Paul Kane's Journal of his Western Travels, 1846-1848 - History and ...

forty years developed the strengthened business into a continental
dominion, knowing nearly every post firsthand and the business
of all of them intimately. His record-breaking trip in 1824,
which reached Fort George (Astoria) at the mouth of the Columbia,
eighty-four days after leaving York Factory on Hudson Bay,
exemplified his tenacity, eagerness, and sheer devotion to his
job. (He even had his bride. Frances Ramsay Simpson, spend
their honeymoon on a fur trade route [see fourt Franas/Fort
Frames].) Only three of his forty years' service did not include
an extensive trip. Kane did well, indeed, to keep up to and to
impress him, for Simpson's concerns during 1846 were riveted
on the Oregon BoWldary dispute and the ramifications of its
settlement for the HBC.
Silmon a brother in law of the Governur, Mr. Identified as W.
Simpson in WA (67), this is Wemyss M. Simpson (1825-1894),
the youngest brother of Frances Ramsay Simpson, Governor
Simpson's cousin and wife. Wemyss Simpson joined the HBC
in 1841. When Kane met him in July, 1846, he was stationed at
York Factory and at Oxford House (on the Hayes River, between
NOlway House and York Factory).
Simpson had been in charge of the post of Sault Sainte Marie
for some time when the HBC began to curtail its operations after
1860. Simpson remained, however, serving first as Indian Commissioner
at the Sault, and then, in 1867, when Canada came
into being as a dominion, as the Algoma constituency's fust
Member of Parliament elected to the House of Commons in
Ottawa.
slave ~ See Barriere portage.
Smtheers, the reverant Mr. The Reverend John Smithurst
(1807-1867) went to Grand Rapids (St. Andrew's), on the
lower Red River, in 1840 as a deacon missionary of the Church
of England. He was the first Anglican missionary to attempt to
learn an Indian language. During 1846, when he hosted Kane,
Smithurst was voluntarily conducting garrison services for the
6th Regiment of Foot, detachments of which were posted at
Lower Fort Garry (see erNey, Mr. and COI&IbIe, Mr.). After
being embroiled in a dispute between the Metis and the HBC
regarding secular matters, he resigned, returning to England in
1851.
Soto Saulteaux are the westernmost Ojibwa in Canada (Chippewa
in Wisconsin). During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
many of those Ojibwa and Ottawa who hired on as freeman
trappers with the North West Company at Lachine (west of
Montreal) stayed in the West. Moving beyond the Great Lakes in
the 1780s, the Saulteaux - these Indians were named by the
voyageurs after the "jumping waters" of Sault Sainte Marie -
took up territory along the Winnipeg River, on the eastern shore
of Lake Winnipeg, and, when aligned with the Metis, on the
prairie west of Red River. Because the smallpox epidemic of
1836 diminished their numbers less than it did other tribes', it
appears that the Saulteaux had built an immunity to the disease
from earlier contact with Europeans.
spder Islands See Lake Winapeg.
the spocan The Spokane River, a tributary of the Columbia, flows
out of Coeur d' Alene Lake in Idaho, joining the Colwnbia near
its first great bend in American territory, in northeastern Washington
state.
Spokan Fort/spocan Fort Spokane House was not visited by
The American Art Journal/Volume XXI • Number 2
Kane. The North West Company established a fort on the
Spokane River in 1810. It was situated on the east bank at
Spokane Falls, ten miles northwest of modem Spokane, Washington.
In 1826, the HBC abandoned the post in favor of Fort
Colville.
stincun river In 1860, on the map made by the British exploring
expedition, under Captain John Palliser, "Riviere Sale or
Stinking River" is shown flowing from west to east into the
Red River just south of the forks of the Red and the Assiniboine
(at Upper Fort Garry). The river's name today is La Salle, a
euphemistic but confusing homonym that improves sale, the
French for "dirty," into the name of the celebrated discoverer
of the Mississippi River, who never set foot in the region of
lower Red River.
Although the low-lying land through which Kane was strug
gling often flooded for miles around when the Red River
overflowed its banks, Kane seems to have encountered a
notably wet season. Palliser's map describes the area a.\
"Level Plains with long rich grass, being an Ancient Lake
bottom." Not so ancient, Kane was finding.
Stone Fort Red River/Iowr fort Lower Fort Gany (est.
1831) was visited by Kane June 13-14, and again on July 5,
1846. This fort, at St. Andrews, twenty miles down the Red
River from Upper Fort Garry, was built with a distinctive solid
stone wall around it.
straits/Strates By "straits," Kane seems to mean Juan de Fuca
Strait; by "Strates," the Strait of Georgia. The first is the ocean
between Vancouver Island and the northern coast of Washington
state. The Reverend Samuel Purchas reported in Hakluytus
Posthumus (1625) that one Michael Lok told him of meeting in
Venice in 1596 Apostolos Valerianos (also known as Juan de
Fuca), who claimed that, while serving on Spanish ships, he had
discovered, between 47° and 48° latitude, the Strait of Artian, the
mythical canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. However
apocryphal, the story was recalled in the eighteenth century by
the British merchant, John Meares, who named the strait "John
de Fuca" in 1787.
-The Strait of Georgia was named for George ill in 17fJ2 by its
discoverer, the British explorer Captain George Vancouver.
sturgun river See Lake Winapeg.
Sursees Sarcee are a fonner Athapaskan, or Dene, tribe who split
from a northern tribe and moved south to the Plains, aligning
themselves with such disparate tribes as the Blackfoot, Cree, and
Stoney. Their retention of the Athapaskan language distinguishes
them from other Plains tribes. Their hunting took them
across the northern Plains; their reserve today is on the Elbow
River, contiguous with the southwest limits of the city of Calgary,
Alberta.
ToImey, Dr. Trained as a surgeon, William Fraser Tolmie (1812-
1886) joined the HBC in 1833, serving at posts on the northern
Pacific coast before starting the Puget Sound Agricultwal
Company's fann at Nisqually in 1843. He was promoted to
Chief Trader the month before Kane met him, and to Chief
Factor in 1855. In later decades, Tolmie turned his career to
administration, politics, and private fanning on Vancouver
Island.
Tom-a-quin Chief of the Cascades (Watlala), a tribe of the
Chinook family, Tomaquin returned the Hawaiians who had
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