BOURGEOIS - Toronto Public Library

Mr. Willard-Ferdinand Wel;tzel was a Norwegian.
He entered the service of the North-West Company in
1799 as an apprentice clerk, and spent most of his life
in the Athabasca and MacKenzie regions, where he endured
more than his share of the hardships of a "winterer's"
life in the Northern Departments.
He was, it appears, a man of small stature, very unhandsome,
but highly intelligent and of a jovial, keen
but sarcastic turn of mind; quick at finding out peoplE.'s
weak points and foibles, and taking great delight in
mimicking them. This disposition of his deprived him
of the kindly support of many who might doubtless
have helped him on, and contributed possibly to prevent
his promotion in the service of the Company.
Mr. George Keith, one of the " Partners" in the
North-West Company and, later, one of the Chief Factors
in the Hudson Bay Company, in his letters to Mr.
Roderic McKenzie, speaks in the most complimentary
terms of his long years of service and of the hardships
he endured.
Mr. Ross Cox in his book " Adventures on the Col-
,
umbia River," says that he met him in 1811, and travelled
with him from Lake La Pluie to Fort William,
where Wentzel was going to seek for justice from the