Hudson's Bay Company. With the merits of their contentions we do not propose to meddle. We confine ourselves to facts.
At last the Nor-Westers' Fort William brigade with its sixty men and numerous well-loaded canoes whose cargoes had been the bone of contention between Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers at Seven Oaks arrived at Fort Douglas. The newcomers were surprised to find us in possession of the enemy's fort.
The embargo was complete. In Governor Macdonell's defence it should be said that he offered to pay by British bills for all the provisions taken, at customary rates. This assertion of sovereignty set on fire the Nor'-Westers and their sympathizers.
On the other hand, the Nor'-Westers might bribe the Iroquois to stay with them. Acting on these alternative possibilities, Hamilton and I determined to track the fugitives north. We could leave hirelings to shadow the movements of Indian bands about Quebec. Eric could re-engage with the Hudson's Bay and get passage north with Colin Robertson's brigade, which was to leave Lachine in a few weeks.
In this year the Selkirk Colonists were greatly discouraged by the capture and removal to Canada, by the Nor'-Westers, of Mr. James Sutherland, their spiritual guide. But their labors now seem likely to be rewarded by a good harvest. The oats and barley were in ear, when suddenly the invasion came.
On their agile ponies they appeared like scourging Huns, to drive out the discouraged remnant of Colonists. Each remaining settler was on the 25th of June served with a notice signed by four Nor'-Westers, thus: "All settlers to retire immediately from Red River, and no trace of a settlement to remain."
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