The Hudson’s Bay Company in Rat Portage

Lake of the Woods Museum Newsletter
Vol. 25 No. 4 – Fall 2015

by Marcus Jeffrey

 

In the years before Canada was a nation – long before the automobile, airplane, or steam locomotive – the Lake of the Woods was the province of adventurers and fur-traders. Much of the written history detailing early life on the lake comes from the Hudson’s Bay Company, who maintained a presence at Rat Portage for nearly two hundred years. As generations of explorers sought new routes to the west, the meeting points of the Lake of the Woods and Winnipeg River grew from mere geographical features to trading posts, villages, and towns. Canoes gave way to steamboats, iron rails replaced wagon trails, and a way of life that once defined Rupert’s Land vanished.

In 1775, Alexander Henry the Elder – an explorer with the North West Company in the days before its 1821 union with the Hudson’s Bay Company – described “Portage du Rat” as a popular fur-trading portage at the western outlet of the Lake of the Woods. No mention of a trading location, however, can be found in his account, nor through the writings of John McKay (1796), Alexander Henry the Younger (1800), or Dr. John J. Bigsby (1823). It was not until 1837 that the Hudson’s Bay Company had established a presence at Rat Portage, managed by Donald McKenzie. In the early years of its operation, the post was recorded as having profitable seasons, delivering quality furs and isinglass (a gelatin obtained from fish, particularly sturgeon, which is used for jellies, glues, etc.)  to the company’s regional headquarters at Fort Frances.

Hudson’s Bay Company post on Old Fort Island, 1837. Reproduced from a sketch by H.Y. Hind.

Hudson’s Bay Company post on Old Fort Island, 1837. Reproduced from a sketch by H.Y. Hind.

In spite of the initial success of the Company’s location here, individuals travelling past Rat Portage made it quite clear that it was in no way a grand affair. In 1846, artist Paul Kane described Rat Portage as “a small establishment where they were so badly supplied with provisions as to be able to afford us only two white fish. We consequently thought it advisable to leave the place, although late in the evening, and camped a few miles lower down the Winnipeg River.” A year later, English explorer Frederick Ulric Graham would call the post “a house and two stores, a miserable looking place.”

Travelling across Northwestern Ontario, through Canadian territory, was difficult. The drudgery of hauling canoes over exposed granite and treacherous, fly-filled muskeg was sharply balanced by the danger of hurtling through swirling rapids. Many of Canada’s western pioneers preferred travelling through the United States. As a result, most early accounts of Rat Portage come from a dedicated group of fur traders, missionaries, and explorers. Two such adventurers, Youle Hind and S. J. Dawson, passed by the post in 1857, while surveying an overland route to the Red River Colony. Hind paused to note that the Company’s location was “very prettily situated at one outlet of the Lake of the Woods.”

In 1869, the Dominion of Canada obtained much of the territory owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company, known as Rupert’s Land. The difficulty of enforcing Canadian sovereignty in the prairies, far removed from eastern Ontario, was demonstrated immediately. In 1870, the people of the Red River Colony, led by Louis Riel, seized Fort Garry while negotiating Manitoba’s terms of confederation. In response, Colonel Garnet Wolseley was dispatched with a force of more than a thousand men to assert federal authority.

The Hudson’s Bay Company store – present site of Donny B.

The Hudson’s Bay Company store – present site of Donny B.

Passage through the United States had been denied, and Wolseley opted to carve his way through the wilderness, basing his path from what is now Thunder Bay to Fort Frances on the surveying work done by S. J. Dawson. The Expedition travelled by boat from the mouth of the Rainy River to Rat Portage. From there, munitions, troops, and supplies were transported along the traditional Winnipeg River trading route, to Fort Garry. 

At this time, the post at Rat Portage was in a state of general disorder. Shortly after the move from Old Fort Island to the mainland in 1861, regional trading contacts had taken to pilfering food and supplies. In spite of this instability, the Hudson’s Bay Company at Rat Portage was able to host members of the Wolseley Expedition during their return to Fort Frances from Fort Garry.

Captain Huyshe of the Expedition wrote: “The Hudson’s Bay Company’s post at Rat Portage is but a small affair, three log houses roofed with bark and enclosed by a high wooden palisade. The Company maintains thirteen men at this post, but nine of them are employed at small outlying posts in the vicinity.” The visit, however, would seem to have left a favourable impression with many of the Expedition’s men, as several would opt to settle in the area permanently.

With the completion of the Dawson Trail, a marked increase in settlement activity took place on Lake of the Woods. Steamboats now regularly plied the waters from Fort Frances to the Northwest Angle, carrying families, building supplies, and dignitaries – like Governor General Alexander Morris, who was sent to finalize Treaty Three in 1873. The Hudson’s Bay Company at Rat Portage supplied an outpost at the Northwest Angle from the late 1850s through to the 1880s, roughly corresponding to the development and decline of the Dawson Trail.

The next major development came with the announced construction of the National Railway. A survey crew in 1876 found the Lake of the Woods region to be surrounded by forests with great timber potential. The Hudson’s Bay Company recognized the coming change in 1877, noting: “As there is to be a large number of men employed during the next few years at or near Rat Portage, I think we should be able to secure a large proportion of the retail trade, if we were prepared for it.” The next year, steamboats began transporting swarms of labourers to the landing at Rat Portage.

In 1879, John Mather and his associates began one of the lake’s first lumber mills, simultaneously founding the town of Keewatin. As if to emphasize the logistical complexity of starting a business on Lake of the Woods, the Keewatin Lumber Company’s equipment was transported first by train, from St. Paul, Minnesota to Fort Garry, Manitoba; then by cart, along the Dawson Trail, to the Northwest Angle; and, finally, by steamboat to Keewatin. The company’s first timber was produced in 1880, providing building materials to both eastern and western railway construction.

The population boomed. Parcels of land owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company were bought by settlers, and houses sprang up near the post. Stores were established, and a series of paths connected the population, forming the village of Rat Portage. By 1880, a local newspaper, The North Star, advertised a number of businesses in the area, including two general stores and several hotels. Oddly, instead of capitalizing on the retail opportunities stemming from a bustling community, the Hudson’s Bay Company, having moved their regional headquarters from Fort Frances to Rat Portage that year, seemed to be preoccupied with encroachment on their trapping grounds. Chief Trader, A. R. Lillie:

“There are now on the Town Plot at this place some half dozen stores all of which are well stocked with goods of every description and apparently doing a good cash business, and I fear all of them will buy furs when they get the chance of doing so, but I shall use my utmost endeavours to prevent as many skins as possible going their way. Our new store is about finished and I regret that we have not a better assortment of goods to put into it, so that we might at least come in for a share of the cash in circulation.”

While the rest of the town flourished, welcoming construction crews, mining prospectors, teachers, doctors, and lawyers, the Hudson’s Bay Company store languished in decaying buildings: “We are of the opinion that the premises of the Fur Trade at Rat Portage had better be remodelled to adapt them to the general business that is springing up at that place in addition to the Fur Trade owing to the progress of the Railway Works and the establishment of a mill in its vicinity.”

The interior of the Hudson’s Bay Company store.

The interior of the Hudson’s Bay Company store.

]When the decision was finally made to focus on retail operations, it was too late. Correspondence reveals the crumbling shop to be dark, crowded, and under-stocked, deterring consumer activity. Meanwhile, independent traders, including former Hudson’s Bay Company employee Robert Laurenson, were undercutting the post’s fur prices, and the shop at Rat Portage found itself losing on two fronts.

The first train arrived from the west in 1882, but the Hudson’s Bay Company at Rat Portage could not adapt to the rapidly evolving economy. The Company’s remaining years are notable for its frantic efforts to keep up with the town. By the time a new warehouse could be built to accommodate rail shipments, the main store had burnt down. A new store was quickly constructed, but not before the local economy experienced a significant downturn. In spite of all this, the company limped on in the area until 1918, when its stock at Kenora was transferred to Calgary.

An organization that thrived in an area where only the hardiest adventurers dared to tread, found itself lost and unable to adapt when its lands were opened up by road, steamboat, and – finally – rail.

[This article previously stated that the Wolseley Expedition travelled from the mouth of the Rainy River to the Northwest Angle, from there constructing a corduroy road westward. The author deeply regrets the error.]

 

 

Did you know?

The Lake of the Woods is a remnant of glacial Lake Agassiz and contains 14 542 islands. The underlying Precambrian bedrock is one of the oldest geological formations on earth.